My Redfin Internship Experience: Bhaskar Khaneja
What’s it like to intern at Redfin? We asked Bhaskar some questions about his 12 weeks as a Redfintern this summer.
Why did you choose to work at Redfin?
Couple different reasons. People who know me know that I am all about doing things which simplify life and make processes more efficient. Redfin’s mission of simplifying real estate and making buying and selling homes easier really struck a chord with me. I also liked that the company was very customer-centric; everything they did, from finding homes to booking tours at a moment’s notice, to doing all the paperwork and saving customers money, was about putting customers first, which I thought was very genuine and commendable. Also, my internship the year before had focused on Big Data and Machine Learning, and I wanted to explore something new this summer, so TNT (one of the infrastructure teams here that I got an offer from) seemed like a great fit.
What’s a fun fact about yourself?
I’m a dancer! I started dancing when I was two years old and have been doing it ever since. Specifically, I am into Bollywood, Bhangra and Contemporary.
What’s your dream home?
A penthouse on the beach.
What three words would you use to describe your experience at Redfin?
1. Exploratory: I did back-end/front-end work and met with a designer to learn about design at Redfin.
2. Representative of a full-time job: You are treated like a full-timer. There’s no spoon-feeding, and you’re expected to figure things out on your own.
3. With regards to Redfin, I would say “genuine.” Everyone here really believes in the company mission.
What’s been your favorite project assigned to you, and what did you learn?
I worked on a web app to throttle UI tests to SauceLabs based on test priority and VM availability. I wrote both the back end and the front end, which was nice because I learned both of their technologies. Once deployed, this service will be used to run any and every UI test at Redfin, so it’s pretty high impact. With our initial test runs, we saw the average wait time for receiving web drivers go down by more than 50 percent, resulting in a much lower overall error rate.
Describe a typical day as an intern at Redfin.
You come in at 9:30 or 10 a.m., get breakfast, check your email and Slack messages. Then most teams have stand-ups where you talk about what you’ve been working on or if you’re blocked and need any help. Then at 11:30 a.m. or so you get lunch (either catered or you go out). It’s a great way to explore restaurants in downtown Seattle and meet other Redfinnians. Thereafter, you mostly just work. Pretty much every tool or technology you work on has a Slack channel, so if you get stuck or have a question, you can post on it and usually get a response in a few minutes (even seconds). There’s also a ping-pong table in the office, and a lot of interns and full-timers like to play in the evenings.
What was your mentorship experience like?
For me, it was a little different because my mentor hadn’t worked on either of the technologies (Spring Boot/React) that I was working on, but anytime I had a question, he made sure to link me to somebody who could help me. He was a Java expert and a passionate developer.
What has been the most exciting thing you’ve experienced or done while at Redfin?
Three of the people on my team (including me) were bilingual, so we made it a point to learn a phrase in Russian, Tagalog and Hindi every other day.
What surprised you about being an intern at Redfin?
During your internship, you get to know the executives, and sometimes they remember you too! The VP of Product and Design sits right across from me, and the first time we met was when I was sitting at my desk and he walked in and introduced himself! We interns also got to have a casual chat with the CEO and the CTO at one of the happy hours.
During your internship, you get to know the executives, and sometimes they remember you too! The VP of Product and Design sits right across from me, and the first time we met was when I was sitting at my desk and he walked in and introduced himself!
What was your favorite intern event this summer, and why?
The escape room was pretty awesome. It was really fun and interesting because there was an actual person (masquerading as a zombie) chained to a wall who would try to get to you while you solved the puzzles and tried escaping the room. It was also the first time all the interns went somewhere together, so it was nice to finally meet everyone.
