I’m grateful for the opportunities, people, and experiences that have shaped my year.
January — April
During my internship at Datadog in New York City, I collaborated with design and engineering from the LLM Observability and Data Visualization teams to create a feature specification for the cluster visualization. The product launched for General Availability at Datadog’s annual developer conference, DASH.
The Datadog MLObs team also showcased the product suite at their booth at Nvidia GTC. Through this experience, I learned about product management in a fast-paced environment while staying current with emerging technologies. I also learned to synthesize information from various research sources, industry outlook reports, communities and make decisions even with ambiguity in the everchanging MLOps landscape.
With LLM Observability, you can monitor, troubleshoot, and evaluate your LLM-powered applications, such as chatbots. You can investigate the root cause of issues, monitor operational performance, and evaluate the quality, privacy, and safety of your LLM applications.
Each request fulfilled by your application is represented as a trace on the LLM Observability page in Datadog.
I developed dashboards to empower the data visualization team with actionable insights.
Additionally, I conducted exploratory research aimed at enhancing the search experience with Bits AI, collaborating closely with design and engineering teams from search experiences (natural language querying) and data visualization.
I also co-organized GitHub Field Day with Campus Experts, an event for technologists and community leaders! A fellow Campus Expert and friend, David, also wrote an in-depth blog post about the event!
I also participated in the Cozy Computing Hackathon and Hack It Together at LCW.
Coming back to New York felt like completing a circle that began with Major League Hacking Hackcon in 2022. The city’s magic was just as potent — holiday lights, streets alive with diverse cultures, and urban energy.
I visited Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, explored coffee shops, thrifted, watched some basketball games and attended hackathons.
On my walk home, I met an artist with a trolley full of paintings. When I tried to buy one, he gifted me a piece instead (pictured on the right). Big thanks to Peter from Art4city.com for this kind gesture! If you’re in NYC, visit him on 7th Avenue between 47th and 48th, or check out his website. Can’t wait to purchase a painting next time I’m there!
Quick Tips / Advice if your in NYC:
If you happen to be visiting NYC (I have some friends interning the upcoming term actually :) I would recommend looking at the Linkedin NYC Housing Sublet group for housing, not sponsored but my friend Eric has done a phenomenal job with reviewing every post and I found my sublet through there!
Join communities, groups and events! There are so many things happening in NYC all the time - whether from intern / company events, and also with other interns in other companies in new york.
Visit the libraries, museums and learn about the history and artwork! Many museums also offer free admission on certain days of the month
I loved visiting the NYPL Libraries, the architecture and history was intriguing and there were many great book recommendations everywhere!
May — August
I interned on the Microsoft Power BI team in Redmond, WA.
Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. Your data might be an Excel spreadsheet, or a collection of cloud-based and on-premises hybrid data warehouses. Power BI lets you easily connect to your data sources, visualize and discover what’s important, and share that with anyone or everyone you want.
Power BI can be simple and fast — capable of creating quick insights from an Excel spreadsheet or a local database. But Power BI is also robust and enterprise-grade, ready for extensive modeling and real-time analytics, as well as custom development. So it can be your personal report and visualization tool, and can also serve as the analytics and decision engine behind group projects, divisions, or entire corporations.
These three elements — the Desktop, the service, and Mobile — are designed to let people create, share, and consume business insights in the way that serves them, or their role, most effectively.
My favorite part was meeting and working with an amazing team while learning about new products, features and integrations, including Copilot for Power BI and Microsoft Fabric!
As an intern, I had the chance to dive deeper into my interests with access to certifications and Azure cloud credits. I took part in an Azure Fundamentals Bootcamp and explored various learning modules for Azure Data.
Outside of work, I embraced the outdoors with hikes and city explorations. The intern communities became spaces for building meaningful connections — special shoutout to the PM Intern Community Group, Asians at Microsoft, and the Women at Microsoft ERG!
If you’re joining Microsoft as a new grad in 2025, feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to connect you with community groups and grab lunch on campus. I’m planning to organize group lunches this year and will be hosting several community meetups, including a Tech & Creatives gathering.
Post-internship, I spent a couple weeks in San Francisco attending various events. Highlights included an ML Research paper reading event at Bain Capital Ventures, an intern gathering with Z Fellows, entrepreneurship events at Y Combinator and cheering on a friend at their half-marathon. (Bottom 3 photos and Top right-most photo)
In late August, I presented a lightning talk on “How to Build a Campus Community” at MLH Hackcon 2024 in Copake, NY. (Top left and middle photo)
This talk was inspired by my original presentation at AnitaB.org Grace Hopper Conference in 2023, where I shared my community-building initiatives. These included leading the Western University Google Developer Student Club and serving as Campus Lead for The Percentage Project, a data-driven advocacy initiative. I shared strategies for building and expanding student communities.
September — December
In September, I lead CANCWIC sponsorship programs at UWO, enabling 10 women in cs to attend the conference at no additional cost. (Secured over 2K in funding over the past 2 years in partnership with the CS Department chair!) Shoutout to them and the Western CS Department for being supportive of our community!
I attended Hack the Hill 2024 @ UOttawa, Waterloo Hack the North 2024, and volunteered at the Elevate Conference.
I attended the Nvidia AI Summit in Washington, DC and Research @Google NYC.
Late November brought me to HackWestern in London, Ontario, where I hosted the Google Cloud Workshop and catched up with friends. These months, I spent time with family and friends.
During my break before starting full-time, I hosted free mentorship calls with 100+ students and early-career professionals (both 1:1 and groups). Mentorship and community support have been important in my journey, and I’m committed to paying it forward. It was great to witness their growth — recently, a mentee shared they secured an internship!
I’m also a mentor with Women Techmakers, where I’m guiding three women early in their careers. We’ve had enriching conversations about starting new jobs, navigating internships, etc.
Recently, I embarked on a new chapter at Microsoft and relocated to Washington State. Earlier this December, I also organized a meetup with the Taro (YC S22) Community, enjoying reconnecting with old friends and meeting new faces.
Reflecting on 2024, I’m filled with gratitude for everyone who’s been part of this journey. To all readers, take care and have a wonderful New Year!
