This summer, we welcomed nearly 270 interns into Autodesk offices around the world for an immersive learning experience. Their time with us was focused on work that tackled the real challenges that our company is working to solve. Though they spent only a few short months with us, many of their contributions will have a lasting impact for years to come.

What types of projects were these interns working on, you ask? We caught with up a few of the interns before they headed back to school to hear about their experiences.

Zachary Braxton—CEO Intern, San Francisco, CA

My time at Autodesk was, to be simultaneously honest and corny, a dream come true. This was my first job and I was doing something I’ve always wanted to do, which is to program games. I worked closely with a team that was put together by my manager, CEO Andrew Anagnost, and worked every day with enthusiasm, having my mind constantly blown by both the passion of the people I met with, and just the general scope of the projects here. For my project, I was able to also work with one of the company’s new partners, Unity Technologies. Through my work with them, I saw the vast possibilities of connecting the two companies’ solutions, allowing me to visualize my project in a realistic light.

This has been an incredible journey that will leave an impact on me forever. For an entire summer, I saw first-hand what it would be like to have my dream job. And for my first-ever job, I would say this was awesome. To everyone I met at Autodesk, thanks for making working here incredible. You all make the impact of technology on the world exponentially more exciting; I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Kunal Narang-Machine Learning Intern, San Rafael, CA

I enjoyed every moment of my internship. I spent the summer figuring out how to deploy machine learning models for the company’s financial data, something that no one else in the company had tackled before. It was nerve-wracking to tackle this type of work–I still consider myself to be a beginner in this area—but being trusted with this project made me feel like a valued part of the team.

Daniel Alvarado Cortes-Community Engagement Specialist Intern, San Franciso, CA

As a software company with more than 100 products, Autodesk has a large network of online forums to support every type of customer. The goal of my project was to stimulate online conversations among users through virtual meetups and content curation. Many of these forums date back to the late 1990’s, making them some of the oldest communities on the internet. This project helped me understand how important it is to earn customer loyalty in order to keep them as active subscribers on our platform. Because I spent the majority of my summer writing posts, I also learned that writing with an authentic voice is important to keeping online users feeling supported and engaged.

Intern love. It’s mutual.

Sophie Murray– Digital Marketing Specialist Intern, San Francisco, CA

I arrived at Autodesk in June, having never worked a day in my life at a real, corporate job. As a journalism major and computer information technology minor, my digital marketing internship was a perfect collision of my two worlds. What I didn’t expect was how much room there was for me to further explore more of my professional interests during my time at Autodesk. A few weeks in, I mentioned to my manager that I was interested in photography and videography and wanted to find a way to work these into my project. Afterwards, I was tapped to help a co-worker create a video for her presentation. I wanted to learn SEO and got the chance to meet with one of Autodesk’s resident SEO experts. This summer I encountered a lot of open doors and colleagues who want you to be doing what you are passionate about and will work to help you find where you fit.

Andrei Stoica- High School Work Experience (FIRST Robotics), Portland, OR

I’ve called Autodesk’s Portland office home for the last two months, where I’ve diligently been working on a product named Synthesis. It’s a simulator and software emulator targeted towards FIRST Robotics teams, allowing them to interact virtually with their CAD models. The team is largely comprised of high school and college-age students, but we work daily alongside Autodesk employees. As one of the non-developer interns, I’ve collaborated hand-in-hand with UX, survey, and branding specialists on various creative projects. I’ve even gotten to work with employees at other Autodesk offices worldwide— quite often at that!

Photos from an employee all-hands held in Singapore.

Chelsey Ong Hee— Software Engineer in Test Intern, Singapore

Interning at Autodesk certainly wasn’t dull—there were a lot of fun moments. While volunteering for an all-employee webcast hosted in Singapore, I had the opportunity to learn more about how the organization works and get exposure to many of the other product team. It was a wonderful surprise to see so many people eager to participate in the webcast, which took place at 7am in the morning for the local attendees. In a large organization like Autodesk, it was heartwarming to see senior executives happily interacting with employees at all levels of the company.

Ankit Gaur—Industry Strategy Analyst Intern, Montreal

My internship at Autodesk has been a lot of “firsts”–my first job opportunity in Canada, my first foray into the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) industry, and my first work experience at a software company, among many others. As I was looking to explore new avenues to advance my business knowledge, I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity than my MBA internship at Autodesk, which was focused on industry strategy. It was eye-opening in many ways. Besides gaining industry knowledge, I learned the most important lesson in strategy – how to deal with ambiguity. My managers were always ready to help me make sense out of the heaps of information and data all around and formulate a sound and useful strategy out of it. This was further emphasized in my second project with the Genuine team, where I had to understand the psyche behind people who buy and sell pirated software. The approachability of senior management has been the highlight of my internship at Autodesk— I even had the chance to speak with the CMO, Lisa Campbell.  To sum it up, I leave this internship with more awareness and knowledge of the industry, and also with the first 3D model I printed in my life!

Interns at Autodesk’s Montreal office.

It’s a bittersweet goodbye for our interns as they continue on with their education this fall, but we hope to see them back at Autodesk in the near future!