Life as a Product Management Intern: Austin Wilson

Are you interested in a Product Management internship role and looking for an internship at a disruptive tech company changing the world? As a Product Manager Intern at Splunk, you will be responsible for collaborating across teams to understand customer needs and translate those needs into a compelling product roadmap. If so, Splunk’s Product Manager Internship role is the perfect opportunity for you!

To learn more about life as a Product Manager Splunktern, let's hear from Austin Wilson, a fourth year student at The Ohio State University, majoring in Electrical Engineering. 

Doing Work That Makes an Impact

Through his time here as a Splunktern, Austin says that he’s truly gotten to take on project work that has made an impact across our entire organization. One of his main focuses during his 3-month stint on the team was stepping into a big role on Splunk’s customer advisory board program. This program allows customers to provide feedback on our different products before they get released, capturing ideas for improvement and giving our customers a voice in what they want to see in Splunk’s future products. It’s this data that really drives innovation at Splunk. In his words, he says “I really feel like I'm making an impact on this team because I have the opportunity to work with two different stakeholders: our own product managers who are working at Splunk and also, our customers. My job is to make the experience better for PMs who are trying to get feedback and customers who want to give feedback.”

Taking Time To Give Back

One thing that was really surprising to me when joining the team was just how much Splunk values social impact and changing the world outside of the work that it does,” Austin says. In addition to offering our interns funds for charitable donations and scheduling team volunteer days in the local communities, our Splunkters get the opportunity to do a social good project using our Splunk product. We like to call this a “Splunk for Splunkterns” program. For Austin, he spent his internship working with a team of other interns to create a Splunk-driven database that examines what socioeconomic factors influence opioid deaths, and what can contribute to the increase or decrease of opioid usage. “Social good work is really important to me, so being able to have an opportunity to come here and work on this has been very, very amazing,” Austin says.

Creating Networking Opportunities He’s Never Gotten Before

At Splunk, our internship program is designed for learning, through both hands-on project work as well as professional connections and networking. One of Austin’s favorites was the executive talks and “ask me anything” sessions. “Connecting and networking have been one of the biggest things I've really enjoyed about Splunk. I have had the opportunity to have ice cream sitting next to Vice Presidents of a company,” Austin says. “This is something that would never have happened in my last couple internships.” 

For Austin, the internship experience at Splunk was an unforgettable one. “I really feel like Splunk really values the intern program,” he said. “[As interns] we're not just somebody that is hired to do backlog work or just busy work over summer. It really feels like we make an impact.”

Are You Looking for an Internship Where You Can Make an Impact?

Learn more about what it takes to be an intern at Splunk and apply for an open role! Visit our internships page for more.