Meet the Splunktern: Joline Cheng

In this next installment of our "Meet the Splunktern" series, we're featuring Joline Cheng, Software Engineer In Test (QA) Intern in Santana Row. Joline is a third year student at the University of Waterloo majoring in data science. Read on to learn more about Joline’s experience at Splunk!

Hi! I’m Joline, a Software Engineer intern for the Winter 2023 term for the Delivery Frameworks and Tools (DFT) team. Here’s a day in the life of a Splunktern. 

8:30 a.m. - The Journey Begins

After picking out the preppiest outfit of Silicon Valley (grey hoodie, blue jeans), I start my 15 minute trek to the office. It was raining today, but thankfully I grabbed an umbrella from the lobby yesterday. Although it’s a gloomy day in terms of weather, I’m sure it’ll be a sunny day inside the office!

I enter the office, scan my badge, and head up to the fifth floor. Before making my way to my desk, I stop by the break area to grab breakfast. This morning, I picked up a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, a banana, and a latte… as I do every other morning. The office is quieter in the morning, so I enjoy the peace and focus on tasks that get me set up for the remainder of the day.

10:00 a.m. - Standup

The DFT team has standups at 10:00 every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It’s a great time to catch up with the rest of the team and get updated on the projects they’re working on. It’s very interesting to get to know the challenging problems Splunk faces.

10:30 a.m. - Mentorship

During your internship, Splunk connects you to both a manager and a mentor. My mentor, Rey Zhang, and I meet up every week to discuss our shared project’s problems, solutions, and next steps, and also career progression and life outside of the office! Having a mentor is a great opportunity to learn from someone who has years of experience in the field and to find support in development. 

12:00 p.m. - Lunch

Ah, my favorite part of the day. Splunk offers one free lunch per week through a service called ZeroCater. The cuisines and restaurants of the meals change each week, so there is always something new to try. Sadly, I already ordered my meal for yesterday, but fret not! There’s a slack channel called #freefoodsr, where employees who have ordered but are unable to collect their lunch post their meal numbers, so others can claim them. It is definitely the interns’ favorite channel, and it shows by how we’ve claimed almost every meal since we discovered the channel. With my quick fingers and reflexes, I’m able to grab a free meal of chicken, roasted potatoes, and broccoli! Thanks for lunch, Misha Zharov!

I sit with some of the interns and we discuss some outrageous hot takes on basketball while we eat lunch. Get this: ~someone~ thinks Anthony Davis is purposely making himself more injury prone. Clearly the intern squad doesn’t have the best basketball IQ. 

ZeroCater isn’t the only option for lunch. Nesting in the beautiful Santana Row, our office is near endless meal options which we get discounts for as employees in Santana Row. A further walk brings you to Westfield Valley Fair, home to the interns’ favorites: Shake Shack, Ramen Nagi, and who could forget, Panda Express.

1:00 p.m. - Meetings

After lunch, there are some back to back meetings about the project I’m working on. Long story short, we’re currently working on aggregating and moving cloud test log information to the main QA test page. During this time, we discuss project details, upcoming tasks, and the status of our current tasks. I love these meetings because not only do I get to show off my work, but I also get to learn about the different parts and technologies of the project I don’t personally interact with. The mentors and other team members are always willing to help you out, while also making sure that you’re learning new things. 

2:00 p.m. - Work Work Work Work Work Work

Finally some time to get some work done! I love to work straight after my meetings because my mind is already engulfed in the project. During this time, I fix mistakes brought up from the previous meetings and work on the tickets assigned to me. Since I need to use technologies I’ve never touched before this internship, I occasionally ask my team members on Slack for guidance, and sometimes, we even hop on a call to fix the problem immediately! It’s great knowing I always have the support of my team. 

However, working three hours straight without any break is definitely a recipe for disaster. I don’t have a set interval for whenever I take breaks, but usually it’s between 45 minutes to an hour. The Santana Row office offers various break-time amenities such as the classic ping-pong table, a pool table, a gigantic puzzle, an NBA pinball machine, and my favorite: a Nintendo Switch loaded with the best multiplayer games. 

Many victories have happened at the ping-pong table, but with many victories come many defeats.

5:00 p.m. - Gym/After Work Activities

After a long day of sitting, an intensive gym session is needed. I usually hit the gym 3-4 days a week. I mentioned the discounts on Santana Row restaurants before, but there’s another benefit for Santana Row employees: free gym!

On Fridays after work, some of the full-timers and interns get together to play some board games. We’ve grown fond of social deduction games, such as Avalon and Salem. There’s also many other fun after-work activities the area has to offer, such as rock climbing and watching movies. Yesterday, we watched the new John Wick!

The weekends are a great time to visit a neighboring city or have an extended trip. We’ve traveled to Yosemite, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Mountain View, Stanford, and more. One weekend, we took advantage of a Splunk Global Rest Day and visited Las Vegas!

Intern Activities

Although we didn’t have one today, we often have intern activities organized by the Emerging Talent team. I especially enjoy Lunch & Learns, as I can directly gain invaluable knowledge from VPs and get to know how Splunk operates on a higher level. We also have a number of educational and intern bonding activities, such as Valentines’ Day Trivia, a thinking style assessment and training, and finance workshops.

That’s all from me today! I’ve had a fantastic time at Splunk so far and am looking forward to the rest of my internship. Splunk is truly a place where I’ve learned and grown, from both a technical perspective and a personal perspective. 

Want to learn more about the Splunk Internship Program? Visit our LinkedIn, or check out open Splunktern opportunities.