Name: Foqia Shahid
Class Year: 2023
Major: Computer Science and Mathematics
Hometown: Lahore, Pakistan
Internship Organization: Blackrock
Job Title: Software Engineering Intern
Location: New York City, NY
What’s happening at your internship?
I am working as a software engineer in ETF Systems at Aladdin Product Group (APG). APG is the umbrella team that builds and operates Aladdin— Blackrock’s investment technology platform. Within APG, ETF Systems is responsible for an ETF servicing platform on which authorized users create and redeem ETF orders. In a team of three interns, I created a system health dashboard that monitors various services that the platform provides, allowing for a smoother user experience and new troubleshooting capabilities. As a front-end developer, I was exclusively working on the user interface of the product. In addition to thinking about the design of the dashboard, I was tasked with setting up the infrastructure required to connect with backend servers to obtain data and display it in a coherent, dynamic yet simplistic manner. A key consideration for our project was the end user, and therefore, there was a lot of planning that went into thinking about what kind of information would be relevant to our users. Finally, this was also a great learning experience for me as a developer and I not only got to learn about deployment procedures, but I gained a ton of front-end programming experience as well!
Why did you apply for this internship?
I decided to pursue a career in computer science at the start of my junior year. A key step in this process was to do a software engineering internship. Most software engineering internships are similar in the way they are structured but Blackrock stood out to me for three reasons. Firstly, I was intrigued by the combination of finance and technology. The way the company operates allows for technology to be separated from the rest of the business but at the same time, we were still closely tied to and learning about the market. I don’t have prior experience in finance but as someone who is interested in learning, this internship provided the right opportunities for me to do so. Secondly, I was also fascinated by Aladdin which acts as an ecosystem and hosts various tools used by portfolio managers, investors, banks etc. It's a leading technology in finance and its growth was fascinating to me. Finally, the in-person component was definitely part of my reason for choosing this internship as well. The internship took place in New York and although we weren’t always expected to, coming into the office everyday was definitely worth it for me.
What has been your favorite part of this internship?
Meeting new people, spending the summer in New York and finding things I love about software engineering!
What is most rewarding about your internship? Was this internship what you expected it to be?
I think the relationships I got out of my internship experience as well as my summer in New York are really important to me and make it a rewarding experience. At its core, software engineering is a very collaborative experience, and it allows for teams to build deeper relationships. It was fun to work within my intern group to think about the infrastructure of our product, to jump on calls with people from different offices to get their input or to ask for their expertise regarding some software we are using. We had opportunities to interact with and learn from people across teams which was pretty cool!
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.