There is a wealth of pivotal moments in the long arc of a professional’s career: That first gig. A big promotion or a purposeful lateral move within the company. A career pivot to an entirely different industry.
Perhaps it’s time to add an internship to that collection of foundational items. True, an internship is by no means an end-all, be-all. It certainly doesn’t definitively determine the course of someone’s trajectory, the industry in which they’ll hone their craft, or much less decide what that craft even is. But when put into a program with support and value-laden projects, an internship can open the door for something great to follow, ignite a passion and incubate fledgling skills.
As the talent acquisition and internship program manager at Remitly — whose platform facilitates money transfers using a variety of different currencies to many locations around the world — Larry Benesh is focused on providing a program that begets growth, education and impact for up-and-coming talent.
“One of the biggest benefits of Remitly’s internship program is the opportunity to work on projects that are quite similar to what a full-time employee would have, and to learn what success looks like for an industry project versus for academic experience,” Benesh said. “Our interns also have access to many cross-functional learning and networking opportunities with fellow interns and employees at Remitly.”
And there’s certainly the stories to reinforce that Remitly’s internship program — which has been around since 2012 — focuses on opportunities: According to Benesh, former interns subsequently landed full-time roles (and got promoted) at the company, working on projects that directly connect to users at Remitly, which announced a big IPO last year.
Built In Seattle caught up with Benesh to learn more about how the program serves as a platform for individuals to rack up important, relevant experience while providing the opportunity to make contributions in different areas of the Seattle-headquartered company.
Tell us a little bit about the internship program at Remitly. What kind of experience can interns expect?
We launched Remitly’s internship program in 2012 knowing that internships could provide us with a valuable pipeline to land full-time talent. Over the years, interns have come with new perspectives, and many of them have ties to the immigrant communities that Remitly serves. With the experience we gain from having interns on board, we are building and marketing even better experiences for our customers.
This summer, we are thrilled to be hosting interns in business and engineering roles. We have interns working across marketing teams aligned to projects on digital marketing, go-to-market strategy, lifecycle marketing and more. Our software development engineering interns will be contributing to our technology infrastructure and to the applications that our customers depend on. We are welcoming interns from diverse educational experiences including bachelor’s, master’s, MBA and bootcamp programs. Our interns also come from local institutions such as the University of Washington and Ada Developers Academy as well as more than a dozen different programs around the U.S.
Intern Anecdote
What are some of the coolest projects interns have participated in?
Last summer, we had two interns work together on the design and implementation of a new feature that allowed our customers to choose their preferred language when they sign up with Remitly. Since Remitly’s vision is to transform the lives of immigrants and their families by providing the most trusted financial services on the planet, we know that the ability to choose the language they are most comfortable with builds trust in Remitly and is a valuable addition for our customers. In fact, an intern candidate that I interviewed recently cited that feature as one of her reasons for applying to our internship program.
We have interns working across marketing teams aligned to projects on digital marketing, go-to-market strategy, lifecycle marketing and more.”
How have your internship programs helped your interns grow professionally and kickstart successful careers?
Our first intern that we hired back in 2012 is still with Remitly in a senior developer position. We have hosted several interns through a partnership we have with Ada Developers Academy. Those students were experiencing their first software engineering internships at Remitly after just a few months of formal training, and several have received full time offers. Some have even been promoted to a level two software development engineer in a relatively short amount of time.
