As a summer intern, my primary goal is to learn as much as I can during my tenure here. So, when I heard that Hubspot was planning to enter the HackerRank Summer Intern Coding Cup, I couldn't wait to find out more. HackerRank, the programming competition site built by the team at Interviewstreet, hosts real-time coding contests throughout the year. This particular one was heralded as a three-hour machine learning challenge just for teams of summer interns.
It sounded cool, but as I skimmed the contest details, self-doubt swirled through my mind. I had little prior knowledge about machine learning, I had never used HackerRank, and I had never coded in a competition setting. In short, I was terrified.
That's when I made up my mind to sign up.
I long ago discovered that the fastest way to learn is to do things that scare you, and the Intern Cup was no exception. It definitely helped that HubSpot gave us a lot of support. In the weeks leading up to the contest, we prepared by undergoing a boot camp led by one of the full-time employees. We studied common machine learning techniques and worked through some of the problems on HackerRank.
So when the competition finally dawned, we felt prepared. The team consisted of me, Ze'ev Klapow, Julian Salazar, and Tianyu Liu. We assembled in one of the company conference rooms, ready to hash out some code.
For most of us, this was our first immersion into such time-crunched competition coding. And as we would soon find out, it requires a very unique mindset. Although we had studied a lot beforehand, there are some things that only experience can teach you.
For example, we had to drop some cool ideas in the interest of creating a finished product. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy to let go. As hackers, we delight in finding the smartest, most effective solutions, but that day we were limited to a three-hour deadline.
That said, we ended up doing better than we ever expected. We placed a very respectable 15th out of 68 teams, landing us squarely in the top quartile of submissions. Not bad for a bunch of rookies!
I'm not exaggerating when I say that participating in the Intern Cup is one of the best decisions I've made all summer. Time and time again, my experiences keep reinforcing the idea that you should take on challenges that intimidate you. If you don't try, those things will always seem scary. But if you do, your hard work will often be rewarded.