From Intern to Full-time at Cloudflare

Hi everyone and welcome to this live session of Cloudflare TV. My name is Ellie Jamison and I'll be moderating today's episode.

Today's episode is called From Intern to Full-time and I'll be talking to Cristina Lee and Marina Jeon about their experiences as an intern and now their experiences as full-time employees.

Just a reminder to everyone that is watching live, you can submit questions through the email live studio at Cloudflare.tv.

So quickly to introduce myself, again, I'm Ellie.

I am on the recruiting team here at Cloudflare. I graduated from University of Virginia in 2018 with a bachelor's in public policy and I've been in San Francisco ever since.

Let's go to Marina. Awesome. Hi everyone. Welcome to our segment.

My name is Marina. I graduated from Northeastern University last year in 2019.

Currently, I am in the marketing team in the demand generation team where we focus on doing online acquisition campaigns.

I've been at Cloudflare as a full-time employee starting last year, July 2019, so almost an anniversary.

Prior to joining full-time, I did a couple of internships.

The first one being a marketing internship at Crimson Hexagon, a social media analytics company.

My second internship was at Amazon in Seattle in the Alexa team.

And as my last internship, I joined Cloudflare in 2018 for a period of six months in their Asia Pacific office, also focusing on B2B demand generation marketing campaigns.

Yeah, and that's all about me and I'll pass it on to Christina.

Hi, my name is Christina. I went to Claremont McKenna College down in Southern California.

I graduated in 2018 and I started my position full-time at Cloudflare in July of 2018, so I'm almost hitting two years here.

Similar to Marina, I'm also in the marketing team. I'm also in the demand generation team, but I focus on field marketing and events campaigns.

So more of the actual physical events when that was a thing, and now we're focusing on virtual events, which has been fun.

Previous internships that I've done before Cloudflare, I actually only held one position before my summer at Cloudflare.

I was a risk analyst at Deloitte, and the summer before that, I actually did a program in Seoul and did a deep dive on cultural business studies with my college.

At Cloudflare, I did an events internship.

This was three years ago, I guess three summers ago, and it was an events internship.

And at that time, the events team did everything, and that was events, including brand and internal events.

So it was a little bit different from what I do now, which is a lot more focused, but still did events.

Awesome. Well, I'm so excited to get to talk to you both today. I think this will be a really interesting session, especially for any students joining.

We have a lot of great advice and great content, so let's dive right in. So how did you both hear about Cloudflare?

I think we can start with Christina. So I guess from Claremont McKenna College, I went to a program called ITAP.

So we had a career services area where we were able to apply to different areas that we were interested in, like tech, finance, healthcare, the kind of like arts and our careers services, which was great.

Offered different networking trips to different cities that if you qualified, you had the opportunity to go and represent the college and explore that area.

I was lucky to be selected for the tech one that was here in San Francisco, and we were able to for a week before the actual semester started to come to San Francisco and with our peers visit different companies that we either have alums at that we're working or some sort of connection and somebody that was willing to host a group of students that were like eager to learn about the tech industry.

We toured a lot of companies. We, I say tour because it felt like a whirlwind like we were bussed around all around the Bay Area and we were visiting companies like Facebook, Google, smaller companies like Cloudflare at the time and then like Accenture all in different parts of the city, like Mountain Views, San Francisco.

And it was really fun, but exhausting. And one of the companies that we visited on that trip was Cloudflare.

I still remember like when we walked in and I saw the lab lamp wall and I was like, whoa, this is cool because it was pouring outside and it just felt different.

So visited Cloudflare and Michelle Zatlin, our COO and co-founder spoke to our group.

And that's kind of how I first heard about Cloudflare.

Awesome. Marina, what about you? Yeah, mine was a little bit different.

We weren't able to physically go to the Cloudflare office, but at least for me, I was actually looking for internships abroad, wanted to experience what it was like to work, for example, in Asia.

So for me, it was more traditional where I was on the LinkedIn internships page every single day, nine to five, trying to find an internship for six months abroad.

And the one that appeared was Cloudflare.

To be completely honest, I had never heard about Cloudflare. So I did a little bit of Googling, a little bit of research and was like, wow, 20 million websites are using this service.

Like, what is this? And then I started doing some research.

I started finding out about how Cloudflare provides their enterprise services to different nonprofits.

So we're pretty big at the time and now too. So all in all, I was like, this is a great company.

And the position was also just looking for someone to do all of their Asian marketing at the time.

So I thought it was a great opportunity.

And that's how I ended up interning here. Awesome. So once you both first heard about Cloudflare and you decided to apply, what was the interview process like, the hiring process like for both of you?

Because you're spread out between two different years.

And I'm curious how, you know, how much the hiring process evolved from Christina to then to Marina.

Yeah, I can start on this one.

So mine, to remind everyone, my internship interview was in 2018. And I applied on LinkedIn on their portal.

And I heard back the same week from a recruiter. And the rest is history.

I had never had an interview process like that in my life. And just for context, my first interview with the 100 people company was one to two calls.

And then I got the job. My second interview with the other internship that in a company that's like almost a million employees, that was two calls.

For Cloudflare, I had six rounds of interviews.

So the recruiter, the hiring manager, another marketing manager, the team lead, the Asia Pacific leader, and then the APAC sales leader as well.

And also, I got to speak to Michelle, who is our COO.

So definitely very different from all the co-op internship interviews that I had in the past.

I have to say, like, yeah, at the moment, it was hard. And it was a little bit challenging trying to coordinate this, trying to speak to different people in completely different roles and try to explain them how my role would provide value to the company and to their team specifically.

But at the end of the day, I thought the most rewarding part is that the fact that there were so many interviews, and I also got to interview with C-level, really showed me how Cloudflare was invested in the interns as well, which is something that you don't necessarily get at every big company.

So that was a huge draw. And especially, you know, last year, I bumped into Michelle, and she was like, hey, Marina, I remember your interview two years ago.

And she interviews hundreds of people. So that, you know, when you see that from leadership, that really tells you how the company views their interns and the work that they produce.

So that was my personal experience.

But I know Christina's was very different. So please go ahead and tell us about yours.

Yeah, so after I had my visit to the Cloudflare office, and we spoke to Michelle, like, I was completely kind of convinced that this was the place that I wanted to be at.

Speaking to Michelle was super inspiring. And I just, initially, like, didn't really understand what Cloudflare did.

But I was kind of like, wow, like, whatever is happening here, like, this seems really cool.

And I really liked the environment in which the Cloudflare employees seem to be working at.

So I was really excited. I went to Cloudflare.com, just read more about what the company did, and reached out to the alum that kind of brought us to the company, and wanted to talk to him about like, how he got into marketing in general first, just only because our college is very econ and gov focused.

And there's not a lot of people that go into like a marketing field or kind of like, it's thought as like alternative career path, which is kind of silly to think about.

But that was kind of the angle that I wanted to really learn from him.

And so sent like a cold email thanking him for what the session that he had hosted and thanking him for like, have like really bringing us to talk to the co founder and like getting the other CMC alums that actually work at work at Cloudflare at the time as well to talk to us.

And after that, I kind of, like, asked him about his career path and talked about my interest in probably possibly working at Cloudflare.

And if there was any availability, like, there wasn't really like a built out internship program at the time.

And I knew that some people from my college had interned at Cloudflare, but it seemed to be kind of more at an ad hoc basis.

So my kind of goal was like, I need to impress this person.

And I just really like took the call, even though I was, it was like an information, informational interview as like, if it was an actual interview, I really wanted to like, tell him about my experiences, like my interest and kind of get like sell myself.

And then after I had that initial phone call, which was supposed to be 30 minutes, but ended up being like an hour, he was like, send me your resume, I would like to look at it, see if there's anything that we can offer you here.

And at the time, because Cloudflare is a technical company, I was a little bit intimidated.

And even though I wanted to do something in events, because that's kind of like where my passion lied.

I wasn't sure if that was something that I could even ask for.

So I was like, oh, yeah, like anything in marketing would be great.

Like, I would love to do something like a little bit more technical, thinking that that was going to be my way in.

And he saw my resume and saw that I had a lot of events experience from my college, and was like, hey, like, you seem to be a good fit for our intern, like events intern position that we're possibly thinking of creating, like, what do you think?

And I was like, stars aligned, like, that was great.

And he put me in touch with Ashley, who was at the time, like the head of events.

And I spoke to her and had like another 30 minute conversation.

I kind of wanted to see like how she got to events in general as well.

Also took it as an interview, but it wasn't really formally an interview.

And then she said that she was going to put me through the interview process.

But it was like a really hectic time, I guess, for the company, like the company was really growing, they wanted to hire someone, but they weren't really like, had like the whole process down.

So after those calls, I actually was offered the internship position.

And I think that it's reflective of like, kind of the proactiveness and like me being like more actively trying to push this thing forward, which is kind of different from the experience that Marina had.

Yeah, definitely.

Christina, I really like your story. And I also think in ways it's great advice to students now because it's a success story from a cold email.

Did you ever think that that cold email would turn into now a full time job after an internship?

No, well, I had sent so many that I kind of was like something that's gonna it has to work at some point, you know, but I didn't really and I've heard stories, but everybody, everybody seemed to have like a element of luck.

Like it was like, it was just lucky.

And I was kind of annoyed every time that somebody said that because it was like, that there's no process in that and I like like process.

And but at the end of the day, like my thing was also kind of like that was just lucky, but doesn't mean that like, you just have to keep trying.

Right, right.

Definitely. Great. Um, so moving on, once you both were hired as interns on the marketing team, what were some of the projects that you were assigned to and you work through, you know, out the summer or however long you were here?

Um, I'll take this one first.

My internship was two months long. I Cloudflare. So it was more of like two months and a half.

So it was more of like a summer internship. So I wasn't able to get as like deep into everything events that I would have liked to have.

But one really cool thing that I worked on at the time when I was an intern, that actually became one of my main roles at Cloudflare when I came back was that I was tasked to kind of plan what our Latin America event process was going to be like, because I speak Spanish, and I grew up in Chile, and I came to college for like I came to the US for college.

So they were like, um, they had just hired like our head of sales in Latin America.

And they were having trouble really like researching which events we should do.

And we were getting these event requests, but like, the websites are in Spanish, Portuguese, and even though I'm not fluent in Portuguese, I can kind of read through it.

So I was asked to like take these requests, see if they were legitimate, and kind of onboard these events and like follow through with them.

Seems like a lot of trust was placed in me. And I think that that was cool, especially because given the language portion, like I was like taking these phone calls by myself, and like, it all worked out.

And it was like, the events happened, and it was good.

But at the moment, I was kind of like, whoa, like, this is kind of cool, but this is kind of wild that I'm being tasked with this.

And then the other thing that was really cool. That also was kind of scary at the time was that I was asked to like kind of like code our like HTML emails in our back end of Marketo for our flagship event that's called Internet Summit.

It's kind of like a thoughtful leadership conference that we used to host at our San Francisco office that also grew into London.

But now it's kind of like rebranded as Connect.

That was kind of That was a lot of power as well. Like, there was a push of a button and the email is going to go out to thousands of people.

And I was kind of like, it's going to go out.

And I think at the time, I also didn't understand the magnitude of what that really meant.

But regardless, it was awesome.

Great. Marina, how about you? Yeah. So as I mentioned briefly before, I was tasked to help just launch marketing campaigns in Asia.

There was no one in the marketing team here.

So they hired me as an intern and Earthy, who is now a solutions engineer in the APAC office.

And we were both tasked to see, okay, what is working well in North America, working with our manager, Caitlin, and trying to figure out what would work for that region.

So it was wearing a lot of different hats.

We were doing emails in Marketo. We were setting up new landing pages.

We were working on different webinars. Like, for example, I did the first Korean webinar, since I had some sort of understanding Korean.

So we experimented with a lot of different things.

So I think it was a great learning experience.

And, you know, just you also learned that not everything that works in North America works in the other regional, in the other regions, basically.

And another thing that I worked on that wasn't necessarily under my scope, but that I asked my manager to work on was to take a stab at, for example, marketing to different types of plans.

Right now, it's only focused on enterprise. So it was great because my manager just, you know, I proposed the whole thing in a Google Doc, and she really just gave me her trust and was able to set aside the budget that I needed to experiment with this test.

And I think that was one of the most rewarding things that I had done at my internship.

That's great. And Marina, how long was your internship?

It was longer than summer, right? Yeah. So my school, Northeastern, allows you to take six months off three times to have internship experiences.

The first two or six months, the last one at Cloudflare was also six months.

Great. Awesome. So after your internship, I'm sure you guys had some time to think about what you wanted out of a full time job.

So why did you come back to Cloudflare?

What was it about the internship that really solidified that you wanted to work for Cloudflare full time?

Yeah, I can take this one first. The easiest one that always comes to mind when someone asks me this question is actually the people that I worked with.

I kept in touch with everyone offline after I left, whether it's through Instagram or through message or Facebook.

And we just kept in touch.

And, you know, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do when I graduated.

And I think the thing that made me realize that I wanted to be back here the most was the fact that I knew that my manager and my team would give me the ability to actually work on different projects that I was really interested in.

Like I already had exposure to certain things, but coming back, I knew that would multiply, like the scale of what I did would multiply by like 10.

And then knowing that I'll have, you know, certain pipeline goals, certain budget that would be assigned to me and just have that independence to know how to allocate this budget to bring like pipeline for the business was something that has always been like a really fun, but also like rewarding experience.

So I've worked really well with that.

And yeah, I think, you know, I wouldn't be able to do that if I, you know, if I didn't, if I wasn't so close to all my coworkers who taught me the ways of like how to do, I don't know, how to work on PPC, how to set up emails in Marketo.

So I think for me, knowing that my teammates were so open that when I needed help in the future and setting up my own campaigns, I would be able to work with them.

That was like the biggest drive for me. Great. Christina, what about you? I feel like in the same exact way, like the broad answer is also like the people in cloud Cloudflare.

I just think it's hard to overlook that. Like one of the stories that really highlights I think the way that like everybody is willing to help was that I was tasked to kind of oversee some of our meetups at the time that it's kind of like our internal like events program that we have, we still have it right now.

But like the events team was overlooking it at that point. And there was a meetup that I kind of stayed back to like after it was like after work hours.

So I kind of like was making sure that everything was flowing and all of that like fun stuff.

But I remember like this one in particular, I did several during my internship, but this one in particular was kind of problematic.

Like we didn't have like the guest list and like the check-in process was just kind of like a mess.

And it was one of my first ones that I kind of did at Cloudflare.

And I remember that like I was kind of lost like that day, like I was kind of like flustered by everything.

Like I was an intern and people knew that like at the company, but I was kind of like obviously like something was not going well.

I remember one of the PMMs I kind of only met once was like, what's happening?

Like, how can I help you?

And like, he actually stayed at the event, like afterwards to like help me check in people because there were so many people coming in.

And Megan, who was actually who became my manager when I came back, she was actually upstairs and was like, here, like we should like print the list.

And like, where so you can keep track of it.

And she actually kind of like helped me out, like she really helped me out.

And that was really cool that like, I was just like, nope, like I didn't even have to ask for that help.

And like that really, like I think was telling to me. And I think there was more moments like that, that just like really showed me that this was a place that I could really grow and like take like, get as much as I kind of like put effort into my job.

Like I think another instance is kind of like I was asked to clean lists for the marketing ops team, even though I was an interning for the marketing ops team at the time, because it was very understaffed.

And I had no idea what like really like the marketing funnel was at the time.

And Michelle Tang, who still works at Conflare, she kind of like, ran me through everything.

And I was just sitting, I remember her like scribbling in the whiteboard and like explaining to me like the problem that we're trying to solve.

And I kind of was taking it in and just learning a lot.

So everybody being so open to kind of like share their expertise, and then also like willing to help.

I think that was great.

Like everybody was like, awesome. Yeah, I would. I mean, I'm asking you all the questions, but I would say myself that I love how supportive the people have been at Cloudflare.

So I completely agree with both of you. And that leads me to my next question.

Did you have mentors during your internship? And are you still in touch with them?

Are they still at Cloudflare? Why were they your mentor?

And what's some of the advice that they gave you? Um, I can go first. But I think that I didn't really have a lot of like mentors like outside of like the team that I was on.

I think that Ashley, obviously being my manager, she really kind of like, there's me and another events intern really like took us in and kind of like told us how to kind of navigate like the corporate environment and things like that.

I remember one time I like, forgot to attend like I saw a meeting on my calendar and didn't know what it was.

I thought that it was not for me because it was like a generic, like a generic calendar invite.

And it turned out it was like a marketing all hands and I just didn't show up.

And I was like, she was like, I walked into the office and everybody was there.

And I was like, Oh my god, I missed something important.

And the way that she kind of like use that kind of mistake on my hand as a teaching moment being like, look like in the corporate world, or like just not corporate world, but in general, like in life, if you don't know something like you better ask about it rather than ignore it.

Like, just it's over communicating was something that's like better and always just something that you should do.

And I think that's like I the mistake is fine. Like I don't like I understand it was completely like not ill intended, but just going forward.

And I think that those things that she kind of like said, probably not even like really meaning it to really like being drained in my brain, kind of like really stayed with me.

So I think that like as just like a professional like there was an impact there.

And in terms of other people that I kind of interacted with, I think it's like the other people like the more senior people on the team, like there was two, I guess like events, he was only three people at that point that were full time.

And it was Megan and Mary Mac.

And Megan became my manager afterwards. And she just like, always just like also providing like great feedback on all the things that we did.

And I think that they were just like figures that like I want to like aspire to be rather than just like full on just like, I don't know what I imagine like a mentor being just, I feel like it's more of like a giving advice.

But I think it was also like they were just figures that like I was like, wow, like that's kind of like what I want to grow into.

So like a role model. And then I did keep in touch with them.

And Ashley was not here during the time when I first came back full time.

And, but she was still always giving us like advice on how to like handle like hard situations just because she had more experience doing that.

So it was like if I ever had anything, like, even it was like if I thought it was like the smallest thing like she would always be willing to listen.

So I think that relationship was like, I'm so grateful for that. I think like for me, it was a bit different.

I know right now, interns have at Cloudflare have like a mentor program where they can talk to different people and, you know, really be able to navigate their internship.

At the time in 2018, there was no mentor program.

But to be completely honest, I think my mentor at the time was mainly my manager, who is my current manager as well.

Her name is Caitlin.

And she was the one who was trying to help me understand everything that was going on in APAC and in North America.

But if I were to mention someone who's not directly my manager, I would say like right now, not as an intern, but as a full time, I do still think that I, you know, I think everyone needs a mentor, not just on their interns, but, you know, throughout their career.

So right now, I consider Adisha, she's in the product marketing, she's a product marketing manager.

And I think, you know, not only is she a mentor in the work that I do, we work together.

So she not only makes me question like, why do I want to do this campaign?

What is our pipeline goal? How much you're going to spend on this? And what how much pipeline do you think that's going to bring?

Like, it's all these questions that you that I wouldn't necessarily always think about when I'm mentioning something.

So she really puts into perspective, like that aspect. But then, besides from that, I mean, at least in my case, I am an international student.

And for me, it was really important to get guidance from someone who might have gone through the same process.

So it's, it's a tumultuous process. So I really relied on learning on Adisha and the different recommendations that she gave me on how to navigate this complicated process.

So I think the fact that we had that in common as well, it's really important.

And, you know, anyone in that who's international, who's watching this segment right now, like I would be happy to also help you go through that.

And then, you know, Cloudflare has been super helpful with helping with that as well.

So I think just meeting people who have gone through similar experiences that can give you advice is super important too.

Great. Awesome.

So I think that a big part of interning is learning so much outside of the classroom.

And obviously, with those experience, you kind of have interesting or funny experiences, times that you may have messed up, and just things that you learn from.

So do either of you have any kind of funny or interesting experiences during your internship?

Yeah, I can start with this one.

One that is very memorable for me that if anyone in APAC is watching this is that we used to have an initiation process in APAC.

I won't call it initiation.

It was just, you know, like a welcome where everyone had to try durian.

And if you don't know what durian is, it's a very smelly fruit. So basically in Singapore, every new visitor, every new intern had to try that.

And trust me, I don't think it's a pleasant experience, but some people might.

So I think that was actually like very funny and in memory that I will probably not forget for a while.

But yeah, I think that was the one that that's most memorable for me.

What does it taste like? Or what does it what does it smell like? I don't know if you want me to start describing durian right now, because I know I'm going to offend a lot of people.

But it's the texture is just, I don't know, for me, it was like a rotten like avocado that's like brown, and then the smell is super strong.

Yeah, so I have a more of a problem with the texture, not as much the smell.

I had to do the durian challenge and it was like, it was similar, but it's like the aftertaste.

I think it's kind of like what's really. Anyway, yeah. Well, going on to my story.

That was funny. I think that at the time that I interned, so just to like paint a picture of like what our office looks like now, like we have like two office buildings like we've grown from 101 Townsend to 111 Townsend and then like we have like our 634 building.

So we're kind of like spread across like this, like in South Park.

It's all really close and 101 and 111 are connected by a tunnel. But at the time that I was interning, we were only at 101 and it was like one building and the entirety of the company was in those three floors and marketing all kind of sat together.

Kind of like as we do now, but it was just like in one floor. I think it was a second floor at the time.

And there's, I think I was part of like one of like the days of the move where like everybody shifts floors and like we have like a seating chart at Cloudflare and every single person every so often will swap seats, just because to give like different teams like exposure to different areas of the building, since some places are like nicer than others.

Anyway, I was part of that.

And then I, when I was interning at first, I just didn't sit with a team that I was interning for because there was no space.

So I shifted around like spots several times during my internship and like each time obviously I was sitting next to other people.

This was also like a reflection of because of like how fast the company was growing.

So they just needed to fit new people like all the time.

And it was more of a priority for the new full time hires to sit next to their teams than for me.

So I was kind of like bouncing around and I was happy to do so.

So that wasn't a problem. And then I think that my second to last spot, I sat with the team for a little bit, which I was thrilled to do.

And I sat, there was an empty desk next to me all like pretty much all the time.

So I didn't know there was somebody sitting there.

Turns out that it was our CRO, Chris Marriott, and he was also like the head of marketing at the time because we didn't have, we didn't have like an interim, he was in the interim head of marketing.

And I was introduced to him by Ashley, like being like, hey, like, this is Christina, she's doing our LATAM campaigns.

And I was like, hi. And I just didn't even know who he was.

I actually found out who he was when I came back full time. Like I had no idea who, like, but I thought that was just funny once I found out.

And I think I put my best foot forward in any situation.

Like that was kind of like, you know, just doing my work and whatever.

But I was kind of shocked when I found out. I was like, oh, my God, I sat next to him for like two weeks.

And who knows what I was looking at my screen at some given time of the day.

Yeah, I'd be pretty, I'd be a little nervous, too.

Well, those are awesome. Those are great experiences, I think. So we have a current intern program right now.

And even for if you're an intern at another company, and you're joining us, what's your advice right now for someone in this experience, especially like with this climate?

What would you tell them to just make this internship the best possible?

And then I'll start on this one. Cool.

So, especially now where, you know, we need to be inside and we're trying to find ways to maximize our time.

I think the recommendation that I would give that really helped me when I knew that I wanted to come back is that, you know, if you, I don't know how familiar the interns might be with Cloudflare solutions and how in depth they know about it.

But one thing that my manager asked me to do back before I was joining is was, hey, Marina, I know you're joining in a few months, but why don't you just create a website and link to Cloudflare.

That was all the guidance that I got.

So to be completely honest, like the hours that I spent creating a free website and getting a domain from GoDaddy.

And then like, you know, figuring out how to add Cloudflare and doing all those things so that it worked out actually took me a while.

But I cannot like I can confidently say that the fact that I had to go through that process as if I was a customer was actually very helpful for me to understand the product even better.

Like now when I talk about different products and stuff, I go back and remember to the process where I had to be a customer and add Cloudflare to my website.

So if you have time to do that is you can use the free service.

You can use a free website like it's a way that if you're really interested in coming back that you can, you know, start getting a feel on what it is like to be one of our customers.

Awesome. Um, I think that for current interns just interns at Cloudflare or just.

So I think that I guess it's just like from experience, like I am doing the like the buddy program for an intern for the internship program right now and I have a buddy that she actually went to one of the colleges that's like affiliated with CMC.

And so we started having conversations and like I really wanted to kind of think about like how I can kind of help her talk to more people across the company, especially given that it's kind of hard right now to just like bump into someone like normally like in the snack area or like grabbing coffee.

It's like Super easy to just like start a conversation like even if you're at line in like in the line at like team lunch like introducing yourself and being like, Hi, like I'm an intern like What do you do, it's like such an easy like you know like way to start a conversation and normally people are so eager to just like share So like kind of, I wanted to like replicate somehow like not like exactly replicate that but like just tell her people that would be good to talk to And I think she did a good job and asking like me.

First, if there is like a group chat or something of like people that went to the college that like I attended or like the similar like the, you know, the consortium.

And there was actually a lot of people from the consortium that I hadn't even thought of.

I like created a group chat and then like added her and then there was another intern actually that Graduated from one of the consortium colleges like a couple of years ago is now pursuing a PhD and starting that thread and like being able to like See different people part of the org like different like people across the organization that have some sort of connection to the person and like Having that like avenue to be able to start conversations with something that I wanted to provide.

So like I think that like just asking like up like for an opportunity like that or just connections to different people.

Once you have someone like I think that is Something that is very valuable, especially right now when you're not able to talk to people like casually and like set up some like one on one time, maybe like not 30 minutes but like even like 15 just like say hello and like Quick intro and then maybe like seeing like if you can somehow get involved in different projects like I think that would be Cool.

I don't know how flexible.

It is anymore, just because the company obviously has grown, but I think that it's that will be a great way to like start meeting people across the organization.

Yeah, I think that both of what you said was great advice. I've noticed, like you said, even setting up 15 minutes is well worth it.

And it's, you know, it gives you that contact that we don't have as much anymore being remote.

So I definitely agree.

Okay, great. So I think now we can move to questions from the audience.

We've got a few here. Let's see. This one's for Marina. What was it like being an intern and Singapore and then being a full time employee in San Francisco.

Yeah, that's a good question. I think about it still, but I would say Singapore and the North America office are very different, starting from the fact that in Singapore, there were at the time there were like 80 people.

Now there is double that.

So at the time, it was very small and you really got to experience like, you know, hang out with people from all the other teams.

And whereas when I came here in San Francisco, we have almost like 1000 people in the office.

So it was a little bit harder to do that.

I'd say a lesson for me actually working in Singapore and now coming here is that we're lucky, you know, here in headquarters to have all the resources that we need.

Most of the people are based here.

So things move really quickly. Whereas if you're in a regional office, to be completely honest, every company has a struggle, but it is a little bit slower based on time difference based on the fact that most of the people are based in a different country.

So, you know, something that now I keep in mind because I've been in that place before is I try to be as empathetic as possible.

And when someone from the APAC office reaches out to me and I am available at 10pm and I know they're working, I try to respond because I know that's a blocker for them.

So, you know, I think now that I've learned like, hey, this is what it's like to be on the other side and have questions for North America, but, you know, have to delay a few things.

Now I am a little bit more understanding of that.

So that's one of the differences besides time difference that I had to be working there at weird hours, whereas here I don't have to as much.

Yeah, I think very few people have had that experience. So I think that's really cool.

Great. So let's see. Do both of you have any networking tips?

Yeah, I can go first.

I have a quick recommendation that I've been given in the past.

I know generally when you start at a company, your manager will likely give you a list of these are the people that you need to meet.

I think that's something that you definitely have to do just like reach out 30 minute slots to meet with those people.

Another thing that I've been told at a different internship was that because this is such a, it can be a really hard experience for some people to reach out to have calls with people they don't know.

So it can be a little bit uncomfortable.

So the way that I made myself push through and meet like all the 30 people that I had to meet was to set timelines.

So I had the first 30 days I had to meet X number of people.

The last 60 days I would have had to complete this entire list.

So that is one way that you can make yourself accountable for really getting yourself out there and speaking to new people that you wouldn't have otherwise.

And then another thing is just when as the internship goes and you start realizing, wow, I am interested in this project.

I'm interested in this product. Ask your manager.

She or he is a person that will know exactly who's working on that.

And if they don't know, they can ask someone else. But once you have a deeper interest, then it's a huge, it's really important that you go to them and say, can I, you know, can you give me like a list of people that I should talk to in this project?

That is, I think, the most direct way that you'll actually be able to get places when you're interested in a particular topic like that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Christina, do you have any networking tips? Yeah, I think that like Marina's is definitely like great advice.

And I would definitely 100% recommend that.

I think that's awesome. But I think to add to that, to bring it from a different angle, I guess.

I think at Cloudflare, we're lucky that when we start with our class, like people are from all different kinds of like parts of the organization.

And one of our, my favorite, like, I think most or a lot of people's favorite session at the orientation is when Michelle comes in and kind of like explain what everybody does and kind of like connect how those things are kind of mapped together and like how those parts of the organization interact with each other.

But, which really helped me kind of like be able to start conversation with different people that I wouldn't really have been able to make that connection with and still be able to talk to them to this day and like be their friend in the company.

But I think that establishing that early on and like not like kind of looking over, you know, certain teams or whatever, just because they're not like exactly related to what you do, I think it's really important.

So just being open minded and like, like learning as much as possible in any given moment, I think is really important.

And obviously, this is more applicable in like a post like once we are out of shelter in place and back in the office world.

But I think that taking that and making those genuine connections with people and like learning how it really anything in the company can really impact you.

I think it's good. I like would have never thought that I would be working with like a product manager and like in any sort of like way.

Obviously, it's not like product related for me. But I have often been in positions in which like I need a product manager to kind of like weigh in on like a speaking opportunity or like approve like an article that like I want to put in for an event for me.

And like understanding kind of like their role and like why they have the constraints that they do like really helps me navigate that like, oh, like, they're not going to want to probably do this because they have X, Y, and Z.

And like, but I can like kind of frame it this other way to like actually be able to make it work for both of us and like compromise.

And I think it's been like just great to like one make relationships and also just be better and more effective at like what I do.

Yeah, absolutely. I have a really simple tip as well.

I'll add, I think, just making it easy if you say to yourself, I need to talk to one person that I haven't ever talked to at the company before this week.

That kind of pushes you into having those conversations and without even knowing it networking.

So I think just as simple as that can also be helpful.

I think one thing that I do want to share that Marina and I do or did when we were in the office is that we were kind of isolated in 634 because we don't have like, you know, there's less people and most people there are the marketing team or just like related.

So team lunch is like something that's like big and there's a lot of people and you kind of run into like and have conversations with a lot of people.

So we were like, we miss one on one and like talking and interacting with people that we normally don't talk to.

So we would actually make an effort, we would like plan to go to team lunch together at the other building and like sit there and be like, we need to talk to someone.

I think that was really like in a way that was a way to like do the networking thing.

I like having each other really like helped us be motivated to do it.

So like maybe like if you can't, you don't have the courage to do it by yourself.

Like if you have like a buddy, like it definitely makes it so much easier.

Definitely. I agree with that. Yeah. Okay. So, um, how has your role changed since you first joined?

I know you both have been here for a little while now.

So I'm sure on your first day, a lot of your day to day looks different than it does now.

Yeah, so I can take this one first. When I joined back full time, we were still doing like we were like the events team at San Francisco at Cloudflare was like the seven or eight of us that were all sitting together.

So we were not only like covering all geos including like EMEA and APAC.

We actually like Marina was working on some of the events like from like in the ground over there.

But like we were doing the logistical portions and things like that from San Francisco.

And then we were still doing like brand events. So like Internet Summit was still like under our team and still doing like internal meetups and things like that.

So everything that was an event was under the team that I was on. So, which is like now not the case like at all like now like we have like the teams that do the field events like in Asia and in EMEA and then we have like an internal team that does like the meetups and now we also have a person that does customer events specifically.

So like now we really like specialize in just doing like the field marketing portion and demand generation events for the North America region and like I am like the only like outlier that does Latin America events out of region simply because we don't have an office there.

So that was like a significant amount of growth I think of the company because right before we didn't see the need of having somebody there physically because there was not that much like to really do or justify that.

And now we obviously see not only like the benefit of having somebody that's actually like in the ground facing the teams that we are supporting like actually there with them all the time, but like it's just a lot more like we have the infrastructure to be able to have the people there.

So I think that is a testament of like the growth that we have seen at the company, but it's also kind of sad because one of my favorite things that I worked on was Internet Summit for a long time like that was one of my favorite events and it allows for like creativity in a different way that like because it is a brand event.

So I think that there's like pros and cons to that and like having the amount of exposure on to different kinds of events, but I think that at the end of the day like it's just really like shows how much Cloudflare has grown.

Yeah, I think for me, one thing that changed is that at least when I was an intern it was okay, let's test whatever we're doing in North America, see if it works in Asia.

Oh, we got an upgrade, but it wasn't really like I didn't have at the time the ability to make strategic decisions and be focused for example on a vertical or do anything like that.

But now that I joined full time I am responsible for two verticals that each have their pipeline goals and their own budget.

I was also able to support Latin America.

I also speak Spanish because I'm from Argentina. So I wanted to find a way where I could leverage the language that I already know.

So I also work closely with Christina.

I do more on the digital side, but I would say just the ownership.

I can't compare how much ownership I have now versus what I had before.

Like it's much greater now and that would likely be the experience for most of the interns who come back later as full time employees as well.

Hey, awesome. I know.

So since you both speak Spanish, is there anything that you want to say to Spanish speaking listeners right now?

Kind of saying like good luck or any advice in Spanish?

Yeah, do you want me to say it in Spanish or do you want me to say in English?

I can do either.

Um, let's do it in Spanish. Cool. So if you are Spanish speaking and you want to be part of Cloudflare, you can talk to Christina or me directly on LinkedIn.

You can send us a message and we would be more than happy to help you.

That was so awesome.

Someone tell me what you guys said. Okay, great.

Um, so that kind of wraps up our Q&A. And I thought it would be nice as like the last part of this session to go over our current intern program, just because it has changed so much since both of your experiences.

So this year we have the largest intern program we've ever had.

And we have 80 around 85 interns and they've all started besides one more class which starts this coming Monday.

So we have interns on various different teams.

We have interns in sales and engineering and cryptography.

We have legal interns that are, you know, in law school and they're taking their summers interning with us.

We have interns in project strategy, special projects, marketing, like both of you, and then also infrastructure as well.

So we're really excited that we're able to offer those intern experiences on all those different teams.

Um, we are all remote right now. And so obviously our internship is remote.

And so with that, our interns are based all over the world right now.

Normally we'd have the most interns in the class in our San Francisco office and also in our London office.

And so if you're interested in becoming an intern, our applications open in the fall.

And so you can go ahead and apply and interview for certain internships then.

And then our second big hiring for internships is in the spring.

So it's throughout the year, I would check our website.

We have our internships open there when they're open. So that's a great resource for anyone interested.

And then you can also reach out directly to cf -internship at Cloudflare.com and that's run by our internship hiring team.

So we try to make sure to get back to everyone that emails us and that's always just a great resource.

If you have any questions, but Yeah, I think, you know, that's, that's all I have for the session.

And thank you so much, Christina and Marina. It's been so great hearing your different experiences and I'm so excited that we get to work together.

It's been great. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Bye guys. Bye. Bye.

What is the cloud?

The cloud refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, along with the software and databases that run on those servers.

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