Cybersecurity Internship

I enrolled at Old Dominion University to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity with the intent to begin a new career path after being employed for multiple years outside of the information technology field, with no prior experience. My first run-in with the information technology field took place in a college course. Prior to this course, I had dreams of working for a federal agency in line with my previous career. After taking the course, I realized that I could have a better life doing something I enjoyed far more if I followed the path and gave it my all. I worked full-time while pursuing my degree, maintain my GPA and searching for more learning opportunities outside of the typical curriculum offered.

This summer, I began my employment with Sayers as a Cloud Engineer. Although I received multiple employment offers, I chose to work for Sayers for multiple reasons. The biggest reason was the familial feeling presented by the company. They had desires for my career that were parallel with my desires for myself rather than my employment being dead end. The size of the company causes a culture within the workplace that fosters uplifting of your teammates and an environment where employees know each other along with everyone’s skills. Teams make sure to take a customer focus to ensure the job gets done in a timely, effective manner. On my team, I am the least experienced individual, so my first task is obtaining certifications held by my peers to ensure I have the proper background to do my job. I hope to achieve this along with hands-on skills that I did not have prior to my employment. I also hope to achieve the ability to understand and interact with customers in the way I have seen my counterparts. I am thankful for the opportunity to work with Sayers for the foreseeable future, and I am glad that they took the chance on educating and molding me despite the lack of concrete experience as a Cloud Engineer.

Sayers Technology is an IT solutions provider. It was founded in the Chicago area with a focus on bringing a higher level of work ethic, teamwork, and leadership to the business world. Sayers aims to leverage technology to meet the evolving demands of clients and partners. Sayers offers solutions in cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, cloud services, digital transformation, technology refresh, and staffing. The featured partners of Sayers include Microsoft Azure, Nutanix, Palo Alto, PureStorage, and Rapid7. Sayers works to continuously provide in-depth knowledge and the latest industry advances.

When I began interviewing with Sayers, I was asked multiple questions about my educational background as well as my future plans within the industry. I had recently obtained my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification and knew I was extremely interested in growing my knowledge specifically surrounding cloud services. I was met with an encouraging team of individuals when interviewed. They were excited that I was motivated to continue learning and celebrated my current achievements. Upon being offered employment, I was provided with the resources necessary to work virtually, both physical and electronic. My first day, I was scheduled to have a Teams meeting with the engineering team to “meet” my new coworkers. I, then, was scheduled to meet with my direct supervisor where we would set up goals and talk about what the foreseeable future at Sayers would look like.

The management environment at Sayers is one that is uplifting. I am the most junior engineer within the company at this time. When I am assisting on calls with more senior engineers, it falls to that individual and myself to follow-up on what I saw to check for understanding or asking questions. Typically, I am able to ask questions during the meetings on Microsoft Teams to be answered when the more senior engineer has time to during or after the call. I have also been able to meet with more senior engineers outside of client meetings to implement skills I learned or saw executed during a call and practice. Outside of the more senior engineers, my immediate supervision falls to the Director of Cloud engineering. He and I meet once a week to discuss my progress and determine if there is a need for me to get training on a certain subject, meet with a specific engineer, or sit in on any specific meetings. The Senior Vice President of Client Services would be the next tier of management to my position. I have had the opportunity to meet with this individual as well multiple times in the last few weeks. He has set up meetings between myself and others, who may not be engineers, with a specific outline of things that are valuable to my learning experience. Overall, this structure has been effective because I know I have multiple individuals to whom I can turn with questions or problems.

A cloud engineer works closely with the services team to develop and enhance our offerings to customers. Engineers are responsible for designing and implementing client solutions. At Sayers, we specifically utilize Azure services. The client solutions will involve one or more of these services built to achieve the specific goal of the client. Cloud engineers must also design, implement, and integrate best practice for security within the services utilized. Once implemented, engineers troubleshoot client Azure deployments when necessary to determine root cause and provide recommendations. For new clients, engineers assist with migrations into Azure. As cloud solutions become more popular and clients realize the need to utilize multiple platforms, engineers must also be familiar with the other platforms in order to give proper and effective recommendations. These recommendations must be able to be given to a technical and non-technical audience.

My specific use of skills within my employment revolves mostly around security concepts relating to the cloud environment. I learned most of these security skills throughout my entire journey to obtain my degree, but I specifically learned my first skills relevant to cloud services during a course that led to my obtaining my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification. So far, I have had to learn more during on-the-job training specifically about Microsoft Azure platforms from nomenclature to use case. I have also had to learn more about PowerShell utilization and solidified some concepts of my skills in Python. I also have learned to navigate the GUI portal within the Microsoft Azure interface. This has changed how I viewed my education because it puts certain tasks back under the microscope after potentially not having used them in certain classes.

The curriculum at Old Dominion University gave me a foundation of knowledge that I have utilized in my career thus far, as well as the other internships and hands-on experience that I have had. I gained networking concepts, cybersecurity overviews, and coding experience through my college curriculum. These skills are necessary to get “in the door” of any position within the IT field, including entry-level positions. Without this knowledge, learning on the job would be impossible because it would be like speaking to someone in a different language. For example, I need to know what basic cybersecurity terms are to correctly set network security group rules.  I had to know basic coding language, both PowerShell and Python, to understand and potential create templates and issue commands to cloud shells.

I feel that it is important to learn new concepts and seek out information that is relevant to your desired skill path outside of the requirements of any university. Not only does this ensure you are interested and dedicated to the path, but it shows willingness to potential employers to continue your learning and excitement relative to the path being taken. Outside of the required curriculum at Old Dominion University, I chose to obtain my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification. This helped me to demonstrate my interest in cloud engineering. Although I took a class to assist me in this achievement, earning the certification was not a requirement to pass. I studied hard and was interested in the subject matter, and my employer advised my persistence was a desirable trait in new hires multiple times throughout the interview process.

The first outcome I was tasked with achieving by my employer was getting the AZ-104, Microsoft Azure Administrator, certification. I was able to achieve this goal prior to the end of the time documented within this final course at Old Dominion University. First, Sayers allowed me the financial freedom to do so. This was done by allowing me to purchase study materials, as well as the cost of the test itself, with reimbursement through the company. I was given lists and resources utilized by others within the company to begin my journey to achieving the certification. In addition to this certification, I have been tasked with achieving three to four more by the end of my first year with the company- I expect this goal will be achieved as well.

I also wished to achieve the ability to understand and affectively interact with customers and achieve new hands-on skills. For most of my time during the past 6 weeks, I have been paired with a coworker with whom I attended customer meetings and sometimes worked with via Teams meetings when time allowed. I was able to listen to conversations between my coworker and the customer as well as see what steps he took to resolve their issues. I witnessed migrations, updates, and more take place as well as being included in conversations to practice for future interaction with customers on my own where I will need to build relationships and trust between the customer and myself. The individual I was paired with, as well as everyone else on my team, is respected and appreciated by the customer and is a great example of an employee.

The most motivating aspects of the internship was the inclusivity of my future with the company. I chose Sayers to work at, rather than other locations, because they have a plan for me. Not only is the plan long-term, but it is flexible. My employers want me to be fulfilled and want to support my continued learning and growing within the field. As an individual who loves to learn new things, this is extremely motivating for me. Other opportunities presented to me could not hold a candle to the potential that I see within Sayers. Other motivating aspects that are presented within the company are things offered to me by the company. Every week, we are guaranteed 4 hours of time to continue our education. This can be formal education, certifications, or other forms of learning. We are giving the opportunity to share what we learn with our peers if we wish.

The most discouraging aspect of my employment is feeling like I do not know enough. This feeling has been coined a term, imposter syndrome, because of its commonality within the workplace. Due to the wealth of information at our fingertips, it may seem as though individuals have more knowledge or are better than others. The company took a chance when hiring me. I am not their typical employee as a cloud engineer. It is known within my team that I am fresh out of college with very little real experience outside of short internships. No one holds this against me, but I feel like it is necessary to continuously challenge and prove myself. I contribute to conversation where I can and try to make it known that I am doing this in order to be useful to my team. Although it can be discouraging, I have been choosing to see it as a positive force motivating me to thrive in an environment with multiple unknowns.

The most challenging part of my employment, which I feel affects every individual who works from home in a company which they were not part of prior to the pandemic, is not really knowing my coworkers. I know their names; I know what they do on the team, but I do not really know them. I do not know what they look like, nor do I know if they have families or where they live. I find this challenging because I am an independent individual, especially when surrounded by strangers. It was challenging to me to reach out to my coworkers at first for help. Despite this challenge, I believe my coworkers have gone out of their way to attempt to make me feel welcome. I have been able to have one-on-one meetings with them when they identified an area they could assist me in learning. Multiple individuals on my team and my direct supervisor have identified this challenge prior to me realizing it was a challenge. They referred to it as “existing on an island.” In order to combat this, I was encouraged to reach out when needed and “spend time” with my coworkers when possible. We can see our teammates calendars, so I am encouraged to jump in on any meetings I find interesting as time permits. I, also, am attending an in-person team building activity in Chicago shortly after finishing this semester, so I am hopeful that this hurdle will be quickly overcome.

Prior to beginning an internship or employment, I would recommend determining a path for yourself and learning outside of the required curriculum according to your preferences. Being able to say that ultimately I have this career goal and these are the steps I intend to take to get there cemented my desire to excel in my career not only to my employer but also to myself. Before interviewing, you should be able to speak confidently about yourself and know what you want and how you can add to the team of any employer, whether it is permanent employment or via an internship. You must be able to sell yourself and exhibit the ability to take constructive criticism while learning a new skill and utilizing the skill you already possess.

I also would recommend that future interns take as many internships as they can. This will assist in identifying your passion within the industry. It is easy to be caught up in what can make the most money but loving what you do is the most important factor to have a fulfilling career. This paired with working for a company that your mission and vision aligns with is a winning combination.

During my college career, I was discouraged from taking the route I took. I was told I needed to find a way to get hands on experience, that having a degree would not get me a job, and that I was wasting my time trying to make a career change. I felt pulled in so many directions and did not know where to go, but I continued to pursue my interests. This pursuit ended with an offer of employment from Sayers technology. At Sayers, I received not only support for my proclivities but a plan to make my dreams come true. My experience with Sayers has influenced the remainder of my college time by validating its importance. It will also influence my future professional path because I have proven to myself that, despite all odds, I can achieve anything that I set my mind to.