A summer of shipping: Cloudflare’s 2024 intern cohort

Cloudflare’s summer 2024 internship program brought roughly 60 “Intern-ets” together from around the world. Rather than shadowing teams, the cohort shipped production work across engineering, product, security, audit, and business development. Below is a look at the projects, events, and connections that defined the summer.

High-impact intern projects

Interns were embedded in teams across the company and took ownership of meaningful initiatives:

  • Rahul (Software Engineer) built an autograding system for future intern application assignments, entirely on the Cloudflare Developer Platform using Cloudflare Access, Browser Rendering, D1, Durable Objects, R2, and Workers.
  • Jessica (Software Engineer) created a new threads API for the Workers AI team that automatically recalls past messages during inference, enabling developers to generate chat sessions for personalized chatbots.
  • Anshika (Internal Audit) ran SOX and ISO testing for Q1 2024, performed a data center audit, and helped roll out automated SOC 2 testing.
  • Jake (Business Development Relations) led the creation and launch of an outbound BDR campaign that generated new pipeline for Cloudflare with tailored messaging, account criteria, and enablement materials.
  • Utkarsh (Software Engineer) built an internal tool for the Capacity Planning team to simulate unforeseen scenarios and network infrastructure changes for more efficient server provisioning.
  • Shaheen (Product Management) and Anantharaman (Software Engineer) improved Cloudflare D1 with billing observability enhancements, dashboard updates, and new Wrangler commands, along with launching billing alerts and audit logs.
  • Jada (Software Engineer) developed a Policy Tester feature for the Zero Trust Access Policies page, letting customers view policy update statistics via a RESTful API built on Cloudflare Durable Objects.
  • Dhravya (Software Engineer) helped launch function calling in Workers AI, a feature enabling LLMs to dynamically perform actions or retrieve data.
  • Prajjwal (Research) focused on personalizing the WAF attack score and improving user experience, experimenting with zero-shot learning techniques to detect emerging attacks.
  • Megan (Security Analytics) managed internal user access during a transition to an in-house security access tool, aligning group rules and resolving missing or duplicated groups and users during system migrations.

In-person and virtual intern events

For the first time since the pandemic, more than half of Cloudflare’s interns worked in person from the Austin, Lisbon, and London offices. Austin hosted the largest group with over 20 interns on-site, while Lisbon welcomed 10. The offices organized a range of bonding activities:

  • Ping-pong tournament: After weeks of lessons, interns competed for the title of Ping-Pong Champion, with Josh (PM intern on Workers) taking the crown.
  • Food Bank volunteering: Austin interns volunteered at the Central Texas Food Bank, packing food boxes and organizing donations; the team’s efforts helped feed 9,000 people.
  • Austin Game Show: Interns faced off in “Winter-nets” vs. “Return-ets” in games like Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune, with the “Return-ets” claiming victory.
  • Lisbon Data Center visit: Interns toured Cloudflare’s Lisbon data center, seeing the server rooms, security measures, and support systems that keep the facility running nonstop.

Remote interns stayed connected through several virtual events:

  • Snack time: Interns around the globe received boxes of assorted Japanese snacks and gathered virtually to share the experience.
  • Mingling meetups: Virtual Intern Game Days and Gatheround sessions provided scheduled social breaks. Remote interns near offices were also invited to in-person events like team lunches, arts & crafts, and social mixers.
  • Executive chats: Interns hosted over eight chats with top leaders. Highlights included Sasha’s conversation with CEO Matthew Prince about Lee Holloway’s story, Chantal’s talk with Chief People Officer Michele Yetman about adapting skills across career moves, Anantharaman’s discussion with Dane Knecht on the ETI group’s culture of moving fast, and Matilde’s session with Interim Chief Product Officer Nitin Rao about his impact on Cloudflare’s infrastructure.
  • Company-wide intern presentations: Interns showcased their projects in the annual Intern Presentations series, with hundreds of Cloudflarians attending, including founders Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn.
  • Cloudfriends: Employees from various departments signed up to meet with interns, who could schedule conversations to build connections and stay in touch post-internship. Interns also participated in Random Employee Chats, a weekly photo-matching program at Cloudflare.

Standout summer memories

When asked what stood out, interns consistently pointed to the people. Ananya networked with 49 people during her internship to forge company-wide connections, and Yomna set up 25 one-on-ones by the end of her second week, meeting an array of colleagues along the way.