How did I get an internship at Flipkart through Flipkart Grid National Hackathon?
Hey hey everyone! Thank you for reading this blog. This blog aims to give insights into how I got a 6-month internship at Flipkart through their national flagship hackathon, which is Flipkart Grid.
#Gathering necessary information
I got an email from Unstop( formerly D2C) stating that Flipkart is organizing Flipkart Grid 3.0 in three different domains: software development track, information security track, and robotics track. I explored the process in detail on their Unstop page.
#Choosing appropriate track & forming the “dream-Team”
I reached out to a couple of folks to check for their interest and availability in teaming up for this hackathon. Fortunately, I got many positive responses and chose to move ahead with teaming up with my classmate and friend, Manav Sethi. We brainstormed on each track, minding their perks and disadvantages, the number of registrations so far, and our area of interest. Considering many more factors, we decided to participate in the Information Security Track.
#knowing the strengths and weaknesses of teammates
My teammate had a fair knowledge of this track, and I was completely new and highly enthusiastic to do a deep dive and explore the new area. In order to make me familiar with all that we will be working on and how we will be working on it, we conducted many meetings, and every time, he shared some resources with me to help me learn and become familiar.
Not for once did I regret gambling with this newer domain for a national hackathon. We were both on the same page every time.
Tip: Hackathons are the best opportunity for an individual to take risks and explore as much as possible.
AND THE FUN BEGINs here :)
#Level 1: E-Commerce & Tech Quiz
Every team will get a set of questions to be answered within 30 minutes. It will be based on e-commerce trivia and technology (Infosec Basics and Techstack). The quiz was of medium difficulty, and the main challenge was time management, as we get bonus marks if the answer is correct and speedily marked. We qualified this round successfully, and now it is the big showtime.
#Level 2: Level 2: Submission of Proof of Concept — Containerization of Resources
Here comes the most interesting part, which included several meetings, brainstorming, debugging sessions, solution building, PowerPoint Presentation finalizing, wiki writing, and many more techy steps.
The uniqueness of our proposed solution was its simplicity, easy-to-adapt feature, and utmost relevance to the problem statement( which was “Containerization of Resources”).
#Level 3: National Finale — Detailed Concept and Demo Video Submission (Containerization of Resources) + National Finale
We submitted our idea and solution in their given format, along with the demo video explaining all the areas of our solution in great detail.
Then comes National Finale Day, which holds the greatest of our excitement and learnings from the questionnaire round asked by the judges. We practiced pitching our solution to our friends and colleagues and gathered their honest feedback on how to improve it before D-day.
Tip: The solution should be simple, concise, and presented clearly. Mock demos are a must to improve the pitch and gain confidence.
Result: We were one of the top 10 national final teams.
#Excited about how I got an Internship? Let’s jump to this.
The application security team had openings for internships, and we got a Google form from the recruiter querying our interest and availability. It was followed by one or two rounds of interviews; the number of interviews varies from team to team. The interviews were of medium difficulty and revolved around the core concepts of information security. I had great learning and fun during the interview process, and it was worth the effort.
Verdict: I got selected for a 6-month internship with Flipkart.
PS: Do clap if you learned something from my blog, and feel free to ask any queries or discuss anything in the comments below.
