How to manage many tasks at once?
It’s been 5 weeks since I’ve started my internship and it’s been pretty overwhelming trying to juggle many responsibilities. I tried balancing school research, my startup and interview prep along with my internship, but I’ve underestimated how much time my internship has been taking.
I’ll start off with the good news first. I’ve been doing well in my internship and my manager is happy with my progress. I managed to implement a pretty critical part of their system that they’ll need in the future. I’ve also set up infrastructure for them to scale their codebase. I need to integrate my work into prod and implement some basic logging.
The bad news is that my internship has been taking much more out of me than I expected. I find myself spending 9-11 hours working daily and as a result, I haven’t been able to do leetcode, research or my startup. As a result here are the consequences:
- Leetcode: I’ve started applying for full-time jobs and I bombed my first OA. Having looked at the questions, I feel that I might as well have not applied at all as I can’t even get through them
- Research: My advisor hasn’t said too much about my research progress but my gut feel is that he thinks it’s slow. I’m in conversation with a big tech company about doing research with them in the fall with the potential for a FT return offer, and my advisor has a say in whether I can do the collaboration/internship. So I definitely need to do well in research.
- Startup: My cofounders and I have been working hard on sales but feature implementation has been slow. The feature requests are pretty critical in getting paying clients, so one day of waiting may mean a customer can churn.
The worst part is that every time I come back, my body feels so drained and I don’t want to do work any more, but I also kinda have to. I still have another 4 weeks to go for my internship and I’m wondering how to allocate my time.
Discussion
(9 comments)- 13 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
Ami Vora (former head of WhatsApp and now CPO at Faire) has this expression: "It's not prioritization until it hurts."
This feels very apt here -- you are doing so many distinct activities. Distinct is important since I doubt the time you spend on leetcode helps your startup or your internship. Ideally, you get to double dip, e.g., when I work on my YouTube channel, Taro benefits since I can drive traffic.
I'd figure out what the top 2 priorities are and put everything else on the backburner. If I had to pick, it'd be the internship and the research. (are you working with a professor while also doing a full-time internship??)
- 03 months agoSoftware Engineering InternTaro Community
Yes, I’m a masters student and I have a research thesis, so I’m working with my thesis advisor towards my thesis. Normally masters students would do summer research, and if it weren’t for his approval, I wouldn’t have this opportunity to work over the summer. I feel pretty grateful for him so I have to make at least some research progress over summer.
- 0
3 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroHoly crap, you're doing way too many things! Doing an internship, interviewing, research, and a startup all at the same time is absolutely insane. No amount of productivity tactics will allow you to do all 4 things well on top of having a healthy personal life.
My recommendation is to prioritize the internship (assuming you can get a return offer). The market is so bad for junior engineers that return offers are 2-3x more valuable than they were before. This course is Meta-specific, but a lot of the tactics apply everywhere: [Course] Nail Your Return Offer As A Meta Software Engineer Intern
If you can't get a return offer at your current company, then I recommend focusing on the job search: [Course] Ace Your Tech Interview And Get A Job As A Software Engineer
That being said, if you want to do the startup full-time, go for it. In a vacuum, I don't recommend interns do a startup due to lack of experience, but very young founders have obviously succeeded before (look at Mark Zuckerberg). Here's a playlist to help with that: [Taro Top 10] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups
Lastly, here's my new productivity course: [Course] Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer
- 03 months agoSoftware Engineering InternTaro Community
Thanks for the response. It’s not entirely clear if they have a return offer (they have plans on hiring within the next year) but definitely doesn’t hurt to ask. This is the first time my company has an intern working. How do I bring up a return offer to my manager? Now that I’m midway through the internship, is now a good time to bring it up?
- 03 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
I would definitely bring it up! This is a good time to bring it up as you have now earned trust and established yourself as a solid performer. So it's not just you coming across as greedy. Frame it in mutual interest (i.e. "I like working here and I want to work here more").
- 03 months agoSoftware Engineering InternTaro Community
I brought it up with my manager. They said they haven't considered hiring me as a full-time employee but will bring it up with the team (the company is super small). Wondering when I should follow up and what I should keep in mind during this follow-up?
- 03 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Small companies move fast and internships are short: I would follow up next week. Your goal is to get as much clarity as possible and having a return offer possibility vs. not will hugely affect how you spend your time.
During the follow-up, the main thing is to not be pushy. A simple "No rush, but any updates on the return offer situation?" should be fine.
- 13 months agoSoftware Engineering InternTaro Community
I followed up with my manager this week and he said he still hasn't thought through it yet. He mentions it's difficult for me since I'm not a US citizen and that it'd be hard to sponsor me. However, I have 3 years of OPT extension (which I mentioned) and he says he still wants to look into the sponsorship situation. Maybe he isn't familiar with the visa process which is why he's hesitant. He hasn't brought it up with his team regarding my situation. Seems like the best move is to start prepping for interviews?
Based on the fact that he's considering sponsoring my sponsorship, perhaps it's a signal that the company is interested in having me for the long term? Maybe someone with more experience can see whether it's a positive, negative or neutral signal.
- 03 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Sponsoring an employee is a massive lift and easily costs the companies $10,000+ across additional paperwork, labor, legal/compliance processing. So if your manager is genuinely exploring the opportunity, that's a good sign and you've probably done a good job as an intern.
That being said, temper expectations and you should definitely derisk by looking outside pretty aggressively. Startups aren't known for having a ton of money, especially in this market, so it's more likely than not that they can't support you as an FTE.
