Name: Ha Phan
Class Year: 2022
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Ha Tinh, Vietnam
Internship Organization: Salesforce
Job Title: Software Engineer Intern
Location: Remote
Award: Bryn Mawr College Internship Fund
What’s happening at your internship?
I’m wrapping up the most important part of my internship project as we move into week eight. My main task is to design and implement features that would allow visually impaired users to navigate through Flow Builder—a product of Salesforce—using keyboards and other assistive technologies. When I first came to Salesforce, a major part of its Flow Builder product was completely inaccessible. With the new changes, all users will be able navigate through and utilize all the available features of the product using whatever is more convenient to them, whether it is keyboard or mouse. Building an accessible product is both tricky and challenging, especially for one without previous experience with assistive technologies like myself. The current result is nowhere near perfect, but I am proud that I have been able to achieve several project milestones. I am excited to improve the product and deploy it to production so that more users can utilize what it has to offer.
Why did you apply for this internship?
As a computer science major, I have always been interested in the intersection between business and technology. Driving business success by leveraging technology has always been something I want to do, and that is why I was very excited when offered the opportunity to work on a product that would help businesses automate complex processes like Flow Builder. I also met with my current manager in an informational session and hearing about the projects my team had been working on really made me feel that I would learn a lot as a member of the team.
Was there anything special about how you found this internship?
At the beginning of last August, I submitted my resume to the database of Grace Hopper Conference (GHC), an annual conference considered the world’s largest gathering of women in computing. I was then reached out by a Salesforce recruiter who saw my resume from the conference database and scheduled an interview shortly after. I think GHC is a very good opportunity for students, especially those from small colleges like Bryn Mawr, to present themselves to companies as well as other people in the tech industry, and I recommend other girls who are interested in a career in tech to submit their resumes to the GHC database and attend the conference if they can.
What is most rewarding about your internship?
I genuinely love the work that is being done here. Accessibility is an aspect of application development that is often not given enough attention. I am glad that Salesforce is dedicating a lot of time and resources to making their products more accessible to users with disabilities, and I am very happy to be part of this movement.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.