Duck Creek Technologies has a rich history of welcoming summer engineering interns to our offices across the country. The program has always focused on attracting top undergraduates with strong technical skills and providing them with hands-on experience. With the recent COVID-19 pandemic closing all offices globally for Duck Creek, a decision needed to be made about whether the program could be continued for the summer. After vocal support from our business areas that use interns, we determined not only to proceed with the program virtually, but take the opportunity to further enhance it.
Our University recruiting team was on it. In four short weeks, the team has restructured the “normal,” in-person components of the program to be virtual, including executive speakers, lunch-n-learns, socials, the capstone project, and the very popular bagel Wednesday. Our goal is to make virtual internship just as meaningful and challenging as if our interns were in our offices. Our managers have stepped up to commit to an equally engaging experience for our interns while they learn how to effectively work from home (or for some, while still in their college apartments!).
When we welcome our summer interns on June 1, they will begin with a day-long orientation including executive speeches, lunch with their mentors, and ice breakers to get to know each other. The program will last ten weeks and end in mid-August.
This year, we are also proud to add a virtual volunteer event to the list of activities our interns will participate in. Thanks to the Duck Creek Gives Back program and our partnership with the American Red Cross, our interns will spend time using their tech-savvy skills to contribute to the Missing Maps project. Missing Maps is a global humanitarian initiative that aims to map out vulnerable, currently unmapped areas of the world before a disaster or crisis occurs to reduce risk and help speed recovery. International and local responders can then use the new maps to better respond to the crisis.
New this year will be a series of lunch-n-learns designed specifically for our engineering Interns. Topics will include career-focused topics such as how to network virtually and building an effective LinkedIn profile, as well as tech topics like “The Modern Developer.” Last, perhaps the highlight of the series, will be a talk from a VP in our SaaS department who started his career at Duck Creek as an intern.
While nothing about 2020 is turning out to be “normal,” Duck Creek is excited to offer our interns a virtual view into the “new normal” we are all experiencing in the hopes that many of them will join us as full-time employees upon graduation.
