Responsibilities
During the summer of 2020, I had the pleasure of interning at Qualcomm on the Global System on Chip’s Global CAD team. The GCAD team provides critical tools for pipelines in Qualcomm to function at peak efficiency. Especially in the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever for teams to be able to effictively collaborate and visualize progress on projects; the GCAD team is an important part of this well-oiled machine.
I was tasked with owning the development of a data gathering tool in Python, and further expanding the capabilities of several of these tool types used by the GCAD team by building the framework of a new data gathering pipeline overall.
My Expectations
This was no ordinary summer, and I had to be ready to push myself throughout the design cycle. Specifically, I was ready to identify problems, search for existing solutions, brainstorm paths forward, implement designs, and revise accordingly after collaborating with key stakeholders. I was also very excited to experience the Qualcomm culture, and meet several employees not only in the team I worked under. Finally, industry work is on a completely different level compared to the projects we complete in school, and I was expecting to adapt as challenges approached, and use my educational experience in algorithms to come up with new, powerful solutions.
Results
At the beginning of the design process, I found there were no existing solutions to the problem I was trying to address; this meant we had to put our heads together and define an easy-to-use platform from the ground up. While making progress, I consulted several users who would be impacted by this project to identify how effective this solution would be, and what functionality to add. By the end of the project, I had laid the foundation for a new data gathering tool written in Python, which would standardize scripting across multiple data uploading pipelines at Qualcomm, and make it easier to program with a simple user interface. Furthermore, I’ve made lasting connections with amazing employees & other interns who share the same thirst for challenging problms to address. I still play trivia with the other awesome interns weekly!