CMU-Silicon Valley students gain real-world experience through summer internships

With longer, warmer days, summer often marks a period of leisure. But for many Carnegie Mellon students, a break from classes offers the opportunity to pursue other pursuits, including internships across the country. Through internships, students gain valuable real-world career experience, put their technical skills to the test, and make lasting connections within their field of interest.

CMU-Silicon Valley master's student Chandhana Solainathan landed a summer internship with Meta as a part of their internal infrastructure team. Solainathan, who is studying software engineering, worked on a full-stack application project, which includes both the front-end (user-side) and back-end (server-side) of a website application.

By the end of her internship, Solainathan delivered production-ready code—an impressive and rare accomplishment for an intern to achieve.

"I feel really proud that I was able to give out production-ready code as an intern," Solainathan said. "I also really loved learning about the qualities of being a good software engineer, like time management, communication, documentation, and presentation skills."

Solainathan credits CMU-SV career services for helping her prepare for a rigorous application cycle by refining her LinkedIn and Handshake profiles.

"Through CMU’s help, I gained an understanding of the importance of LinkedIn,” Solainathan said. "I had multiple sessions with career consultants who made sure I was aware of how important LinkedIn is for recruiters and how to connect with Meta employees to get a referral from a CMU alum.”

Solainathan, who holds a bachelor's degree in electronic and communications engineering, became interested in software engineering after taking a free online course in website building. This initial course is what led her to pursue web development projects on her own time while still in undergrad and even pushed her to apply for and accept an internship at Microsoft in 2021.

Now fully committed to pursuing a career as a software engineer, Solainathan has her eyes set on one day becoming a senior lead or technical project manager but is keeping an open mind to any and all opportunities that come her way. She recently accepted a full-time offer from Meta and will be returning to the company as a software engineer.

"I had a very fruitful experience at Meta," Solainathan said. "While it was challenging at times, I was able to stay proactive and overcome the hurdles in my project. I found that as long as I was giving 100 percent effort and keeping my managers, peers, and stakeholders updated, everything would work out in the end."

With dual passions for food and the tech industry, Lisa Wang has been seeking a way to combine the two into a single profession. Thanks to a summer internship at 7-Eleven’s corporate office in Irving, Texas, Wang, a CMU-SV master’s student in software management, gained first-hand experience in how the food industry can be transformed with technology.

As a product manager intern on the store systems team, Wang worked on a back-office store system—a portal used by 7-Eleven store leaders to help with inventory control and day-to-day store operations. Powered by an AI engine, this back-office management system helps forecast product demand based on factors such as seasonality, historical sales, and even the day of the week or the hour of the day. The goal of this tool is to drive up sales and lower write-offs by connecting 7-Eleven mobile devices with the management system to inform store teams when and what to cook each day.

Currently, engagement with this tool is pretty low, but Wang was able to redesign the user interface to make it easier for store leaders to interact with the data they are given without increasing their workload.

“Part of the redesign process was challenging because I would have to put a lot of thought into what type of feature would give us feedback the quickest and also easiest to develop while incorporating the feedback from my teammates and leaders, as well as engineers on the development team,” Wang said.

While Wang’s internship took place at 7-Eleven’s corporate office, she spent two eight-hour shifts behind the register at a 7-Eleven store alongside store leaders. This experience was crucial to her redesign of this tool, as she was able to witness first-hand the challenges workers faced on a day-to-day basis.

As a home bakery owner, Wang said it was her personal interest in the food industry, coupled with the projects she worked on at CMU-SV, that gave her the necessary foundation to succeed at 7-Eleven.

“I had an awesome experience at 7-Eleven. I think if I had been solely focused on applying to big tech companies, I would not have had this good of a time,” Wang said. “One piece of advice I would give to future applicants is to expand your scope. Think about what you're interested in, what your strengths are, and what makes you stand out as a candidate. You don’t have to be at a big tech company. Nearly every industry uses tech right now.”

Wang will graduate from CMU-SV in December 2026 and return to 7-Eleven this fall as a Product Manager to sustain the momentum she built during her internship this summer.