Ask the Interns: Claire McManus

Pictured left to right: Uzair Inamdar, Tulsi Jain, Claire McManus, Pearl Ruparel, Grant Parton, Brandon Lim, Sonam Kindy

What inspired you to join Delphix?

During my search for a summer internship, I stumbled upon a handful of interesting startups in the Bay Area, including Delphix. As I was researching the company website, I was fascinated by the visual describing the Delphix platform. It almost seemed like magic — the product’s ability to provision virtual data environments into what the company calls, data pods. Through the interviewing process, I learned how unique the product was in the enterprise software space, so I knew if I was offered an internship, what I would be contributing this summer would make an impact on both the company and its customers.

What project was your internship focused on?

My project was focused on finding a way to remove the need to store credentials within Delphix’s Virtualization Engine and allow customers to store and manage all of their credentials in their own centralized password vault. By doing this, Delphix simply has to query the vault for the credentials. There were two main components to the project, the first was building a common component for Delphix Virtualization and Masking to interact with enterprise password vaults. The second part was integrating this component into the Virtualization Engine so that a password vault could be used in place of a simple username and password. This allows customers to securely control and manage credentials without having to provide those credentials directly to Delphix engines.

What is the biggest challenge you faced and what did you learn from that experience?

My biggest challenge was trying to deeply understand the product from an engineering perspective. It felt like trying to piece together a huge puzzle (without knowing what the big picture was). Over time, I had the opportunity to work with different teams and learned about the various aspects of the platform, eventually piecing together all the elements that work together to make up the Delphix Data Platform.

What key skills and/or experience have you gained from your time at Delphix?

The most important experience I gained was working as a team. In school, most of the work you’re tasked with is done individually, so it was very different coming to Delphix where teamwork is crucial to success. Not only did I have to work closely with my own team, I also had to collaborate with other groups throughout the organization in different locations to make the project successful and beneficial to customers.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting this internship?

I wish I knew how much impact the Delphix product really has on its customers. Initially, I didn’t really understand the benefits of Delphix, but after having the opportunity to hear directly from customers, I realized how transformative the product is when it comes to how large companies use data to derive business value.

What is one piece of advice you’d like to share with future interns?

Ask a lot of questions. At first, everything may seem a little overwhelming between getting to know new people and understanding the product. But little do you know that your team is happy to answer your questions or direct you to someone who can answer them. It’s better to ask when it’s on your mind rather than waiting around for the question to answer itself. Everyone is working towards a common goal, so by helping you, they’re helping the entire company.

What’s your secret talent?

I can recite the alphabet backwards in 3 seconds. I learned the alphabet backwards for fun when I was younger and have yet to forget it. I can actually recite it backwards faster than I can recite it forwards!