How I Failed at my First Internship
I had the privilege of working as an AI intern at TD Bank’s payments innovation division as a high school intern in my summer after grade 12. My team and I were tasked, among other things, to identify patterns in various datasets and design product features that tailor to specific user groups.
We were the first to be assigned such a project in the history of the bank (the youngest on our team was 15).
And we failed.
Not because we didn’t work hard enough, but because we faced process barriers in accessing data (big banks can be a pain with having too many regulatory hurdles).
Instead, we presented an alternative solution to senior management — a really good one — but didn’t achieve what we were originally asked of. It sucked. The feeling of underdelivering, even when it wasn’t our fault, is a kick to one’s confidence and optimism.
However, in the process of failing at our task, we came across errors in TD’s data warehouses. We were able to highlight inefficiencies in a system that would’ve caused difficulties for every employee that would grow out of our team once we left; we essentially helped build a solution that enables the rest of the 80 000 TD employees to achieve a task we initially failed at. We helped solve a problem that stood in TD’s way to continue to create amazing banking experiences for the 11 million (and counting) customers.
Dare I say: we walked, so the ones after us could run. 😅
We felt proud that we helped solve an issue that would largely go unrecognized. From that single failure, I learned of the value designing solutions that address the big picture, and to deconstruct problems initially presented to inherently understand what the issue is; because the problem won’t always be what’s presented to you.
Now when I approach problems, both in personal projects and other work, I start from scratch, break down to the roots of a problem and reconstruct, to determine what needs to be solved.
Every educational event and institution values the skill of problem-solving. And as important as it is, with a little work, one can become good at it.
But what’s harder, and, both what I learned the value of, and began getting good at, is the ability to problem-find; especially for problems that are hidden and seem like they don’t want to be found.
These ‘masked’ problems happen to be the most valuable problems to want to solve because they’re overlooked, likely because of their complexity, even though they impact so many (sometimes billions) of people and are bigger than one person; being a good problem-finder is an underdog skill.
My experience working at, and failing at TD, helped me reinforce my understanding of the value of solving huge problems that impact billions, that not many smart people are attacking.
My experience at TD was invaluable: thanks to the work, the people and the culture. My growth going forward is, in part, credited to having the privilege of working at the biggest bank in Canada alongside brilliant minds — many of whom I call my friends 🙌🏼
Thanks for reading ;)
Swarit is an 18-year-old developer passionate about fintech with projects like fraud detection, stock prediction and creditworthiness models, and has worked at TD in payments as an AI intern.
His work in autonomous vehicles spans building projects like traffic light classification and lane detection engines. He also has a Udactiy Self-Driving Car Nanodegree and is currently researching AI for consumer fintech applications.
Swarit has consulted with Walmart and Wealthsimple, has spoken at the Brampton Reppin’ Technology Youth Summit, TD Senior Management Group Conference, and SingularityU Canada’s Toronto Event about his work.
