Meet the NYC Startup Internship Alumni: Kelly Lin

As a born and raised New Yorker from Queens currently studying computer science and media studies at Hunter College, I’m lucky to enjoy all the opportunities this city has to offer. This summer, I have the pleasure of interning at 2ndSetAI, a startup under Company Ventures’s NYC Startup Internship Program. Their goal is to build image and video-generation services that customers can use to drive their initiatives as creatives.

I work with the software engineering team to implement and push services as part of the product launch, a hands-on experience where my contributions as an intern will directly impact the company itself. With so much of the world focusing on integrating AI as a part of their workflows, I see firsthand how these coding tools accelerate the startup engine. Many of the hard and soft skills I’ve learned were the results of the fast-paced environment and mentorship of our manager, Jeff Smith. He has taught us a lot of the things he’s learned from working in both big tech and through multiple startups.

A lot of engineering practices and communication skills seem obvious, but it’s more important to actually incorporate them into your thinking process rather than just knowing about them. This includes always documenting your work, keeping changes to a minimum to prevent conflicts with the rest of the codebase, and constant testing to ensure functionality. My work has been challenging and an interactive way to apply my technical skills. I also enjoy working alongside my fellow research interns to collaborate on testing tools and having conversations about life in the city. We usually conduct weekly standups to keep track of what each person is working on, to keep pace on what’s coming next after our backlog is done. A typical day looks like arriving at the Company Ventures office in the morning, realigning with my manager on the tasks I should work on completing, programming and testing features, then reporting back changes for the rest of the team to see.

When I graduate, I want to continue building my professional skills to prepare for my dream career. There are a lot of options I want to consider before jumping into something right away. Despite living in NYC all my life, there’s still a lot left for me to explore and experience. As my mom likes to say, “if you want to do something, do it right.” I think it’s important to understand the culture and intention of the programs and jobs you apply for. The value of going through programs is to see what aligns with your interests and goals, having that fuel your growth both personally and professionally, rather than being a box to check off. There are a lot of ways to get to where you want to be in life; the journey is often more important than the destination.