Meet the NYC Startup Internship Alumni: Shazadul Islam

Hi, I’m Shazadul, an NYC-born-and-raised student pursuing a computer science degree at The City College of New York. Through the NYC Startup Internship Program, I’m interning at SAIL GTX INC., a trade-tech startup building an AI-powered platform for import/export compliance, automating tariff classification, duty/tariff calculation, and product-data enrichment for enterprises navigating global trade regulations.

SAIL helps companies with import compliance, tariff planning, and audit defense by automating product-data ingestion, tariff classification, and duty calculation—helping businesses stay compliant while cutting down on the costs of international trade. The product helps trade and compliance teams streamline operations, reduce manual classification work, and improve accuracy across their product library.

My primary role is as a software engineering intern, where I orchestrate agentic AI to create asynchronous automated data pipeline workflows. The technical work has helped me hone my skills in system design, automation, APIs, web scraping, AI integration, data engineering, data processing, and even a bit of cryptography.

A typical day starts with making my daily report, which details my progress and what I learned the previous day, in addition to what I’m planning to do for the day and any other notes I want to make. Once I complete my report, since I already have my assignments, I get right back to working on my projects for the rest of the day. About twice a week, I have a meeting with my manager, Chansam Kim (COO of SAIL), and my software engineering intern colleague, where we catch up for the week thus far, and each give a small live presentation of the work and progress we’ve made on each of our projects.

I like to participate in the weekly events held by Company Ventures, one of the NYC Startup Internship Program operators. These events foster an intern community in which we share experiences, network, and exchange skills.

Looking ahead, I have several career interests, including software engineering, cybersecurity, network engineering, cloud engineering, DevOps, computer architecture, AI, robotics, and embedded systems. I'm still exploring which path to pursue. Even though I’m not sure which path I’ll take, I do know that I want to be in NYC. The city’s tech scene is so vast and diverse, with so many opportunities for me to explore. And the city’s my home—I’ve lived here my whole life, and I can’t imagine a better place to kick off my career.

The internship has given me the opportunity to sharpen my existing skills, build new skills, and make meaningful connections. To any students interested in applying to the NYC Startup Internship Program, my advice is to just show up and put yourself out there. I’ve met incredible people and built genuine connections that have opened me up to opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have had.