The Internship – Getsafe Team Stories
It’s not about making coffee! Ann-Cathrin, Janine and Sandeep explain what it’s really like to work at a startup
Sandeep, you have been working as a Data Science intern for half a year now. Is there any Getsafe routine, something that you do every day?
Sandeep: I was always fascinated by data. That’s why I came to Germany to do my master’s in Data Science. At Getsafe, my work mostly involves analysing and deriving insights from data to help make data-driven decisions. Some of my tasks included analysing our campaigns on the basis of our analytics platform and data. Hence it was imperative to check if there were any new updates or dependencies in the charts through our team Slack channel before starting to work on my tasks.
Janine, you already worked at Getsafe as a working student in Customer Service. How did it come about that you’re now doing an internship in the Aggregators Team?
Janine: When I started working at Getsafe, I quickly realised that there is so much more to see inside the company. In the weekly company-wide town hall meetings or when you talk to other colleagues you can always get an insight into what's going on in other teams. That made me curious to find out how everything else works. Then it was my own initiative: I asked for an internship in the marketing or business development direction – now I ended up in the aggregators team. Here I work hand in hand with developers and customer service agents to continuously improve our ranking on our aggregators’ platforms.
Ann-Cathrin, you are doing your internship in the HR department of Getsafe – why did you choose Getsafe?
Ann-Cathrin: To speak frankly, I was a little bit starry-eyed before I came to Getsafe. Even though I had worked in a tech company before and was familiar with the app part that Getsafe does, I hadn't dealt with the topic of insurance before. But when I started I was positively surprised by the nice people and the great working culture. I learn so many things in such a short amount of time.
How would you describe your relationship with other teammates?
Ann-Cathrin: My experience is that you can talk to everyone at Getsafe. Of course, when somebody has a busy day, they can’t always have a casual chat with you. But all colleagues are open for your questions or just for a chat. The relation to my close colleagues feels more like a friendship. I really like to go to work mainly because of my colleagues and the nice atmosphere we create together.
Sandeep: For me it was a bit difficult to get a proper connection at first. It’s my first job in Germany and I was recruited exactly during the corona lockdown. So I had to work from home for the first two and a half months. It was great that I could get to know the people via Zoom calls. But of course it was even better once I could meet my colleagues in person in the office.
Janine: In usual circumstances, Getsafe organises a table football tournament twice a year. I was lucky that it took place in the week when I started. The whole company was there and it was so fun, because you could easily get in touch with everyone, even Chris and Marius, the founders. And in the end we played table tennis on the table in the office – we didn’t have enough bats so some people just used plates, some used their shoes. We stayed until three or four am.
Copying, making coffee, running errands, taking over secretarial tasks – in many internships the work is not very exciting. How do you experience this at Getsafe? Can you confirm the prejudices?
Janine: Of course you sometimes have to do less challenging tasks: Once in the aggregators team we had to quickly send out over 100 documents via regular mail (which is a very unusual and untypical situation at Getsafe) because the company responsible was out of service. Yet it wasn’t because I was kept busy but rather because I was given full ownership of the projects and as a result, of course, also the responsibility for everything working smoothly. So when this emergency situation arose we got creative and went with the hands-on solution. I think this illustrates the work ethic at Getsafe very well. And of course the fun part of Getsafe: on top of everything else, I was even ‘caked’ that day (laughs).
What does that mean?
Janine: At Getsafe we have a tradition that if someone sees that you left your laptop unlocked, they will announce to everyone that you’re bringing a cake the next day. I still don’t know who did it, but I made (delicious) lemon cake.
How did the internship change you as a person?
Sandeep: When I decided to work in a startup I was pretty clear about the fact that I will learn a lot – and I definitely expanded my skill set. I have for example improved my mastery of SQL (Structured Query Language). In the beginning I was working with much more guidance. But I have experienced that in a startup your opinion matters – even if you are ‘only’ an intern. I could always express my opinion, raise concerns or bring in my own ideas. In the end, it's very motivating to see how your contribution has an impact on the product. That makes me proud. And now I can work much more independently.
Ann-Cathrin: I am also more self-confident now. One of the most important things I learnt was to make decisions in a short time – I really wasn’t good at that before. In recruiting, for example, this is an essential skill. When I have an interview with a candidate who fits well, we simply have to make a quick and clear decision. But the internship also helped me in prioritising my everyday tasks.
Janine: Working in the aggregators team was challenging for me at first. Everything goes fast and unexpected problems pop up that you need to solve very quickly. In the first moment this is overwhelming but then I just saw that everything is manageable and there is a solution to all problems – you just have to get creative. That’s a great feeling that I can take away personally and use in life.
You also want to be part of the team? We are always looking for new talents who want to join the challenge and grow with us!
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