In March, sitting at a quiet corner of UCLA’s Powell Library, I was editing my resume, tweaking it over and over. At that moment, I couldn’t have imagined that just a few months later, I would be at eBay's San Jose headquarters, holding a return offer. The journey from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley was full of challenges, but it taught me lessons that went beyond what I could have learned in a classroom.
One of the most unforgettable parts of the process was the technical interview day. Just as I was about to start my online coding test, Los Angeles experienced a sudden power outage. I had to rush to a nearby café to finish the test. With an unstable internet connection, I switched to writing my code in Notepad and even drew the architecture for a product recommendation system by hand. Later, my manager told me that it was this ability to adapt under pressure that made them see my potential.
On my first day at the internship, I immediately felt the fast-paced nature of the work. A sticky note left by the previous intern on my desk read, "Be careful with Friday's database migration." Sure enough, when working with data from North American sellers, the system crashed. That night, I worked with a colleague from the operations team to troubleshoot. We discovered the issue was caused by a delay in AWS’s East Coast network, which led to a sync problem. It was hands-on experience that no textbook could teach.
The real turning point came in the sixth week of my internship. I noticed an unusually high return rate for Canadian sellers, but the current reports didn’t give enough insight. So, I manually went through the return records, and by the 283rd one, I found the key issue – many returns had the reason "unclear customs duties" because the system wasn’t showing estimated taxes for cross-border transactions. My report led to improvements in the checkout process.
What likely earned me the return offer was a quiet Wednesday afternoon. While other interns were attending a company party, I stayed to help the finance department with quarterly reports. During this task, I discovered that settlement delays for Mexican sellers were due to banking delays during local holidays. This small but meaningful find highlighted my attention to detail.
Looking back, I realize that what impressed eBay wasn’t my perfect GPA or a flashy résumé, but the real, imperfect moments: spotting a logistics issue while helping out in the warehouse, hearing about seller pain points while chatting with customer service, or finding a charger under my desk after a long night. These experiences, far from perfect, were the lessons that shaped my growth and will remain some of the most valuable takeaways from my internship.
Release time:2025-04-27
