Reflections of a Pulumi Intern

Albert, a computer science student at the University of Washington, reflects on his internship experience at Pulumi, a company specializing in modern infrastructure as code. He first encountered Pulumi at a career fair and was intrigued by its approach to cloud infrastructure management using familiar programming languages. Despite initial concerns about the internship's continuity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pulumi transitioned to a virtual setup, allowing Albert to work remotely on his project, crd2pulumi—a CLI tool for generating typed Kubernetes CustomResources. Throughout the summer, Albert gained valuable insights into real-world software engineering, overcoming challenges related to debugging and code integration while appreciating the balance between guidance and autonomy provided by the company. Although the remote format limited social interaction, Albert valued the flexibility it offered and the exposure to new technologies and practices. He concludes with a newfound awareness of the vastness of the cloud ecosystem and gratitude for the opportunity to learn and contribute at Pulumi.