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Navigating College and My RapDev Internship

How RapDev's Culture Shaped my Real-World Experience
3
min read
|
by
Jackson Donahoe
August 29, 2024

As a student navigating through college and trying to stand out from the rest, the best way I could do that was by putting myself into the “real world” as soon as possible. I believe that the best way to learn is through hands-on experience.

The idea of college ending in less than a year and the pool of people who are going to go out searching for jobs is a big deal. I wanted to separate myself and start building my career as soon as I could. I wanted to take this opportunity to learn, grow, and become the best version of myself. This led me to seek out an internship that could provide me with the real-world experience I was craving.

Beginnings at RapDev

When finding RapDev, I was introduced to Tameem through the Datadog world. I introduced myself to him and told him I was looking for an internship this summer. He set me up with the team and introduced me to the amazing people that I surround myself with today. After landing myself the internship, I could not wait to get up to Boston and experience RapDev HQ in person.

I am a firm believer in culture and being surrounded by people who have an amazing drive. I could understand that and see it through the interview process on Zoom. From my first day, I wanted to have a connection with everyone. I started planning meetings one on one with everyone on the Datadog team to understand their drive and ask them questions about how I could succeed while also learning this new-to-me world.

The transparency that the company has is truly remarkable. Everyone understands that each person grows at their own speed and no question is a “dumb question.” Everyday I ask questions and coworkers don’t stop explaining it until I fully understand. Thanks to this, I have exponentially upleveled my knowledge on Datadog and RapDev this summer. I will be forever grateful for this experience and for my coworkers who have all become my mentors. I look up to everyone in this company.

Growth

Because of my time with RapDev, I’ve grown to be the best version of myself. During this summer I was an Inside Sales Representative. I would do the majority of sales outreach as we launched new integrations or when offering new services and offer assistance to the people I reach out to to help install and answer any general questions that they have.

Within my first month I was invited to attend my first industry conference, DASH in New York City. Being able to tell attendees face to face how RapDev can help their observability goals is truly an amazing full circle of proving my knowledge and understanding of the company. At DASH, we showed demos of RapDev’s 40+ integrations on the Datadog Marketplace, talked about our new service “Managed Datadog”, and answered questions that people had.

At the beginning I had a small understanding of what Datadog is, but I had an amazing team that gave me projects that would help teach me along the way while also being able to complete them on time. I have learned key information throughout this summer that is going to help me strengthen my career. The environment that Tameem and the team created are core memories for me, this summer is something I will never forget.

Written by
Jackson Donahoe
Boston, MA
At RapDev I’m an Inside Sales Representative for Datadog. I am returning to finish up my Senior year at North Carolina State University and graduate in Spring 2025. Outside of RapDev my interests are any sport possible to play, and playing video games, and hanging out with my family and friends.
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