Get to know Sage Intacct’s summer interns
One of the best things about summer here at Sage Intacct is the fresh new faces we get to meet. It’s when our newest bunch of interns join us as part of our Sage Intacct Summer Internship program—and some of you may have already met them in your video meetings. A few are already diving into pretty hefty projects, gaining valuable real-world experience, while others are ramping up and excited about what they’ll get to do here. I caught up with our interns to learn more about them, what their experiences have been like so far, and what they hope to gain from their time at Sage Intacct. I also learned some lesser-known fun facts about these talented people.
Ray Zhao, Product Marketing Verticals Intern
Ray Zhao brings his passion for building and creating new things to the Product Marketing team this summer. After completing his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley where he majored in Political Science, he started two companies—an Amazon eBay business that sold computer peripheral supplies to resellers and a real estate investment business. He considered being a high school teacher or getting a business degree next—and decided to go the MBA route at USC. Ray is excited to be gaining experience in the vertical market strategy at Sage Intacct and creating something that really resonates with the customer. “I hope to get a better understanding of the product marketing science. I’m thankful to finally be formally in a product marketing team. I think the biggest benefit is I’m going to see people like Tina, Rick, and Sandi—they’ve been in the industry for years and have that expertise and I’ll be able to learn directly from them and their best practices. I think it’s going to be very valuable.” Some fun facts about Ray—he once pitched a little league no-hitter but says they still proceeded to somehow lose the game. In his free time he enjoys hanging out with his wife and two kids, going to the beach, jogging, and watching and analyzing sports.
Emily Chee, User Research Intern
Emily Chee just finished her junior year at UCLA majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Digital Humanities. This summer she is a part of the User Research team and is helping with usability studies and foundational research as the team builds out their onboarding and in-app learning experiences. She said the journey to Sage Intacct has been heartwarming. “When the pandemic hit, I started thinking about my career more and what I should be doing and started building my LinkedIn and getting connections and just networking in general. And now I’m here, it just feels so rewarding.”
While at UCLA, she served as vice president of a Health Initiative Club. She is passionate about spreading awareness about how important it is to take care of your mental health. She thinks first-generation college students like herself are especially vulnerable as they feel pressure from social standards, friends, grades, and careers. Emily’s interest in mental health provided her the space to gain greater empathy and a desire to understand people’s behaviors and backgrounds, which translates to her interest in how people interact with products and improving their experiences.
When she is not at work, Emily enjoys journaling as a form of meditation, as well as decorating cakes, and creating music on GarageBand.
Indu Gaddamadugu, Product Management, Core Foundation Intern
Indu Gaddamadugu will be a senior at USC in the fall majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering with an Information Systems focus—or as she explains, how to make the world a more efficient place. This summer, she is a Product Management intern in the Core Foundation group. “It’s definitely a great place to be an intern because you’re encouraged to ask questions. There’s the mentality that there’s never a stupid question, which I think allows you to learn more and I’m super excited to be here.” Indu said she looks forward to the big Product Management meeting every Wednesday where she can observe people’s dynamics and how they work with each other. She thinks it’s a great place to learn about what other people are doing in their teams and understand the progress being made within Sage Intacct.
Outside of work and school, her favorite thing to do is power lifting, which she has been doing since she was 15. Her ultimate passion is empowering women. She is the Panhellenic President at USC, which she says has made her understand what female empowerment truly means. “You’re going to always bring women up with you any time you move up and they’re going to always be supporting you. That’s kind of my ultimate goal with anything I do. Any success I have I want a group of women to share it with and help them, too.”
Indu also dabbles in concert photography—and one of her favorite photos is of Billie Eilish staring directly into her camera.
Pat McAteer, Product Marketing Horizontals Intern
Pat McAteer is originally from Greensburg, Pennsylvania and made his way to California as his interest in the tech industry grew. He is currently earning his MBA at USC and working with the Product Marketing team this summer. He hopes to learn more about artificial intelligence, customer problems, and the nuances of marketing strategy. He is glad he sought out a Product Marketing internship as he really enjoys the collaboration, creativity, and writing aspects of the field.
Before attending USC, Pat worked five years in education as a 7th and 8th grade special education teacher in Louisiana and then as a school administrator. While an administrator, he wanted to teach teachers how to use software technology, which inspired him to work in the tech field. He is thrilled to be at Sage Intacct: “Sage Intacct was my number one choice in companies because I had experience using it. I knew a lot of the features and a lot of the ways they were selling the product and so when the recruiter contacted me, I got admittedly too excited.” In his free time, Pat enjoys cooking, especially cajun-creole dishes, and playing and watching football and baseball. He is passionate about reading American history and education reform. One of his little-known talents is that he is a pretty good singer and was in a high school musical and a school ensemble with his high school choir.
Melikah Hayes, Content Documentation Intern
Melikah Hayes graduated from San Jose State University where she majored in English with a concentration in professional and technical writing. She is excited to be working with the Content Documentation team this summer and is gaining valuable experience on a Help Center project on our Sage Intacct website. She became interested in technical writing when she saw billboards and directions on the back of boxes and thought, “Someone is writing this.” She loves the field as she can be a “teacher” and wants to make sure our customers are satisfied and can instantly understand the product.
So far, her most memorable experience at Sage Intacct is a team picnic where she got to meet her coworkers in person at the Rose Garden in San Jose.
Melikah revealed a little-known fact to us that she wanted to be an actress as a child and have her own show like actress Amanda Bynes. In her free time, she enjoys hanging out with friends and family, going to the beach, amusement parks, and the mall, watching movies, and playing with her dog Reese Pieces.
Justin Chung, Product Management, Subscription Payment Intern
Justin Chung will be a junior in the fall at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee majoring in Human and Organizational Development and minoring in Data Science. He said he likes to think of Human and Organizational Development as being a major about human-centered problem-solving.
This summer he is ecstatic to be a part of the Product Management team working on subscription payments. He said one thing that really drew him to Sage Intacct was his talk with his hiring manager, Winifer, and several product managers during the interview process. “The interview was more like get-to-know-you and career advice rather than an interview and it was a great learning experience. With that support, I was drawn to the internship.”
After graduation Justin hopes to become a Product Manager in the tech industry. During his time at Sage Intacct, he hopes to learn how a product manager thinks and operates and works with others. “Right now, I think of myself as a sponge and hope to connect with as many project managers as I can and learn from my mentors Iris and Winifer.
His most memorable experience is sitting on the weekly Product Management team meeting with all the product managers and seeing them engage in overall product strategy for the company. He said their specialties really show a dynamic and diverse environment and they are very collaborative.
A little-known fun-fact about Justin—he is in an acapella singing group called @doublemajorvandy.
Riju Narang, Product Marketing, Graphics Design Intern
Riju Narang just finished her sophomore year as an undergraduate at UC Davis double majoring in Graphic Design and Managerial Economics. She is a graphic design intern on Product Marketing’s Creative Team. Riju learned about Sage Intacct on LinkedIn and felt her introductory accounting knowledge and design background were the perfect fit for the company. Riju is eager to learn and grow as a designer in a corporate setting this summer and is looking forward to critical feedback on her work.
Graphic design has been a natural path for her as she has always enjoyed doing creative things. She started taking art classes at age 7 and continued through high school. “Over the years it’s always been my way of relaxing, and I’ve enjoyed different kinds of mediums–oil painting, acrylics, crafts—jewelry making, hand lettering, brush lettering, and quilling. Being creative has always been an important part of who I am so I think that really allowed me to develop that creativity that I’m able to use in design,” Riju said.
JJ Suttle, Product Management, Core Accounting Intern
JJ Suttle just finished his first year of Northwestern University’s MBA program. His undergraduate degree is from Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, where he majored in Economics and Accounting. He is grateful to be a part of the Product Management Core Accounting team this summer as he said getting an internship was a very competitive, grueling process.
JJ brings several years of real-word experience to his internship as he was an external auditor for several years at Deloitte and in corporate finance at a tech company where he did a lot of budgeting and forecasting. While there, he became interested in Product Management so he went back to school to get his MBA and pivot into the field. His goals at Sage Intacct are to absorb as much information as he can so he can learn what it takes to be a product manager and see where he can best use his strengths and accounting background most effectively to contribute to the team.
Outside of work and school, JJ has an ambitious goal to visit every national park. He has been to 16 so far and has 43 left to go—the next park on his list is the North Cascades in Washington state.
Aalaap Patel, Product Management, Applications Intern
Aalaap Patel may still be working towards his undergraduate degree as a junior at UC Riverside, but he already has a vision for his future. After earning his degree in Information Systems with a minor in Accounting, he wants to become a Product Manager so he can use his skills to help shape a product holistically—and then earn his MBA. This summer he is on the Product Management Applications team, hungry to learn about the inner workings of FinTech such as the thought processes behind decision-making to add new features to products.
Aalaap learned about the Sage Intacct Internship opportunity last September when he entered a case competition at Intuit where he had to do a competitive analysis on the market for QuickBooks. During his research Sage Intacct came up.
A little-known fun-fact about Aalaap is that he was a competitive skier for 8 years. He took a break after a ski accident and kept himself busy with photography. Today, he enjoys both skiing and taking candid photos of friends.
Adnan Ahmed, Product Management, App Foundation Intern
You could say Adnan Ahmed’s ties to Sage Intacct began three years ago in Las Vegas. Adnan first heard about Sage Intacct back in 2018 when he was staying at a Las Vegas hotel where Sage Intacct was hosting an event. Fast forward three years—and while searching for a Product Management internship on LinkedIn, he came across the company he had taken note of in Las Vegas and applied for the role.
This summer Adnan is working on an audit trails project for the Product Management, App Foundation team. “It’s pretty interesting and fun. I was a little bit nervous, but after a while it’s nice, and I feel like I’m learning a ton because the people are so nice,” Adnan said. He is hoping to get experience on shipping features—from writing requirements and getting them designed—to seeing a product deployed to production.
In the fall, he will be a senior at Norwich University in Vermont, where he is majoring in Cybersecurity. He hopes to transfer his technical knowledge of cybersecurity to a Product Manager role one day as he really enjoys working with people across different teams.
He is passionate about all things technology because while growing up, everyone around him was an engineer building cool things like startups.
Will Robins, Business Intelligence Data Analyst Intern
Will Robins is heading into his junior year at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business earning his undergraduate degree in Information Systems. He grew up in Palo Alto surrounded by tech companies and had an early admiration for advanced technologies. In high school, he played baseball and enjoyed the statistics and data management of the sport, which helped spark his interest in analytics in college. He is grateful for his internship at Sage Intacct and is eager to learn from his analytics team. He said the people at Sage Intacct are so welcoming. “Everyone on my team—and even not on my team—are here to help me get adjusted and want to offer advice as much as possible for me to have success,” Will said. He’s excited about working on a project to judge the effectiveness of past campaigns to see which ones were most effective and turn into deals down the road.
Will is passionate about artificial intelligence and advanced technology. He enjoys drawing and sketching, which may be an inherited trait as his grandpa was a comics artist.
We have a uniquely diverse and talented group of interns this summer and are so excited to have them onboard. At Sage Intacct, we look forward to the fresh perspectives and ideas they will bring, and we hope their experiences here are memorable and invaluable as they forge their new careers.
If you are interested in joining the Sage Intacct team, explore our open career opportunities here.
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