So last month around 12th December I accepted an internship offer from a German startup as a Backend Engineer. I still can't digest what has happened.

They had posted the role on Internshala, and it had a take home assessment (simple Flask based login using Docker) followed by an interview. I cleared both and happily accepted the offer (for 3 months). The pay was OK (far better than the Internshala average).

Note - I did not recieve any official joining letter on a company letter head, just an email that I had to accept. But this was OK as this was a personal project and the MVP was what I would be working on.

Now when I started building the APIs and getting used to the AWS workflow (did not even use GitHub, was forced to use AWS Codecommit), and started fleshing out their platform, working with the frontend interns, attending daily standups, I was having a good time as I was working to build a product. Everything was going great, and my employer did not seem to have any problems with me either.

Fast forward to yesterday (12th January) I wake up to an email from the employer saying that he "Unfortunately had to terminate my contract and that I should have recieved my stipend for the time I have served". I was kicked out of the Slack, Confluence and AWS for the company. ALSO, I WAS THE ONLY OUT OF 5 INTERNS WHO WAS LET GO.

This was so sudden and unexpected that I could not make sense of what's happened. So to make sure I joined the company video call that very day (probably one of the only things I still could access). He made the other interns leave and said that I was let go not because I'm not good enough or anything, but because the number of hours I could devote (I had said 4-6 per day) were less and the backend system was in backlog. I said "OK", and confirmed that I had got my stipend and left. My brain went limp and I did not cross question him.

It shattered me and I still think if he wanted me to increase the time I could devote, he could have just asked me to and not fire me straight away.

But I'm going to take this as a learning experience and look for better opportunities. This will only motivate me to work harder and get the best offer I can.