Intern Chloe improves Sentry integration health

Chloe Ho, a student at Bernard College, spent the summer of 2023 as a software engineer intern with the Sentry Issues team. We asked her to share a little about what she worked on and why she chose Sentry for her internship.

Improving the health of Sentry integrations

My main internship project was to detect, disable and notify users of broken integrations. Sentry has integrations for Slack, GitHub and other platforms that can become broken without users being aware. Integrations can become broken when users disable integrations from the integration’s interface or incorrectly set up integrations leading to slowdowns for other users. To solve this problem I created a database using Redis to record integration request responses and used the database to detect, disable and notify users of broken integrations. I was responsible for writing the technical specifications and presenting them to my team as well as implementing my project. Engineers across Sentry were excited for my project since broken integrations have created recent incidents. I worked with my mentor and manager to create project milestones and a rollout strategy for our users.

While I implemented my project I had some unexpected challenges due to differences between Sentry’s production and development environments, leading to unexpected errors when deployed. After discovering this, I collaborated with the engineering operations team to ensure my project was compatible with the production environment. This project was my first time working with Redis databases but I was able to quickly learn what I needed to know and whenever I had questions or was confused, I had people to support me.

Before starting my project, I wrote a new method for looking up Slack channels when creating alert rules. Previously when someone tried to create an alert rule to a Slack channel we would look up the channel by paginating through all the channels in an organization. This would cause rate limit errors since we had to continuously make request to the Slack API and prevent users from setting up alerts for Slack channels. I used a different method of the Slack API to directly look up Slack channels which dramatically accelerated setting up Slack channel alert rules. I solicited feedback from my mentor, manager, and project manager to create a video showcasing my solution at the monthly, company-wide Show and Tell. I was super excited and proud to share my work so early in my internship and received congratulations from Sentaurs outside of my team.

As my internship comes to a close I am sad to leave but grateful for this opportunity. The projects I worked on at Sentry were impactful and intellectually stimulating. The community was extremely supportive and excited about my learning. Engineers cared about my projects and celebrated my progress. I am excited to take this incredible experience into my future endeavors. Thank you Sentry for an incredible summer!

What was the internship like?

My internship was an amazing experience that helped me to learn and grow as a software engineer. From the start, my team and everyone at Sentry were very friendly and welcoming. My mentor and manager were eager and quick to help me. I was quickly onboarded, becoming familiar with the company processes and beginning to learn about my project. Whenever I got stuck or confused about something I always felt supported which created a great learning environment.

During my Internship, I was treated like any other software engineer, which helped me to get a real taste of what working in industry and at Sentry would be like. I participated in team brainstorming and my work was important and impactful, giving me real responsibility and allowed me to provide value to our users. I had to deal with unexpected situations and challenges when implementing my project that I was able to overcome with help from my team. I also got to participate in company events, happy hours, and offsites like going bowling and visiting the SF MOMA which helped me to meet Sentaurs from other teams and feel a part of the company.

As part of the internship program, we had events that allowed us to connect with other Sentry Interns and learn from new grads that were recently in our position. I really enjoyed the "College to Career AMA", where I got a sneak peak of what the transition to life after graduation would be like. I also got to get coffee with Sentaurs who have been at the company for years and are further along in their careers which helped me to learn about other roles.

My internship at Sentry was an amazing learning experience. My fellow Sentaurs and interns were friendly and supportive. The community was welcoming and helpful and supportive of my success. My projects mattered to the company and our users. Not only was I able to make an impact at Sentry, but Sentry made an impact on me. I have learned a lot, had fun and became a stronger engineer at Sentry. I can confidently say that interning at Sentry was a great decision that I have never once regretted.

Why Chloe chose Sentry

I first heard about Sentry from a Sentry software engineer, Cathy Teng, posting about the internship program in Rewriting the Code, a women in tech network we are in. I reached out to her to learn more Sentry and applied. As I learned more about Sentry from interviews and research I found the product interesting and that my personal values aligned with Sentry’s. The size of the company would make it easy to meet other engineers and get mentorship and would be a great learning and working environment. The software engineer who interviewed me seemed genuinely happy and excited to go to work and felt understood by leadership. My recruiter, Stephanie, was incredibly helpful and responsive, answering my questions and working with my offer deadlines. Sentry was also flexible and accommodating about the dates of my internship which was important to me since I was studying abroad right before my internship. The friendly Sentaurs and straightforward interview process indicated that Sentry was where I wanted to be.

Make sure you check out some of the openings we have here at Sentry for internships and full-time positions.