Software Internships at Ginkgo

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Software Interns at Ginkgo

Our summer software interns make outsized contributions to building the software that makes it possible for Ginkgo to program cells. This software ultimately helps build organisms that do amazing things such as creating nutritious foods without animals, creating new flavors and fragrances, synthesizing affordable medicines and helping to make agriculture more sustainable by growing crops without fertilizers.

Our 2019 summer interns came from diverse backgrounds and universities across the US, with an equal number of men and women represented. Each intern was responsible for participating in the development of an impactful project that helps accelerate the pace of engineering biology, deploying it to production and presenting their work in front of all stakeholders.

[caption id="attachment_3685" align="aligncenter" width="1233"] Luisa presenting her work to stakeholders[/caption]

The results were amazing. Let’s take a closer look at some of the projects they participated in:

• A React UI was developed that makes it easier for scientists to prototype and refine biological lab services available at Ginkgo’s Foundry, which is kind of like an App Store for biology. This UI is awesome as it empowers scientists to experiment and learn quickly while keeping their focus on the science.

• A project made it possible to chain together multiple automated robotic workflows using React and GraphQL. Consequently it becomes easier to design, build and test complex workflows that run our laboratory experiments.

• A Python API to our DNA design software was worked on to further automate the creation and ordering of a huge number of DNA designs.

• Our DNA Sequencing analysis pipeline was worked on helping it to scale more easily. It leverages many modern technologies including Airflow and AWS Batch to process terabytes of data daily.

Our interns exceeded our high expectations. We really had two main goals—to help our interns learn tons on their quest to become stellar software engineers and have them make impactful contributions that they help deploy to production. We achieved these goals in large part though our agile processes that structure development in meaningful two week sprints and by providing mentors that help guide the growth of the interns. Another major component is our commitment to using first class tools such as React, GraphQL, Docker, Python, Django, Flask and AWS cloud technologies that significantly streamline development.

[caption id="attachment_3684" align="aligncenter" width="1564"] Luisa and Leah[/caption]

So Ginkgo’s 2019 Summer Intern program was fantastic and fun and a lot came together to make it a big win. The most important part, however, were the interns and mentors themselves—they were awesome! We are looking to build on this success in our 2020 Summer Intern program—the only missing part is you. Are you up for the challenge? If you are looking for a summer internship, apply here. Are you a software engineer interested in mentoring and using first class tools to build the software for programming life? Sign up here!

[caption id="attachment_3682" align="aligncenter" width="1564"] Playing with dogs in the dog room![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3681" align="aligncenter" width="974"] Coding inspired by the art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3683" align="aligncenter" width="1234"] Ginkgo has an awesome view with prestigious visitors like Old Ironsides[/caption]

Posted by Jamie Cho

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