DataDome Joins the Ranks of Great Places to Work 2024!
DataDome brings in new tech talent to learn alongside experts within the fields of threat research, site reliability, and more through internships.
Devon Walo
Talent Acquisition Manager
It’s that time of year—internship season. As many students begin their search, DataDome is bringing in new tech talent to learn alongside experts within the fields of threat research, site reliability, and more. At DataDome, we value the minds of those interested in tech, and we do our best to foster their development. One way we nurture the professional development and hiring of top talent is through our internship program.
In order to sustain relationships with those entering the world of tech, DataDome partners with various schools like EPITA, Epitech, Ecole 42, and Ada Tech School to promote apprenticeship and internship opportunities. These partnerships ensure we stay relevant in the evolving market and capture interest of upcoming graduates.
What is life interning at DataDome like? Great question! Let’s meet three permanent employees who each began their journey with us as an intern. We’ll explore:
Baivab Basnet explains it was love at first sight between him and computers. Pair that with a hacker novel he read as a child, and Baivab knew early in life exactly what he wanted to do in his career.
His budding passion to fight malicious cyber activity using the power of technology led him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in engineering focused on computer science, followed by a master’s degree specializing in data science and analytics.
Baivab began his internship with DataDome in February 2021 as a data analyst on the threat research team. He found DataDome via Welcome to the Jungle, a multichannel media and job board focused on inspiring professionals to thrive in their careers.
He was searching for a fast-paced and innovative environment, and was immediately impressed with the job specifications, company profile, and video of our Co-Founder and CEO Benjamin Fabre describing DataDome’s journey.
The little kid in me suddenly woke up from his slumber. I had grown to like data and data science, and seeing a posting that perfectly combined data and cybersecurity was too good to pass up. I immediately applied and, as they say, the rest is history!
A key deciding factor for Baivab in joining DataDome was the team he met in his interview process—specifically Antoine Vastel, PhD, Head of Threat Research; Cèline Ly, Data Analyst Manager; and Konstantina Kontoudi, PhD, Lead Data Scientist. He explains the process was prompt, updates were timely, and feedback was shared quickly.
I could feel there was something special about the culture at DataDome. I knew during my interview process this was the right place for me to grow, not only technically, but also individually.
– Baivab Basnet, Cybersecurity Analyst at DataDome
One of the steps in DataDome’s interview process is a take home technical assessment. According to Baivab, the technical assessment is where his learnings began. Then, once his internship started, his knowledge expanded tenfold. For six months, his days kicked off with a team meeting, typically involving laughs and genuine comradery, before jumping into daily data analyst duties. Daily tasks included working on support tickets and analyzing customer traffic for false negatives and false positives, among others.
Once his daily tasks were finished, Baivab worked on his internship project under the guidance of his expert peers. His project focused on data analytics and machine learning (ML), and applying them to cybersecurity practices. For example, he helped create an ML model using data points to recognize if traffic was generated from a proxy or a normal user IP. Only two months into his internship, Baivab realized he wanted to stay with DataDome long term.
This was my first job outside of Nepal, and my colleagues made me feel welcomed. Everyone is always ready to help, to answer questions, and share feedback. Add the thrill of fighting and blocking bots every day, this opportunity was a no brainer for me.
Baivab made his intentions known to management, and the response was positive! Flash forward two years later, he is now a Cybersecurity Analyst driving change in the technical domain he feels passionately about.
Stay true to yourself when searching for a new position. It can be exhausting interviewing and facing rejections, but remember to stay strong and keep going. I found DataDome through the storm, you will find your place too.
Some professionals, like Abraham Guimbao, discover what they want to do through hands-on experimentation. Abraham showed an interest in technology by playing with PCs early in life, and once he picked up programming, he realized it was his passion. He always considered DevOps to be an interesting career path, but was convinced during his studies that he would become more of a classic developer.
He began his journey with DataDome in 2021 as an intern on the site reliability team, an experience that solidified his decision to pursue DevOps further.
Abraham knew he wanted to become an integral player on the DataDome team before he applied. He liked the product, the challenge, and the culture he heard about through mutual connections who encouraged him to apply. He originally applied for a permanent position, but realized he lacked some of the required technical expertise. So, he proposed the idea of a six-month internship—and his proposal was accepted!
Being certified or coming from a good school isn’t as important at DataDome as being a curious, hard-working, kind-hearted, helpful, or knowledge-seeking coworker.
– Abraham Guimbao, Site Reliability Engineer at DataDome
Abraham joined the team, was introduced to everyday DevOps tools, and expanded his skills in cloud computing, networking, scripting, documenting, planning and organization. Now, almost two years later, Abraham is a Site Reliability Engineer at DataDome, focused on new features and automation projects.
Most decisions at DataDome are collaborative, especially hiring. Toward the end of Abraham’s internship, a meeting was set with various team members to discuss potential next steps.
In the end, we agreed on an offer both parties were satisfied with and I was overjoyed.
Abraham felt DataDome invested in him and supported his success by never closing any doors. If he is interested in learning a new topic or collaborating on a certain project, leadership trusts him with the increased responsibility. Through his experience with DataDome, Abraham has broadened his technical aptitude in Shell and Python scripting, Terraform, Ansible, K8S, Docker, Operating Systems, Cloud paradigms (AWS, GCP and others), databases, and networking.
To anyone searching for an internship, Abraham encourages you to apply without hesitation—especially when it comes to your dream opportunity—and to be confident in your capability to learn and grow in the right environment.
DataDome will give you everything you need to be up to speed and technically ready for any possible challenge.
Similar to Abraham, Yashovardhan “Yash” Thevalil began with a different career path in mind. He always enjoyed science, regardless of the field, and it was (and remains) important for him to stay up to date on various disciplines by watching educational videos in his free time.
Following his preliminary studies, Yash entered CPGE (Classe Préparatoire aux Grande Ecoles), a two-year intensive educational program in France, designed to prepare students for master’s degree enrollment. He decided to try something new and focus on mechanical engineering. Yash liked the work, but soon realized something was missing—the excitement he felt from computer science.
I built my first computer when I was seven years old and started programming when I was ten. I increased the level of courses I followed until I reached AI/ML—that’s when I really started having fun.
The realization led Yash to complete his master’s in artificial intelligence (AI) and ML. It was during his master’s degree studies that Yash interned with DataDome.
Yash had a unique experience by interning on two teams at DataDome: one during the first year of his master’s degree and another during his final year. The first team he worked with was the engine team as an R&D software engineer intern, and he later found his home as a data scientist on DataDome’s data science team.
Before joining DataDome, Yash put our bot and online fraud protection to the test. He tried to bypass DataDome’s solution on different websites to see if our claims about unparalleled accuracy and zero compromise were true. He remembers that websites protected by DataDome were “impossible” to scrape, even at very slow speeds.
My dream was always to find a job where I had a purpose. At DataDome, we fight for something good and have fun while doing it. The team is amazing.
Yashovardhan Thevalil, Data Scientist at DataDome
During his internships, Yash spent time reading research papers to learn about state-of-the-art bot detection. He played with basic bots to collect signals and find the best ML approach to classify humans versus bots, which led him to start blocking malicious traffic in real time. He learned that situations don’t always go as you expect.
Every device (computer, smartphone, etc.) that connects to a website has thousands of different hardware and software combinations. Some signals may be broken, and others don’t behave the way you anticipated, which is when you have to find solutions to work around the problems. Yash doesn’t have to worry about getting stuck during the process because he knows he can lean on his team to help when needed.
My best advice to anyone searching for an internship is to not give up. You may doubt yourself, think you won’t make it, but you do have what it takes. Use this mindset to push yourself.
DataDome’s team environment is built on a foundation of passion, growth, customer centricity and team spirit. Across all titles and positions in the company, mutual respect and support in advancing each other’s professional goals remain consistent, thanks to our core values. We recently announced our $42M Series C funding with a key focal point being sustainable hypergrowth, which includes continuing to hire across the globe.
If you are interested in a career or internship with DataDome, we encourage you to check out our open positions, or even submit your resume through a spontaneous application!
