Sprinting for success: Partnering with Break Through Tech’s Sprinternship program 

Here at Commvault, we’re passionate about investing in and mentoring the next generation of leaders. This is why we started the new year by partnering with Break Through Tech to sponsor internships through their Sprinternship™ program in January.

Break Through Tech works to propel women and non-binary students into computing degrees and tech careers with a vision to achieve gender equality in tech. Their Sprinternship program is offered in three-week sessions during academic recess and has reached thousands of students, with an emphasis on welcoming Black, Latina, low-income, first-generation college students, and non-binary students to launch their tech careers.

Throughout their time with us, the “Sprinterns” tackled real business challenges and were engaged in our day-to-day operations and company culture while demonstrating their skills. We were proud to sponsor two Sprinternship Programs in January: HR Data Analytics and UX Development, with each program having a unique challenge project.

In partnership with my colleague Scott Bice, Global Head of HR Operations and Services, we oversaw the HR Data Analytics Sprinternship. This opportunity allowed students to work with our Human Resources team to develop an HR scorecard, test data in the data warehouse, innovate new and creative ways to display data and tell a story, and provide input and design on KPIs. Throughout the project, they learned how the engagement level of new hires corresponds to their onboarding experience, team experience, and time with managers. In just three weeks, students learned how to use tools like the data cube, work with Power BI, utilize Excel pivot tables to analyze the data, and tell the story of new hire engagement.

 “The Sprinternship program was truly a sprint; a compact three-week internship focused on challenging each other, mentoring for success in the workplace, and providing experiences in the technology space,” said Scott Bice, “The Sprinterns went above and beyond to embrace the opportunity, drive change, and extract value from the experience, which made it a win-win!”

The UX Development Sprinternship enabled students to develop example product pages within our design system site using our React components. Throughout their three weeks, they also acquainted themselves with our suite of products and design system, referencing existing example pages within our design system site codebase and contributing to the design system codebase. These Sprinterns worked as UX developers and gained a newfound understanding of UX and the vital role it plays in STEM. The experience certainly piqued interest in front-end in those that may not have considered a career in this field. And get this – one of our UX Sprinterns even contributed to our code base, which was published on our design system site!

It’s exciting to see the progress these students make within the three-week program. They not only learn from us, but we learned from them as well! Parisa Bazl, Director of User Experience, said, “The Sprinternship program was helpful for us because not only did it make us really create and polish an efficient onboarding process because of its timeframe, but it also offered valuable management experience to our team members.”

Our Chief People Officer Martha Delehanty was ecstatic about the opportunity to get involved and support Break Through Tech’s mission, saying, “Break Through Tech’s Sprinternship program is fueling next-gen-tech talent around the country! This has been a fantastic way for companies like Commvault to invest in future talent AND get fantastic support to drive current business challenges, a win-win! Shout out to all our amazing Sprinternship participants, as well as Judy Spitz, Founder & Executive Director of Break Through Tech, for her pioneering spirit and leadership.”

We continue to always inspire our next generation of leaders and give them an exceptional experience during their time with us – however long that may be. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Break Through Tech. These opportunities make me excited about our future as we continue to bridge the gap of gender equality in technology and incorporate diverse viewpoints into how we deliver for our customers and partners!