Indesign,LLC’s core asset is our people. We are not a company that makes and sells our own product or provides some niche service. We’re a group of individuals who work together as a close-knit team to bring our clients’ ideas to life. Indesign’s building, labs, and equipment are all important tools of the trade, but it’s the people who are the heart of our company. We believe this is one of the reasons we were voted as Indiana’s Top Workplaces for the 11th consecutive year. It’s the people of a company who create its culture. Culture can make a place special; it can create an environment that you want to go to and be around every day. Or it can make a place horrible. At Indesign, we’re very proud to have a culture of teamwork, integrity, respect, and excellence. We know that to maintain and grow that type of environment, we’ve got to continuously seek out people who thrive on variety and new ideas. That’s what makes our internship program so important.
Our Internship Program Goal
Indesign’s ultimate goal for the internship program is to find students who are a good match for full-time engineering positions after they graduate. By hiring students for the summer, students get an unparalleled experience doing real work in the industry and making valued contributions to products that will go out into the wild, while we get the chance to fully get to know the student and help them figure out what type of work they ultimately want to do.
We’ve found that a student that has finished their junior year of an engineering program is well-equipped to actively contribute to projects when under the supervision of one of our senior engineers. Our interns are treated as full members of a project team and are not given “busy work.” They work on real projects and are highly valued not only by our team members but also by our clients. As a member of project teams, interns are in constant and direct communication with clients and often establish strong relationships with those clients during the course of a project.
We typically hire one electrical engineering intern and two embedded software engineering interns each summer. These are always paid internships. Each intern has a dedicated mentor to work with on projects and to answer the many questions that are expected and encouraged. Each intern will also have a “coach”, who is a member of our management team and is responsible for deciding which projects interns will be assigned.
Hear From A Former Intern
Though it’s valuable to hear about internships at Indesign from an Indesigner like me who’s been here for a while, it’s more meaningful to hear from an actual intern. Sam Elkin was a summer 2021 electrical engineering intern from Purdue University. He led several key efforts on a variety of projects over the summer and his contributions were highly valued by his project teammates and clients. Clients and teammates that he worked with were very sad to see him go at the end of the summer, but we are thrilled that Sam will be returning next summer as a full-time electrical engineer! I asked Sam if he could share with future interns about his internship experience:
Why did you select Indesign for your internship?
“I knew from my coursework that a position designing and working with circuits would be something I’d really enjoy doing, which is what led me to apply for the internship in the first place. Speaking with Indesign employees at a career fair and during my interviews helped cement the idea that what Indesign does matched well with the type of work I wanted to do, which is why I decided to accept the position.”
How many different projects did you work on over the summer and what type of work did you do?
“Over the summer I worked on four different projects, and through those projects, I got to see many of the different aspects of what Indesign does. This included running tests with Indesign’s hardware as well as third-party hardware, creating schematics, assisting with PCB layout, and modifying existing hardware. I also got the chance to freshen up my software skills by doing some data analysis through JavaScript and MATLAB.”
What part of your internship was the most challenging? What was the most unexpected?
“The part of my internship that I found to be the most difficult was finding a balance between working to solve a problem myself and asking for help. As an intern, I felt like I was given a lot of independence in completing the tasks I was given, but that also meant that I needed to be very aware of how efficiently I was spending my time. This also plays into the part of my experience that I expected the least, which was how I was an important part of all the project teams I was on. In my previous internship, I often felt like the tasks I was given were either redundant or unimportant, so if I made mistakes there would be no significant cost. But at Indesign, I felt that the work that I was doing was always relevant to the success of the project, which was a very welcome change.”
Can you describe your interaction with clients? How often was it?
“Interaction with clients was another aspect of interning at Indesign that was very different than my previous experience, where I did not have the opportunity to interact directly with clients. But for this internship, I participated in weekly client calls for each of my projects, where I often presented the results of my work directly to the client. This was a very positive part of the internship experience for me because I felt like it gave me a better sense of what I would be doing if I returned for a full-time position.”
How would you describe the culture of Indesign?
“If I had to pick one word to describe Indesign’s culture, I think it would be welcoming. From the first day of my internship, I felt like I was a valued part of the team from how easily everyone accepted me. This also meant that I never felt nervous about asking questions, and I think my experience was better for it.”
What are you most looking forward to when starting full-time at Indesign?
“I think the part of being a full-time employee that I’m the most excited for is getting to see the full life cycle on the project. While I had the opportunity to see the many different stages in that life cycle by participating in so many projects, I really want to be able to see the end product of a project that I was a part of from the beginning.”
About Indesign, LLC
Indesign, LLC is a multi-discipline engineering design firm that provides full turnkey electronic product development to allow clients to get their new product ideas into the market quickly. We offer complete product development capabilities, starting with a product concept and finishing with a ready-to-manufacture design. We have an ISO-certified product development process and a proven track record for on-time, on-budget, high-quality product realization. To learn more about us, our services, or our internship program, please contact us at (317) 377-5450 today!