My Summer Experience at Hortonworks

September 12, 2015

So this past summer I worked for a company called Hortonworks.

The whole experience this summer was much more than I had ever expected to come from this internship. It really opened my eyes (and a few doors!) for my career and other years to come.

This summer I interned for a second time with the Hortonworks security team where I helped to develop enterprise-grade security for the Hadoop ecosystem with Apache Knox

Apache Knox is a gateway server (also called a proxy) that helps to provide perimeter security for hadoop services. You can access many Hadoop services over HTTP, but instead of accessing them on a variety of different servers and ports, Knox brings all the services together and allows for a single point of access to all of the services.

This allows a single point for security authentication, authorization, and auditing to occur as well. This makes aggregating usage and logon data very easy.

Knox provides many other features as well. I suggest reading up on it over at the project page.

The other security project that is a part of the Hadoop ecosystem is called Apache Ranger. It helps govern access to Hadoop services through poly management. I did not directly work on this project but I felt it should at least get a shout out.

I found the experience that I gained over this summer invaluable as I learned not only about becoming a great software engineer, but I also developed professional skills as well.

My mentor was probably my biggest motivation in this entire job. He coached me through many, many situations and was always willing to lend a helping hand in my work (so long as he wasn’t busy!). Not to mention he had the patience of a saint. With his help I was able to learn and reflect on my experiences. He questioned and challenged me to do the best work I could - while always providing helpful criticism and guidance.

Hortonworks as a company had a better culture than I could have imagined. Everyone that worked here was very intelligent and knowledge in their respective areas. It really seems that Hortonworks wants to employ the best of the best, the cream of the crop. And it really shows in the software and product that they provide to their customers.

Everyone at this company is passionate about what they do - which also goes a long way in seeing the work that they produce. I am very excited to see where this company is heading in the near future. I know it will be a good place.

I commend Hortonworks and our Hortonworks Internship Program coordinator Christina for putting together the intern program and providing everyone this summer with a chance to gain valuable experience in a small, but very quickly growing, company. We were able to get a taste of Silicon Valley and what life like is there. As well as participate in many company events and make us feel like we were part of the team too!

The whole experience was really enjoyable. I especially liked that we had the chance to meet with many VP’s, founders, and other high-profile employees. It really made us feel like we mattered to them. Especially the fact that those employees helped judge our project presentations at the end!

Overall my experience this summer was spectacular and I really can’t wait to see where Hadoop goes.