My Six Months as an HR Intern at OakMega
The coolest thing about being an HR intern at a tech startup is that you keep pushing past your limits — and discovering you’re capable of far more than you imagined.
Jimmy ChanIntern
To Infinity & Beyond
On the afternoon of May 7, 2024, I had just gotten back to the management library from lunch with friends when OakMega called with an offer — less than a day after my final interview. Honestly, I was far more nervous than excited. After all, not many people start interning in their first year of college. But six months here taught me that those worries were completely unnecessary, and that I could create far more possibilities than I’d imagined.
The OakMega crew
I spent six months as an HR intern at OakMega. My main responsibilities included standardizing the company’s interview process, visualizing quantitative and qualitative employee data, strengthening our employer brand, and running workshops. HR roles at tech startups often wear many hats, and mine was no exception — but along the way, I got to try a lot of new things.
Team building in Yilan, May 2024
Learning Looker Studio from scratch, pitching a project to TFT, even producing a company image video — new things can be exhausting and frustrating at first. But as I kept experimenting and digging for information, I realized these were experiences most internships never offer. And when the final product came together, the sense of accomplishment was beyond measure.
Visiting TFT to discuss a partnership project
“Venture outside your comfort zone. The rewards are worth it.”
— Rapunzel, Tangled
The coolest thing about being an HR intern at a tech startup is that you keep pushing past your limits — and discovering you’re capable of far more than you imagined.
In mid-August, we held a GPT workshop. Besides a dozen-plus OakMega employees, we invited seven people from NRI to join us. I had to serve as the speaker explaining how GPT generates text — but before the workshop, I knew next to nothing about Gen AI, and I had very little confidence I could prepare my part in just a week or two.
A workshop co-hosted with NRI employees
Thanks to encouragement and support from Irene, Porsche, and Wayne, I kept asking colleagues about GPT, researched online, and experimented on my own. In the end, we pulled off a workshop none of us will forget.
Two months later, we ran another GPT workshop at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). This time there were even more participants, and I served as the event PM as well as the instructor explaining how GPT generates text. I also improved the workshop’s industry use cases and the hands-on GPT prompting section. On the high-speed rail ride home, beyond the exhaustion, what I felt most was a sense of accomplishment at pulling it off — and gratitude for my teammates’ support.
It turns out that once I actually tried, I found out I really could.
NCKU x OakMega AI Workshop
Comparing a company to a college club might sound odd, but for OakMega, it fits perfectly. What struck me most about working here was how a flat organization makes communication effective and brings people closer. One of OakMega’s hallmarks is “WFA” (Work From Anywhere), yet we never feel distant. There are plenty of chances to exchange ideas at work, we get serious when it counts, and there’s none of that negative top-down bureaucracy. The rest of the time, chatting with each other makes you forget the pressure of work. We’re like a college club working hard toward many goals, while also being friends who can talk about anything. My time here was often exhausting, but truly fulfilling.
Six months felt long: every time I hit a setback, I still had the time and the chance to pick myself up. But it also felt short — in the blink of an eye the internship was over, with so much I still wanted to do and so many memories I still wanted to make here. I’m grateful to my colleagues for their support and care over these six months, and glad I had the chance to explore HR at a tech startup. I’m moving forward with new skills and new ideas!
