Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Martens, Facebook
As we enter our fourth year and welcome our 10th cohort of interns, we would like to occasionally share what some of our former interns are doing now.
Sarah Martens interned at Omnium in Fall 2019 and Fall 2020, graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor’s of Math in Statistics in April 2021, and recently joined Facebook as a Data Scientist in New York City.
When she started at Waterloo, Sarah knew she enjoyed math but thought the only careers were in teaching and finance. While she liked the technical aspects, she knew her strength and calling were related to communication. She excels at using data insights to influence and lead cross functional teams into making and implementing fact-based decisions.
When Sarah first interviewed with Omnium she was immediately attracted to the relaxed, friendly culture. She had already accepted a position at Cognite in Olso, Norway for her third internship in the Waterloo co-op program, so she deferred Omnium until her fourth term.
Sarah loved her time in the Omnium San Francisco office during the fall of 2019. The team got to know each other over lunch together nearly every day and often hung out in the evenings. Sarah was impressed that Omnium senior leaders were so accessible. Interns are immediately working on business critical projects and encouraged to understand the big picture right from the start. The job is not just about coding and queries but discerning and communicating implications to clients.
This learning experience enabled Sarah to earn a coveted internship at Facebook during her fifth internship where she worked on the Instagram Stories team. Sarah then came back to Omnium for her sixth and final co-op role. During that time she was able to focus on helping train and develop new interns, further developing her organization and people management skills - which helped her secure a full time role at Facebook in NYC which she began in December - after traveling to Portugal and then throughout Central and South America following graduation.
Sarah loves the fast-paced and advanced technical culture at Facebook. She feels very well prepared from her Omnium experience including learning “that you don’t have to figure everything out for yourself, it’s ok to ask questions.”
Her advice to other Omnium interns is, “If you are open and put all you can into your internship, the benefits you receive back are exponential.” We appreciate Sarah’s contributions and look forward to watching her career progress!