Tech acquisitions often come with a predictable narrative: the moment a fast-paced, tight-knit startup joins an enterprise organization, agility slows down, red tape creeps in, and individual impact gets lost in the shuffle.

At least, that's the assumption.

So when Observe was acquired by Snowflake right before my internship began, life hit me with the ultimate plot twist. Overnight, I was joining a leader building at the heart of the agentic enterprise. Would production move at a snail's pace? Would I be stuck doing busywork?

Luckily, my internship at Snowflake couldn't have been further from that–and my work even became a key piece in bridging the gap between two companies and their codebases.

Switching from a Start-Up to Snowflake

As someone just starting out, I knew I wanted an engineering internship that would offer hands-on experience and mentorship–a place to learn the ropes and build work that actually drives the industry forward. That’s what drew me to Observe in the first place.

When the acquisition was announced, Snowflake’s vision was clear: make observability a native workload on the AI Data Cloud while increasing Observe’s scale, infrastructure, and reach. A win-win for both companies. But as someone who was still learning how to even explain what Observe does (TL;DR it ingests, stores, and analyzes telemetry data), jumping from a team of under 200 to a 10,000-person leader in the AI era felt like a new game entirely.

With more questions than answers about how two engineering cultures would mesh, I soon found myself on a plane from New Jersey to California to find out.

Coding the Connection From One Platform to Another

After touching down in Silicon Valley, the merger immediately became real. And not just in a “sorting out new processes and navigating ambiguity” kind of way. It landed directly on my desk.

I was handed my main undertaking for the summer: migrating Observe’s product to use Snowflake's component library. The goal? Bring Snowflake and Observe’s systems closer together so our front-end visuals and functionality are more seamless.

With my manager Yang Zhao’s complete trust, I kicked off the project. Two elements anchored my work on the platform migration. The first: consolidating notification messages into one unified pattern. The second: standardize "empty state" experiences—or the screens where users see text and a CTA when there's no data yet. Though each sounds simple on the surface, doing this across an entire product requires careful planning and creative problem-solving. By building these clean, repeatable foundations, I wasn’t just fixing screens–I was actively paving the way for future engineers to continue building on top of my code.

Today, my project touches almost every part of the site. Even better, it made an actual difference, which is something I’m really proud of and gave me a newfound sense of confidence.

The Best of Both Worlds

Of course, the integration between Observe and Snowflake wasn’t limited to code. It was also about blending two cultures. And while some might assume there’d be a clash between a small start-up and a big tech company, I found they complemented one another.

Snowflake’s size meant development and networking opportunities everywhere I turned. I attended talks with CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy and CPO Arnnon Geshuri that gave me a broader view of the industry. I got “Snowflake certified,” which is knowledge that applies well beyond an internship. Then add in the Observe team’s close community (which even included a team pickleball outing), and I never felt like I missed out on anything. I got to experience the best of both worlds, all under one roof.

Would I Do It All Over Again?

One of the questions I get all the time from friends and peers at other companies is “Knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again?” My answer is simple. Without hesitation.

Funnily enough, the acquisition ended up being one the most valuable aspects of my internship. It became a masterclass in how to navigate change and build through it. I found a team and two cultures that trust deeply. And more importantly, the merger wasn’t just happening in a boardroom—I was able to influence it directly from my keyboard.

All in all? Not bad for an internship, if you ask me.

Ready to stop observing the AI era and build it with us? Explore open roles at Snowflake.

Johnny Cantos joined Snowflake in June 2026 as a software engineering intern on the Observe team in Menlo Park, CA. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Software Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology.