Success stories about student internships often promise the world but deliver little more than coffee runs and busy work. But when a company gets it right, an internship can become the first chapter of a career spanning decades.
For Ghaith Dalla-Ali, joining Solace as a QA Engineer through a student placement program in 2013 proved to be exactly that turning point. Today, he leads the company's engineering division as VP of Engineering for Agentic AI, overseeing a team of more than 250 engineers—many of them, like Dalla-Ali, who started their careers at the company as students.
The Right Kind of Opportunity
"The reason I came back to Solace full-time was the feeling of being a developer like everybody else," Dalla-Ali reflected. "I didn't feel like an afterthought, and they didn't have me building some random project in the corner. I felt like part of the team."
After graduating, Dalla-Ali explored other internship opportunities elsewhere. But something kept drawing him back to Solace: the company had treated him not as a temporary fixture, but as a genuine member of the engineering team. That sense of belonging, combined with mentorship from senior leaders, gave him the confidence and technical foundation to grow into increasingly complex roles.
Solace operates in the data integration space, providing real-time platforms that connect a company's systems so information flows instantly where it's needed. For an e-commerce company, that means inventory updates synchronize across ordering, warehouse, and delivery systems simultaneously. For banks, it means detecting fraud and alerting security teams in real time.
Building Talent From Within
The company's commitment to student talent runs deep. Over the past decade, Solace has brought on more than 150 students, many with support from the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). The non-profit's Work Integrated Learning Digital program provides grants allowing employers to subsidize up to 50 percent of a student's salary during their work term.
Since 2017, ICTC has facilitated over 23,000 work placements with more than 4,000 employers across Canada, creating pathways for emerging talent into the tech sector.
What sets Solace apart is how it treats student developers. They don't work on separate "learning projects"—they contribute to actual product features, fix real bugs, and deliver code that end users experience. "Today, the expectation is that within their first sprint, they've produced something an end user can experience," Dalla-Ali explained. "That could be fixing a defect in our software or working on a feature that customers can consume right away."
Beyond Individual Success Stories
The impact extends beyond hiring decisions. Last year, a group of Solace student interns collaborated during the company's internal hackathon to build an AI Assistant prototype designed to help customers navigate Solace's complex product ecosystem. The chatbot provides instant answers to common questions without requiring users to wade through lengthy documentation.
The prototype won the People's Choice award at the hackathon and has since evolved into Solace Docs AI Assistant—a fully functional, externally facing product serving real customers.
As Dalla-Ali continues exploring how real-time data integration can support artificial intelligence agents working collaboratively in enterprise environments, his engineering team reflects the company's long-term commitment to developing talent from within. About 20 of his 250+ engineers started their journey at Solace as student placements.
For Canadian students considering internships in technology, the message is clear: seek out companies that treat you as team members from day one, not temporary help. The right opportunity can launch a career you never saw coming.
This article is based on reporting originally published by BetaKit. Read the full story on BetaKit.