With backgrounds in computer science and data science, Taipei youth Cheng-Peng and Wendy joined the 2025 Taipei Youth Overseas Internship Program to head to Los Angeles, USA. They interned as AI Data Science Interns at the global R&D center of the internationally renowned content discovery platform, Taboola.
This immersive experience at the forefront of AI allowed them to develop key projects from scratch while gaining an in-depth understanding of work-life balance and professional culture in the United States.The Taipei youth shared that, in terms of daily life, Los Angeles’ city traffic is not congested, and the absence of motorcycle noise—especially in the suburbs—makes the environment calm and peaceful. Compared to the fast-paced routines in Taiwan, constantly driven by coursework, experiments, and projects, the American lifestyle allowed Cheng-Peng to pause and reflect on life’s direction for the first time. He realized that life can accommodate both thoughtful reflection and rest, and personally experienced the American cultural emphasis on work-life balance.
In the workplace, Taboola is renowned for its cross-national and cross-departmental collaborative culture. The Taipei youth joined the GenAI Scrum Team, where they were responsible for developing an internal LLM Agent tool to support the Sales Team and Account Managers with data integration and presentation generation. Their work involved backend development, data integration, and tool-calling implementation, while also requiring communication with colleagues from non-technical backgrounds, thereby enhancing their cross-disciplinary collaboration skills.
Beyond technical growth, the Taipei youth also learned to confidently communicate and present their work in a fully English-speaking environment, gradually adapting to American workplace culture, which emphasizes open interaction, frequent technical discussions, and a team-oriented atmosphere of encouragement and knowledge sharing.
The Taipei youth expressed that this internship was not only an opportunity to hone their technical skills and apply their expertise, but also a journey of self-exploration in career and life.
Participating in the Taipei Youth Overseas Internship Program gave them the chance to experience the reality of living and working abroad, dispelling any illusions, and strengthened their determination to pursue further studies and career development overseas.