Growing Up Tractor Zoom: How Internships Can Turn into Lasting Careers

Most internships follow a familiar script of shadowing a few key employees and working on a side project that may or may not ever ship. And then they wrap up with a goodbye lunch. 

Tractor Zoom does things differently. Interns work on real products, sit in real team meetings, take on real responsibilities, and (unlike at a lot of companies) some come back or get hired on right after as full-time employees. That’s a testament to what kind of company Tractor Zoom is: A fast-growing AgTech startup where every person on the team genuinely matters.

We sat down with four members of our team who started as interns and decided to stay on board. Their stories span engineering, sales, and everything in between — and together they paint a picture of what it’s actually like to build a career at Tractor Zoom.

The Tractor Zoom internship: Rewarding work from day one

The Tractor Zoom internship program runs each summer as a paid, 12-week experience based out of its West Des Moines office. But beyond the logistics, what sets it apart is the philosophy behind it.

Interns here aren’t handed busy work. They’re embedded with their teams, contributing to live products and real initiatives from the start. Engineering interns write code that ships to customers. Sales interns get on the phone with actual dealership prospects. UX and product development interns work on features used by the people who buy and sell farm equipment across the country.

The result is interns who feel the weight and the reward of real ownership of their work. And when summer ends, quite a few don’t want to leave — and we don’t want them to leave, either!

Meet some of the Tractor Zoom interns who have become full-timers

In the past couple of years alone, four college interns with four separate paths have dedicated themselves full-time to one promising AgTech company. Here’s what they had to say about their experiences and why they stayed.

Isaac Meyers, Software Engineer

Team: Engineering

Internship period: Summer 2023

Isaac came to Tractor Zoom as a senior at Iowa State, already working a software engineering internship at another company in Ames, Iowa. He was drawn here by a cutting-edge tech stack and the chance to work at his first startup. What he found exceeded his expectations.

Along with a fellow intern, Isaac was tasked with leading development on a feature that let users decode serial numbers from tractor equipment. Together, they planned the project, wrote the service request tickets, did the development, and watched it eventually merge into production. That level of ownership stuck with him.

When it came time to decide on full-time work, Isaac didn’t have to think long. The people made the decision easy.

“The thing that made me stay was definitely the people. It’s a really young crowd and everyone’s super willing to learn. Everyone gets along super well — bowling leagues, pickleball, even a tier list of every restaurant we’ve gone to for lunch. You have a team that’s willing to hang out outside of work and just be friends, not just coworkers. That’s something that’s really cool and honestly really rare.”

His advice to incoming interns: let go of the pressure to be perfect and embrace the chance to learn.

“Come into your internship ready to ask questions and don’t be afraid to fail. This is the place to do it. You don’t have that same weight of responsibility — all you’re here to do is learn and do your best.”

Q: What surprised you most about the startup environment compared to your previous internship?

I honestly had no idea what to expect. The company I was at before was much older, so I wasn’t sure what an internship at a startup would look like. But when I got here, I got to be part of regular meetings and learn a ton, both about Tractor Zoom and about software processes I hadn’t seen before.

Q: How has your day-to-day changed from intern to full-time?

It’s actually pretty similar: Stand-ups in the morning, picking up tickets, working through blockers. The big difference is confidence. As an intern, I held back on giving feedback to senior devs. Now I know the codebase and the domain well enough to contribute in a lot more ways, and I’m just more efficient overall.

Max Brown, Software Engineer

Team: Engineering

Internship period: Summers 2022 & 2023

Max found Tractor Zoom through sheer curiosity and a cold outreach. While studying computer science at Gonzaga, he reached out to the Technology Association of Iowa looking for interesting startup founders to connect with. Tractor Zoom’s CEO, Kyle McMahon, made the list. After a conversation about vision, mission, and what it takes to build a company in Iowa, Max was sold. He did two summers as a Tractor Zoom intern before joining full-time.

From his very first week, Max was making changes that customers could see. The AI serial code reader feature he and Isaac Meyers built together became one of the most memorable examples of intern-led impact.

“The most fun project I got to work on was building a feature in our mobile app where a user could take a picture of a serial number underneath the tractor. We used AI to identify it, read it, and fill it in for them, which massively increased the speed they worked in our app. I did not expect that I was going to deploy a feature to our app and have it be used by real customers.”

What made Max want to stay went beyond the day-to-day work. He saw Tractor Zoom as a company worth betting on, and a place where his contributions would actually move the needle.

“No matter what position I held, from intern to full-time, I’m making an impact on the mission and that growth. I love that Tractor Zoom quickly gave me the autonomy to do real work. At a startup, we want — and frankly need — you to do impactful work because we’re all trying to hit these big goals.”

If you’re weighing a startup against a bigger company, Max has thoughts on that too.

“The best part of working at Tractor Zoom is that it is just fun and these people are incredible to work with. We have fun and we also delight and find joy in being successful and growing the company forward.”

Q: What did you expect startup life to be like going in, and what actually surprised you?

I knew startups were agile and dynamic, but I was even more surprised by how fluid it actually was. I’d heard from classmates about corporate reporting structures, then I sat down at a table with five or six engineers and they just sent me out to investigate something no one had scoped yet. There was this really high degree of autonomy, and what might look like chaos from the outside is actually very purposeful flexibility.

What advice would you give to someone on the fence about applying for an internship here?

Submit the application. And I’d really encourage you to explore what a startup has to offer over a big company. We need you to do real, impactful work because we’re all trying to hit big goals. I don’t think you’ll find the same sense of autonomy and ownership anywhere else.

Spencer Ehrenhard, Sales Development Representative (SDR)

Team: Sales

Internship period: Summer 2024

Spencer was at Iowa State studying business economics with a background in ag economics when he stopped by the Tractor Zoom booth at a career fair almost by chance. Other companies had been quick to brush him off, but Julie Johnson, Director of HR, talked with him for half an hour and made him feel genuinely welcome. That first impression turned out to be a preview of the whole experience.

As a sales intern, Spencer was calling dealerships, gathering information on their current tech stacks and processes, and building the foundation for real CRM conversations. By the end of the summer, he had seen a prospect go all the way from cold call to customer.

“I got to call prospects, but it was more about learning the perspective of the equipment dealership, standing in their shoes and understanding some of the struggles they deal with day to day.”

The culture at Tractor Zoom was what ultimately sealed the deal for Spencer. Specifically, it was the people who made him feel at home from day one. And his advice to future interns? Don’t sprint past the learning phase.

“Just absorb as much as you can. There’s a lot of content and information out there on how we support dealerships, and it’s a lot to take in — so just dive in. The faster and quicker you learn, the faster and quicker you can speak to customers about what you’ve learned.”

Q: Was there a specific moment or experience during your internship that really defined what it’s like to work here?

Two weeks in, the engineering team was getting together after hours and a member of our Integrations team came over and grabbed me and just said, “Hey, come on over.” I got to sit and hang out with everyone, and it hit me that every single person here is genuinely kind. It made me feel like I belonged, not just like I was passing through.

Q: Did the internship prepare you for a career in sales more broadly, beyond just Tractor Zoom?

Absolutely. I made a ton of cold calls, which built confidence fast. And working with equipment dealers taught me that people aren’t hostile — they’re friendly, they’re direct, and if they’re not interested they’ll just tell you. That opened my eyes to sales as a whole. Handle the rejection, understand where customers aren’t seeing value, and bring that back to the team.

Omran Shareef, Software Engineer

Team: Engineering

Internship period: Summer 2025

Omran was a computer engineering student at Iowa State when he crossed paths with Isaac Meyers at an engineering career fair. Isaac (who had just started full-time at Tractor Zoom) was representing the company at the booth, and what he said was enough to get Omran to apply. Turns out, the intern-to-recruiter pipeline is alive and well.

Unlike some of his colleagues who had dedicated intern projects, Omran was dropped directly into his team’s day-to-day workflow. And he preferred it that way.

“As an intern, one thing I got to do was hang out with the team and grind out a problem we were stuck on,  even after work hours. As an intern, you’re pretty used to just doing your eight hours and going home. But there was a moment where I got to hang out with the team and really lock in on something together.”

After his internship, Omran went to work as a software developer at John Deere. But when a full-time opportunity at Tractor Zoom came up, he jumped at the chance.

“One thing that really attracted me to come back to Tractor Zoom was the growth going on here and wanting to be a part of that. I’d only been gone about a year and there were already new teams, new faces, new products. So I know it was never going to get boring.”

His advice for candidates who might be second-guessing their readiness: apply anyway.

“Apply regardless of whether you think you have the skills or not, because there are a lot of good people here who will answer all your questions. I ask tons of questions. You’ll learn more in this internship than in any course — and that’s very valuable.”

Q: How did your internship experience at Tractor Zoom compare to your previous internship?

My first internship was IT work at an electrical manufacturing company, so not much real development. Tractor Zoom was my first heavily technical internship, and I learned more here than in any class. 

Q: What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed between being an intern and being full-time, even just one week in?

Ownership. As an intern, in the back of your head you know it’s temporary and that there’s an end date. Full-time, I’m locked in. My team is responsible for this product and I’m not an intern anymore, so I actually have responsibilities to uphold. It makes you think long-term, and honestly it makes you feel a lot more a part of it.

What’s the common thread?

Ask any of these four what made them come back, and the answer comes from the same place: the people, the pace, and the sense that their work actually matters.

At a company like Tractor Zoom, where every contribution moves the needle and teams are ambitious enough to try new things in the ag industry, an internship can be the beginning of a real career. These four team members are proof of that.

Learn more about who else makes up the Tractor Zoom team, or if you’re ready to find your place at the company as a full-time employee, apply for a current open position today.