The third and final post in a three-part series that provides an in-depth look into Grammarly’s internship program. In this post, we will spotlight our interns in the Kyiv hub.
What does it mean to intern at a global AI company founded in Ukraine? In this post, you’ll hear from two of Grammarly’s Ukrainian interns, learn about the projects they worked on, and discover how they found community and pride in being part of a Ukrainian-founded company.
The projects
Ivan
Ivan Kulynych joined Grammarly’s revision quality team, which develops new models for grammar and writing suggestions. In his project, he built a new feature that allowed users to specify their writing preferences (e.g., using Oxford commas or avoiding passive voice) so that the AI agent can follow these guidelines when providing writing suggestions. This would help individual users and organizations, such as businesses and schools, customize the writing suggestions they receive from an AI agent to match their preferences.
The first step was to detect if the user input was a legitimate preference (i.e., not an offensive or unrealistic preference). Initially, the team aimed to train a BERT-like model designed specifically for this task, but they struggled to achieve accurate performance due to the insufficient training data. So they pivoted to using regular expressions and reasoning models, which proved more effective.
Working on a project across all stages, from scoping to user testing, had a significant impact on how Ivan approaches building software. “Instead of overplanning everything or getting stuck on the original version of an idea, I started building with more flexibility. It made me faster as my focus shifted from getting it perfect to making it useful,” he explained.
Mykhailo
Mykhailo Tyshchenko joined the shared product infrastructure team, which builds tools for other internal teams to use. For his project, he migrated existing Grammarly services to a shared Kafka-based messaging system, simplifying maintenance and reducing infrastructure costs. This is especially important with Grammarly’s recent acquisition of Coda and Superhuman, which significantly expanded the infrastructure surfaces the team must manage.
However, the migration proved more challenging than expected because there was a lot of code duplication across services, which made the code more prone to errors and difficult to maintain. To solve this, he built a separate Java library that standardized configuration logic and a pipeline that automatically tested the library for errors and published new versions to Grammarly’s internal repository. To guard against regression, he implemented Kafka-related observability metrics and dashboards that allowed developers to quickly detect and fix issues.
The results have been substantial: Mykhailo has migrated two services, with another two in active testing, and his library has become a core part of the team’s infrastructure. The experience has improved his confidence as an engineer. “After my first deployment to production, I felt a lot more confident and started taking more initiative, asking questions, and proposing solutions. It made me more productive and strengthened my collaboration with my team, who really appreciated the growth!”
Connected from Day One
While each of our Ukrainian interns worked on different teams, they all credit the same thing for their success: the shared curiosity and support of their coworkers. “From the very beginning, I felt like I was part of the Grammarly community. People weren’t just welcoming and supportive; they made space for questions and actively engaged with you,” Ivan said.
Mykhailo echoes this sentiment: “Grammarly’s intentional about creating spaces where everyone can share their interests. I’ve joined the readers, board game players, and pet lovers community on Slack and the various social events, some of which were held from the other side of the world.”
This peer support was also complemented by formal mentorship. Mykhailo explains: “My mentor Yuriy Voznyak really supported my idea of building a new library and helped me implement the functionality through live coding sessions. He always treated me like a peer, which made me feel valued and gave me the confidence to push myself and contribute more.”
Pride in a shared heritage
Working for a Ukraine-founded company added another dimension to their experience, one that showed up in the same everyday interactions that make Grammarly’s community so special.
“Being from Ukraine myself, I noticed Grammarly’s Ukrainian roots right away. I see it in the supportive language, internal Slack conversations, and how people talk about the company’s origin with respect,” Ivan explained. A simple moment during onboarding—receiving his new-hire gift box—revealed how this commitment goes deeper than words. “It wasn’t just standard swag. Many of the items were intentionally sourced from Ukrainian brands that actively support defenders and relief efforts. It showed me that Grammarly doesn’t just acknowledge its Ukrainian roots; it actively chooses to support them in meaningful, values-aligned ways.”
Leadership reinforced this connection during company-wide events. “During an intern leadership event, Grammarly’s Chief People Officer, Kenny Mendes, congratulated Ukrainian interns on joining Grammarly and spoke about their courage and strength. It was a heartwarming moment,” Mykhailo said.
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We wish our interns the best of luck in their future endeavors. If you’re interested in next year’s internship program, stay tuned for updates on our career page.
