I applied to 600+ jobs. Got rejected 5 times by the same company. Then they offered me my dream internship.Hi Wonderers, it's been a grueling couple of months while pursuing my MBA, and I couldn't catch up too well here. Yes, I've been silent, but I've been working really hard to make ends meet after moving countries, leaving little time left for writing blogs. I want to keep my passion for writing up and running, and here is a step towards that initiative.A small promise to myself is to write at least one post a week. There is so much happening in my MBA that deserves more, but I'll try to catch up here every week now that I'm a little less stressed on certain aspects which I'll cover more here.If you are new here, I'm Badri. I enjoy cooking, tech, startups, fitness, traveling and gaming, and genuinely love to share knowledge.In the last 8 months, some major events chronologically are:I met with an accident while riding my bikeI moved to USA for pursuing my MBAI launched and shipped HolidayMarket.aeMet my cute niece and my family in USAInterviewed after applying to 600+ positions based in US for internships/full-timeCracked two offers - I took one for the summer (absolutely!)And my MBA is also about to conclude after the internshipWow! That's a lot, right? Yeah, not sure exactly how I survived.So let's dive into each one as separate blog posts later. In this one, I'm going to talk about my offer from Cloudflare for a Product Manager intern in summer.The Rejection SpreeI applied online. Nothing magical in how I put my best foot forward. Late October and early November, I saw opportunities at Cloudflare through LinkedIn and a tool I use called jobright.ai.I went ahead and applied to a main role and also adjacent roles: data scientist intern, data analyst intern, MBA internship, and yes, product management intern.Out of all these applications? I got rejected to all of them. Even the product manager intern role.However, the feedback for the PM intern rejection was that I was not open to relocate—hence a rejection. I wasn't too happy about it. I thought I ticked it right, and here's where jobright.ai made a mistake while filling my application. So I went back and reapplied again, but this time I did it manually.The Turning PointCut to January. I got an update from a recruiter inviting me to take a challenge which involved getting hands dirty with Cloudflare's open tools with an assignment brief to help make it better through my critical feedback while building the challenge.This challenge wasn't easy. It took me two days and a total of roughly 4 hours, which involved using a coding AI agent like Claude Code and git and CF tools which I'm totally unfamiliar with from scratch. This entire process was very doable, and I had help from Claude (which is allowed to use for the challenge).The GauntletAbout 2 weeks later, I was congratulated and invited to meet the hiring manager. This hiring manager is also a director at Cloudflare for product management. His questions were related to my background, behavioral questions, and also understanding technical fit. Some mentions to share: Cloudflare wanted to hire technical PMs, and they valued how technical and business expertise can be shared at work. The challenge made me work technically quickly, and the next steps were more about my fit in the team.A week after that call, I was invited to meet two Cloudflare team members separately—one of them was a Senior PM and another was a Systems Engineer, both assessing my fit into the team.Then came the final verdict. Everything was done from my part. I waited and prayed.The CallThe recruiter emailed me the following week on a Friday afternoon to ask for my cell number and details to call. I didn't jump to conclusions and shared them. Anxiously waited over the weekend and was ready on my emails for the same.I got a call at 2 PM and was told: "Congratulations, you are being offered the internship." Details were shared. My heart raced and sunk in a few seconds. This was THE MOMENT I waited for six freaking years. My brain stopped functioning on the call, and I asked for an email confirmation.And then I got a confirmation email.A shoulder felt less heavy. A future seemed real. A feeling that can't be explained.The lesson? Sometimes the company that rejects you five times is just waiting to see if you'll show up a sixth time. Persistence isn't pretty, but it works.— Adios Wonderers.