
A brief guide to Tech Internships for CS students - AlexeyMK
http://alexeymk.com/a-brief-guide-to-tech-internships
======
jff
I didn't see this on there, so let me add: There is no reason, in the year
2012, for a CS or engineering student to take an unpaid internship. Depending
where you go, you can expect over $20/hour as a student intern--if you're
doing work of real value, you deserve to be paid!

~~~
philco
...really? It's not about the money..it's about the experience. Granted, an
internship that pays you + gives you the experience you're seeking is a
jackpot, but I would always rank experience over money.

I worked 20 hours a week in college (and my summers) mostly for free, and I
don't regret a second of it. Learned more through those opportunities than
anything that would have paid me.

~~~
jff
I'm coming here from a slightly different angle, as a computer engineer, but
here's how I see it.

If you're going to work at a tiny little startup of 2-3 people, maybe they
can't pay you. Of course, maybe they shouldn't be hiring interns at that stage
of the game. I worked as an intern for a startup that size, though, and they
still paid me $15/hour.

If you're working somewhere larger, it only makes sense that they should pay
you if you're doing work of value. Telling you it's all about the experience
is like that oft-told story where clients want web designers to work for free,
because it's "good exposure" and will "expand your portfolio".

As an intern, I've laid out, soldered, and debugged PCBs, designed and
assembled test equipment setups, made fiber optic cables, tested cameras for
surveillance drones, re-written UIs to use WPF, done significant kernel
hacking, and published several papers, among other things. All of these tasks
generated value for my employers, and it only makes sense that they should pay
me for it.

That's just my 2 cents, though.

~~~
philco
Yep - I agree, you should get yours. Maybe there should be a more robust
culture of giving interns equity at early stage startups. VC's hate cluttered
cap tables...but it would be a fair way to compensate students for their work
if the startup can't afford to pay them.

~~~
scott_s
If you can't afford to pay someone for work [edit: in the US, can't speak for
other countries], it's illegal for them to work for you. It doesn't matter if
they're a student and you call it an internship, even if they get credit for
it.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
What's the purpose of this law? (I would normally expect opposite -- that it
is illegal for you to hire them if you can't afford it.)

~~~
scott_s
Perhaps you misunderstood me, so let me state it another way: you must pay
people who work for you, even if their title is "intern." To do otherwise
circumvents the minimum wage laws.

~~~
wisty
There's often exceptions for interns. I don't know about the US though.

It's a common dodge in Australia to put people on as "trainees". I think it
can be illegal if they aren't really being trained, and there's lots of other
rules (like it must be an educational course requirement).

~~~
scott_s
There is no exception in the US. The only way a company can have an unpaid
intern in the US is if that intern does no productive work for the company -
that is, they don't profit from the intern's labor.

My understanding is that it's actually rare for tech companies to violate this
law. But I have heard that it is common in the publishing industry. See:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2412255>

~~~
wisty
That is an exception - US interns just can't be "productive". FTA: "50 percent
of graduating students had held internships". Face it, most of them will be
doing unpaid clerical work. It will be "educational", in that they will gain
valuable office skills, but it won't really be legal.

~~~
scott_s
My _point_ was that doing what you described is illegal.

------
rabidsnail
Startup internships tend to be semester-long job interviews, which means that
you'll be doing the same thing that the full-time employees are doing but with
more supervision at first. This is a huge win for you, the intern, for two
reasons:

1\. Instead of doing menial grunt work you'll be doing real work for real
users, which is a _way_ better learning experience. Finding out what people
want isn't something that can be taught. You have to make things, put them in
front of large numbers of people, and see how they react. You can get this
experience by building a startup and going on the long march of getting
traction. Or you can work for a startup that already has traction and observe
their users. The latter is obviously way easier.

2\. If you're good you'll probably get a job offer right away instead of an
option to take a job after you graduate. If you're the sort of person that
needs a piece of paper in order to feel like you're worth something this might
not matter. But if you're in it for the work itself, you can save yourself two
years of salary plus tuition.

In a related note to point 1, work for a consumer-facing startup if you can.
The way consumers behave and the way business customers behave are completely
different, and consumers are a lot more fun to work for.

~~~
jsharpe
In reply to 1 (having done internships at Facebook, Google and RIM), all of
these large companies try _very hard_ to avoid having interns do grunt work.
These internships are as much about advertising the company to the intern (and
the intern's peers when they return to school) as they are about getting work
done. In every internship I've done with these big companies, I've had
interesting projects to work on and was specifically shielded from doing some
of the menial work that full timers had to do. I think some of them even had
explicit policies about this.

~~~
apaprocki
I second this.. at Bloomberg we also craft specific projects for interns that
can be completed realistically in the amount of time that they are there and
are genuinely useful either internally or inside an external-facing product.
Much of what is produced by interns is released into production.

~~~
rabidsnail
That's not at all the same to working on the core product. Launching a new
public-facing project isn't going to have the user base that the core product
has.

~~~
apaprocki
I generally meant some kind of digestible deliverable within the context of
the core product. You need to have a well defined goal that is achievable
within the amount of time the person is there, otherwise it will not be a good
experience for the intern or the company. So let me correct... most of what is
produced by interns is part of the core product and released to production.

~~~
ybot
As a former Bloomberg intern, you're right – you try very hard to make sure
interns are working on real projects that are deliverable over the course of
the summer. That said, the projects are often completely isolated from what
will have real impact on users on a day to day basis. This isn't a problem,
per se, but I've had other internships where the work I was doing over the
summer was virtually indistinguishable from that of a new full-time employee.
I imagine this was largely because it was a much smaller company with a much
smaller product.

I don't mean this as a criticism – Bloomberg tries very hard to make sure
interns have a great experience and usually succeeds. But there is a
difference and I, personally, preferred the other experience.

~~~
apaprocki
It also depends a lot on what team you wind up picking. Just speaking for the
interns in our infrastructure team, we try to make them develop things that
have an impact. You should let me know what group you were with so I can
deliver the anonymous feedback :)

------
reso
I'll add that if you do multiple internships, do them at multiple places. At
this point in your career, getting breadth of experience is far more valuable
than depth.

~~~
endtime
Can't agree enough. For me, internships were largely about being able to say
"Okay, now I know I don't want to do that." Places I interned:

* Quigo (acquired by AOL) twice, before and after freshman year

* AMD, after sophomore year

* Goldman Sachs (as a developer), after junior year

* Microsoft, between the two years of my MS

* NASA, while doing my MS

I'm not trying to name drop, but to point out that I optimized for diversity
and to emphasize how valuable this was. I worked for a startup (at two
different sizes), an EE company, a bank, a big software company, and as an
researcher at a government agency. Ultimately this helped me figure out what I
wanted to do after school (work on my startup, then go to Google). I could
easily have ended up doing something miserable (like going to Goldman - which
would be miserable for me, at least) if I hadn't sampled so widely.

------
MaxGabriel
Can someone describe what level of programming competence is needed for
internships? I am really intimidated about applying and think I might drag a
team down

~~~
AdamTReineke
You can't get hired if you don't apply. They'll flush out your skills in the
interview and, if they hire you, they'll find a place where you can use the
skills you have (and learn more!). I landed an internship after my data
structures course.

------
jrubinovitz
I really like the "try to have at least two internships: one at a small start-
up and one at a tech company" sentiment. Internships aren't just for your
resume, they're for you to figure out what areas in the business you like and
to gain a variety of skills and experiences.

------
ylem
I got a lot out of interning (my background is physics) in high school and
college--and in many cases, it was just learning what I didn't want to do.

Now, I work at a government lab--but I like to give back by serving as a
mentor for internships. If anyone is interested (it may be a bit late), here
is a link: <http://nist.gov/surfgaithersburg/>

I have taken on students from CS, physics, math, EE, etc. One student is
applying for grad. schools in robotics, another is looking to join a startup
in Alaska (if anyone has any pointers for him, let me know--he was a math/CS
major and really good--we did some work on using comet to do web-based data
analysis and to display live data from instruments)--others have gone on to
physics grad. school, and one is working in industry. So, some of my interns
have also learned what they don't want to do ;> My projects often involve a
combination of science and programming--but there are other groups that have
been working on android apps, cryptography, etc.

Generally, my goal (and for my colleagues) isn't to crank work out of
students, but rather to give them exposure to research. I try to think of
projects that my interns can own--I usually have several possibilities and try
to match the students with the project. For our particular program, we pay for
housing and a stipend of $5500 for the summer (11 weeks).

For high school students in the area, we also have a summer internship program
(which doesn't pay--sorry), but again, I try to provide the students with
projects that they can own.

One final thing--we are limited to US citizens...

------
tluthra
As a Junior at Berkeley who's had some internship experience, let me add me
two cents worth.

Definitely start looking for an internship during your freshman year. Chances
are almost nobody will call you back, you won't get many interviews, and the
ones you do get you won't be able to answer anything, but all you need is just
to get one person to agree and it'll make your resume look infinitely better
for the following years.

Startups are definitely a good option for an internship. What I see a lot of
the time, especially here at Cal, is that nobody wants to work anywhere
besides Google, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook. People don't bother with any
company that doesn't have a huge name and since many of these students don't
have any prior work experience before applying to these tech giants, they get
rejected. I think that's a huge mistake. I learned more from my summer working
at a startup than a years worth of schooling (and it's not bad learning while
being paid).

One last note, GPA doesn't seem to matter as much as work experience. While it
can never hurt to have a good GPA, I've been on dozens of interviews and not
once have I been asked for my GPA.

~~~
int3
Chiming in as a sophomore from a liberal arts college: you don't even have to
be from a top tech school like Berkeley to get an internship your freshman
year. BigCos _are_ unlikely to call you back, but you do have a shot at
startups. And once you've got some work experience under your belt you'll have
a better shot at the BigCos (and anywhere else, really).

Quick plug: Mozilla is another place which cares more about what you can do
rather than what stage of schooling you are at. They're hiring and they have
an excellent program.

~~~
strlen
I also went to a school nobody has heard of, but haven't really had issues
getting job offers straight out of school (or for that matter, an internship
while a high school student). Of course, as you've said, once you have some
industry experience under your belt, it ceases to matter altogether.

By the way, awesome handle! I'd refer you for an interview based on that
alone.

~~~
int3
Heh, thanks :) though I often get asked why 'int3' when an integer has at
least four bytes...

------
Joshim5
Any advice for high school students who don't have Upperclassman to look up to
for advice?

~~~
lightcatcher
I reached out to Mixpanel (mixpanel.com) last spring as a high school senior
(with no professional programming experience, but a couple of decent sized
projects and a decent amount of experience). I ended up going through their
interview process, getting an offer, and then going out to San Francisco and
working at Mixpanel for 3 months. The experience was indescribably valuable,
and if you think you are experienced, I'd definitely recommend going for it.
Even if you don't think you are experienced enough, I would recommend going
for it, because worst case is you don't have an internship, which is the exact
same as if you don't do anything at all.

The "Who's Hiring" monthly threads are a good place to start looking.

------
doomlaser
I interned at Apple in 2006 and it was a blast. I worked on the short-lived
clickwheel iPod videogames team, one floor below Steve Jobs on the main
campus. Apple has a great tradition of having all of its executives give
informal hour-long talks with open Q&As to each summer's crop of interns.

It was one of my favorite work experiences, having been an Apple fan since
childhood. But it also taught me that I wasn't super interested in working my
way up in a huge company as a longterm career, at least at this point in my
life.

------
jjcm
I work at Microsoft right now. Our intern program is by far the easiest way to
get hired on. Tons of people on our teams are former interns. That's another
thing to take away from this - if you get an internship with a larger company,
you'll probably get an offer if you do well. Use this to your advantage, don't
wait til you've graduated to start looking for jobs. Use your internship
capabilities to give you a leg into the field.

------
miles_matthias
I did a summer internship at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM and had
an awesome experience. I got to hack video cameras, sola panels, and
Wireshark. Also got to see the Trinity site.

My biggest piece of advice with summer internships: go somewhere else! Moving
to Albuquerque for the summer was awesome and gave me a great experience of
what it's like to live on my own.

------
SageChara
Ah hah, the first comic on the page <http://i.imgur.com/zmhnE.png> has
happened to me -_- No matter what though, it still is a lot better than
sitting on the couch applying to clean the bathrooms in Walmart. At least I
have my "In."

------
philco
You're totally spot on Alexey, as usual. Referrals are king...according to our
data at Meeteor.com, every person in your network is connected to 200 people
across 20 different industries. Pretty powerful stuff - chances are the job
you're looking for is just a friend away.

------
jurre
Does anyone know anything more about interning at US companies as a foreigner
that's _not_ studying there? I know you can apply for the J1 visa, but I'm not
sure how hard it is for companies to take on interns on such a visa. I'm from
the Netherlands by the way.

~~~
AlexeyMK
<https://twitter.com/#!/startuplife_in> are a great resource for Finland, at
least -- and I imagine the rules are about the same. Linda & co are great.

------
jhuckestein
I'm surprised that none of the first few comments I read thought engineering
internships might NOT be such a good idea.

I tell every engineering student I meet not to get an internship, which is why
I always have a hard time hiring internships. Instead, I recommend creating
projects of your own, if it's not in IT, it might be in the community, the
student body or some other organization. Try to improve or create something on
your own. As a CS student it's likely you'll find a job after college and
you'll quickly learn all the things mentioned in the article and comments
(including discovering what you don't like).

During your college breaks you're free to be completely self-directed.
Depending on your career choice it'll take a long time (if ever) until you get
that opportunity again!

I think I might b

------
int3
Minor correction regarding OPT durations: you're allowed up to 12 months by
default, and you can get a 17-month extension on top of that if you're a STEM
major.

------
Shengster
Either the article is completely wrong about GPA or I must be an outlier. I
barely had a 3.0 in college and got multiple internships at "Major" companies.

~~~
AlexeyMK
Very interesting - which companies/school, if I may ask?

I think if you've done extraordinary things outside classes (great
internships, awesome research, major open source contributions or own
projects), you don't need a great GPA to stand out. But for most students
graduating today, that's not the case.

~~~
xxpor
Same here. I currently have a 3.2, but before last semester, it was a 3.1 (I'm
done with 6 of 8 semesters). I had a internship with Amazon this summer, and
they invited me back for this winter/summer (8 month coop). Before that, I was
at Philips medical. I know a classmate that also has a 3.0/3.1 and had an
internship with Google this summer.

I don't go to a extremely highly ranked school either.

Just reread the article, and I'm going to call nonsense on the GPA part again.
From my exp, if you have a >3.0 you're good to go, as long as you know your
technical stuff. The only co I have ever had a problem with is NVIDIA, which
explicitly required >3.5.

------
eli
If anyone is looking for a tech (or online marketing) internship at an early
stage startup in DC, send me an email. Address is in my profile.

