
Intern at a YC Company - snowmaker
https://blog.ycombinator.com/intern-at-a-yc-company-2019/
======
protomyth
I really like this line: _Finding summer housing in the Bay Area is usually a
big chore, so we’re excited to be rolling out a program (more details soon)
with some great YC companies to make it easy_

That will open up the internships to a larger group of students.

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QML
There should honestly be a Common App for internships: one application, a
standardized coding challenge, and then interviews. TripleByte seems to be
trying to do something similar for full-time, but they don't cover
internships.

~~~
dumbfoundded
I think the Common App is awful. Many of my friends out of high school applied
to a few colleges. I applied to 17. Why? The cost of a college app is ~$75.
The Common App turns careful consideration of where you want to study into a
monetary game. I was lucky to afford it. Most people can't.

As for TypeByte, I think it's okay. My girlfriend went through it, passed with
flying colors and got many interviews. The problem is jobs like colleges
differ vasty.

Perhaps a better solution for the problem is a meaningful certification. Then
you can simply focus on the specifics of the role and company to see if it's a
good fit. Determining qualification is a solved problem in many other fields.

~~~
ascar
So you are saying the current system is better, because rich students have
better chances as they can afford more applications?

The current college system in the US is entirely flawed. College education
should be free and slots given based on merit and not money. What you pointed
out is that this bad system already starts at the cost for an application.

University education in Germany is basically free (~300€ per year) and
application costs are printing 2-3 pages and sending them in or bringing them
personally. And that's only for the final step, everything else is already
online.

~~~
igorkraw
Some slight corrections/comments (source, German who went through our
education system)

1\. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything
out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC 2\. While I was studying they
abolished the study fees. What you pay is student unions dues, which depending
on which state include a public transportation ticket, access to additional
medical consultations and career services and other stuff 3\. We can also
apply for federal study aid, depending on need. I worked and had parents who
could support me, so I "only" got around 6000€ for all of my studies (plus an
additional 3000 for studying abroad in Switzerland for a while) of which I'll
have to repay 50% interest free, less if I can pay it off in a lump sum. 4\.
This is a very social-democratic German perspective, but I'd argue education
is a right and should be given to everyone, limited only by the available
resources. Conditional on limited resources split it between prioritising need
(e.g., increasing social mobility) and prioritising ROI (in a rough sense,
merit)

As an aside, I will be happily corrected if this is wrong, but I remember
reading that in 2012 Germany graduated almost as many engineers (3 years
bachelor plus master graduates, most of whom did a bachelor before) as the US
(4 year bachelor with most people not going for the master of not as part of a
PhD, if I understand correctly?). While I'm sure you can't exactly equate
these numbers, with population numbers of 82e6 Vs 300e6 this seemed to me like
the German system was doing something right - especially given German
engineers _seem_ (?) to be well qualified in the international comparison

~~~
ascar
> 1\. Depending on the university, you might not even have to print anything
> out, I applied to TUM purely digital IIRC

I'm also a TUM graduate. At least a few years ago, you had to send in or hand
in your signed final application papers (not even all documents) to the
"Immatrukulationsamt". But so much of the process is purely online, that you
might have forgotten about it.

~~~
igorkraw
Ah, true, at the very end you print out a form, sign and then mail it or hand
it over. Thanks for jogging my memory

------
saagarjha
February is a bit late for summer internships in my experience–most students
have probably already accepted one already for fear of not having one over the
summer.

~~~
2arrs2ells
+1. It's a little insane how early the internship "season" is these days (I
know interns who signed offers in Aug/Sept 2018 for summer 2019 internships).

Maybe YC & YC companies can bring some order to this internship arms race by
establishing clear application/decision timelines for YC companies? My sense
is February is too late, but September-October applications for November
decisions might work well.

~~~
QML
Can we just push deadlines back to December? That's around the same time as
most college apps are due, and they're basically the same process.

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moosey
> They’re all well-funded, growing rapidly, and have competitive salaries for
> interns.

Excellent. Unpaid internships should be illegal.

~~~
baby_wipe
No they shouldn't. If someone wants to work for free they should be able to.

And forcing paid internships will reduce the number of internships available.

~~~
seizethecheese
I agree with this, despite the resistance it seems to be getting.

There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two
consenting parties where there's no obvious and severe externalities. I don't
see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company, both of which should
be free to make their own decisions.

~~~
nindalf
How do you feel about the minimum wage? Do you think workers who flip burgers
or stock shelves have the bargaining power to reach a fair wage? In such a
negotiation who will blink first, the individual, replaceable worker or the
multi billion dollar corporation?

~~~
ttoinou
It's not always about flipping burgers or waiting tables and even those
"basic" jobs needs training. Some employers don't want to deal with untrained
staff, so increasing the minimum wage or making internship illegal is going to
do more harm than good and the people you want to protect will have a harder
time getting trained on the job

------
applecrazy
This looks like a great opportunity! I am a graduating high school senior and
will be enrolling in an undergraduate Computer Science or Computer Engineering
program in the fall. Is it still possible to apply through this application?

Thanks!

~~~
snowmaker
Yep! I did an internship at a startup after my senior year of high school - it
was awesome.

~~~
applecrazy
Thank you so much!

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imedadel
Can I apply from outside the USA?

~~~
mesaframe
Yes, few countries are listed in the blog

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kevindeasis
My younger brother is in his second year of comp sci. I was wondering if has
enough skills to be considered. If not, what do you guys recommend for him to
work on?

This is a copy of his CV: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1shLwzU4egTm-
DSt9eBRfhun87_r...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1shLwzU4egTm-
DSt9eBRfhun87_rVwGrF/view)

~~~
aboutruby
He could easily get an internship at Facebook (non-YC) or maybe Airbnb (YC).
He definitely has enough skills to get a good internship.

~~~
fakename11
It's hard to get the attention of the recruiters at those companies in my
experience.

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metalgearsolid
Why do I have to be a student to qualify?

~~~
snowmaker
What's your current situation? While exceptions exist, internships are usually
designed for full-time students who are supposed to go back to school in the
fall. If you don't have a hard commitment like that, companies would typically
prefer to just hire you full-time.

~~~
metalgearsolid
I've been working full time as a mobile developer for 2 years after dropping
out of college nearly immediately and attending a bootcamp the subsequent
summer.

~~~
badfrog
Why not apply for full time positions at these companies?

~~~
metalgearsolid
I don't qualify.

Edit: I should elaborate. There are companies out there offering internships
that I would die for. I don't mean FAANG stuff or Big 5 or whatever. I'm
talking small shops like Teenage Engineering or medium sized business like
Ableton or Native Instruments. I have been put in an awkward position where I
have experience working full time as a developer, but I'm not necessarily
learning anything or developing my skills. It sucks not being able to qualify
for a certain subset of entry-level opportunities because I'm not apart of the
college/university institutions. I will be keeping my head up as the position
I am in may just be what forces me to be extraordinary at what I do.

~~~
sokoloff
I don't want to be too blunt, but I think the barrier you are seeing is 25%
real and 75% in your head.

Some of the best coders and ops people I've ever worked with either never went
or never graduated from college.

If you've been working 2 years as a full-time mobile dev, you're qualified for
a full-time role. We pay our interns industry salaries, just for 3 months
instead of 12. We do take a little bit of extra care to give them a good intro
to the company and make sure we take them to a factory in their first (and
only) 3 months and have a few intern events over the summer, but otherwise,
it's 80-90% like having a software developer job. A few places will have some
HR/recruiting drone 86 your resume because of no college. Many will not and
most hiring managers who are/were programmers won't care.

tl;dr: Apply anyway (for full-time).

~~~
pmiller2
Although OP's situation is different in that they have 2 years of experience,
I can definitely say that companies won't just hire someone full-time with
zero experience anymore (even into "new grad" or junior positions). College
internships weren't always a thing; a career switcher might not have any tech
experience to put on a resume, and a lot of companies and recruiters don't
even look at personal projects. It's a very tough row to hoe starting from
zero and getting a job as a developer.

~~~
sokoloff
Agree that it's no longer like it was back in 1998-early 2000 (where all you
needed was a pulse it seemed), but I believe that competence and capability
will generally overcome obstacles.

Would it be easier if you graduated 6-3 from MIT? Sure! Would it be easier if
you already had 2 years at Netflix? Sure! You have to play the cards you're
holding at the moment, though.

Side note: I've also heard the complaint recently that companies and
recruiters are being too selective _by asking_ about open source or personal
projects, so there are definitely some out there. We don't have a set formula;
I'm happy to talk about you, your goals, your skills and abilities, and
anything else that comes up. If you've got a great personal project, let's
talk about it.

------
DanFeldman
I interned at a YC company as my first internship (LeadGenius, YCS11) before
they had this organized a program. I had no idea what YC was before I applied,
and learned about YC and HN later. The YC dinner was great, ended up making
some connections and eventually applied to YC Fellowship two years later and
went through myself. The YC network has been great for me, and it all started
with an internship within a portfolio company.

I'm at another YC company, Starsky Robotics now, and we're open for interns!
Come join and build self-driving trucks.

~~~
throwaway999997
(Throwaway for what I think will be obvious reasons). I also had my first real
internship at a YC company in the Summer of 2012 (think they were either a
YCW11 or YCS10 company - they are long since dead). Was the summer after my
junior year - had been doing some hackathons and side projects and was really
into the startup scene in general. I still remember that my interview
consisted mostly of explaining what NodeJS was (the phrase "event loop" was
used quite liberally) and then after going back and forth with another company
decided to fly out to Mountain View for the summer. Was pretty excited, as I
didn't have too many other competing offers and seemed like an interesting,
product focused company.

And I must say - what an absolute disaster of a summer. Lived in a large
concrete structure where the CEO, my boss (amazing person who I credit with
making the summer bearable) and 9 other interns lived. We slept in a room with
5 sets of bunk beds that led to a kitchen on one side and a back room (kind of
a garage like space) behind it. Days regularly stretched from 10am to 2am. My
pay was room + board and then $400 a week on top of that, which I found out
was more than the other interns were making. Too much crazy stuff happened to
go into exact detail but a representative listing of events(some of it good,
some of it bad):

1\. Somehow many of the interns + full time staff (across eng + sales) were
either D1 Wrestlers or semi-professional martial artists. I actually credit
them with getting me into strength training for the first time. In the back,
garage-like room, however, was a wrestling mat. Many, many drunken wrestling
matches were had in that room, which while no one was forced to participate
in, everyone tended to get in on. I was definitely not on the more athletic
side of the group and was put into many, many armbars.

2\. One of the interns was very new to the software industry and a bit older.
Moved to Mountain View from I think it was Kentucky. Super nice and jovial guy
and a super hard worker (we played a lot of basketball that summer and did
some condition training. He was not the most in shape person, but one time did
sprints until he threw up), but also had a lot of emotional issues. More than
once he got incredibly drunk and had to be talked down from hurting himself
and others by the other interns plus staff.

3\. My 21st birthday coincided with the very start of the internship. To
celebrate, I chugged an entire (smaller) bottle of whiskey, and we proceeded
to run around our neighborhood incredibly drunk, including a stop to Safeway
carrying around a mannequin one of the founders owned. At one point snuck into
someone’s backyard and chilled in their pool for a while. It was honestly a
very memorable time.

4\. One of the founders was going through a divorce at the time and sometimes
did not handle it super well. One night he showed up at the work/live space
(he had his own apartment nearby) drunk as hell and begged for one of us to go
to SF to go clubbing with him. I, being a very dumb intern, acquiesced as he
was pretty much refusing to leave unless somebody went with him. How did we
get to SF you ask? By driving in his BMW of course! We hit easily over 100 on
the 101, him blind drunk, but in the end made it out alive. Sadly, the club he
had wanted to go to had closed at that point so we just ate at a Denny’s
instead and went home.

5\. And the last thing I’ll end with is the CEO. What an absolute scumbag. He
was a physically very large human and he knew it. He would throw his weight
around to intimidate those around him - thankfully all the other full time
employees (who were awesome) were no slouches themselves and so were able to
at least somewhat contain him. At one point, halfway through the summer, he
ordered all the interns to give a status update on their projects. We all
thought it was a fun way to show off what we had been working on and prepared
accordingly. After the talks, he yelled at us that we weren’t pushing hard
enough and that if this is how seriously we took our jobs, some of us would be
fired. For a project that of course we had no way to make go faster or get
more direction on (and for a lot of us was our first internship!). I forget
why this next part happened, but he tried to organize a MANDATORY company
camping trip the week before it was supposed to happen for us all to bond. The
entire company revolted, and basically told him to go to hell. He was a lot
more calm for the rest of the summer, and then (from what I remember) was
basically forced out later that fall for utterly failing to do his job.

So many other things happened (we had the world’s weirdest office manager who
at one point made out with an intern against his will and then felt very hurt
that he wasn’t into her, despite the fact she was at least 20 years his
senior) that I have seriously considered trying to get everyone back together
to do an oral history as something, as I’m sure it was a time that no one will
ever forget. After that I basically came back to school and did not code on
the side for 3 months as I was so burned out, but eventually got an awesome
job afterwards and things have been pretty good since!

EDIT: Reposted for better formatting

~~~
seattle_spring
> ...the CEO, my boss (amazing person who I credit with making the summer
> bearable)...

> the last thing I’ll end with is the CEO. What an absolute scumbag

My head is having a hard time reconciling these 2 statements.

~~~
throwaway999997
Ahh sorry for the confusing grammar. I was trying to imply in the first
sentence that my boss was an awesome person, but only him, not the CEO.

------
jonmarkgo
This reminds me a lot of HackNY
([https://apply.hackny.org/](https://apply.hackny.org/)) - it's a non-profit
in NYC that handles housing, activities, and placement for NYC startup interns

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diegorbaquero
The application process is really smooth! Kudos to whoever built it.

~~~
snowmaker
Thank you! That was all
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattlong](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattlong)

~~~
fakename11
I agree it was very nice!

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nomadiccoder
Is this purely for software development/engineering or does applied research
still qualify?

