
Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50% - johntiger1
Lyft just updated all interns with an e-mail; they are cutting the internship to just 8 weeks, and slashing the hourly rate (variable amount depending on function). Not sure how to handle this...
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kosigz
Lyft engineer here.

I agree that this is an unfortunate turn of events — and I would be sad to be
in your position.

To add a bit more context:

• we just parted ways with 23% of our staff (layoff + furlough) this week.

• remaining team members are taking a 3 month 10% cut in base salary.

• unlike many companies, we're still conducting our internship program — so
it's good that you at least have the option to continue with your internship,
unlike many others whose internships were canceled.

At $9600 per month, Lyft had one of the highest salaries for an internship;
$4800 per month is still a decent chunk of change, particularly as you don't
have to be in Seattle, NYC, or San Francisco anymore.

If you have other options, I think everyone would understand if you chose to
pursue those instead. If not or if you choose to join us anyway, having an
internship at Lyft can lead to a full-time offer and/or make you more
competitive when applying for full-time jobs in the future.

The real value of an internship is more-so in giving you practical experience
rather than the compensation.

~~~
mekanicalsyncop
If you're talking about software jobs, 9600 for an internship is way above
average and now that its 4800 its below average so that's not a good chunk of
change.

~~~
throwlaplace
The gal of some people. How many places do you think are even running
internships right now let alone paying interns over 30/hr.

~~~
mekanicalsyncop
Its about more than the raw numbers too. If you make 9600 a month as an intern
and you get offered a job you are certainly going to be offered more than you
made as an intern. However, if you make 4800 as an intern there probably isn't
a large company in the world that wouldn't use that as leverage to offer you
full time employment at a salary far below 9600.

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rocketpastsix
Look I'll be blunt: you handle this by being grateful. The alternative is that
you could be without a job and a paycheck and struggling to figure out how to
pay your bills. I live in Nashville. We got hit with a devastating tornado at
the start of March that put a good number of people out of work followed by
the safer at home order that increased the number of people out of work. Some
of those people live in the same apartment I do and I see them struggling with
how they will pay for things.

You have a job, you have a paycheck and it sounds like you are remote so you
get to work from hopefully a lower cost of living area. Save your money, sign
up for You Need A Budget and learn where and how you can cut costs.

This probably won't be the last time something like this happens. So instead
of throwing a pity party, do the things needed to make this a non event.
Things like living in a lower cost of living area, cutting your expenses,
having a robust and resilient emergency fund and be grateful you still have a
job while millions have no idea when they will go back to work or how they are
going to pay their bills.

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forgotmylogin2
I would guess the chance of finding any other summer work right now, let alone
another technical internship, is below 50%. The way you handle this is to take
the internship and be happy it didn't get cancelled entirely.

~~~
munk-a
There are several sectors of the economy that haven't been effected by this -
med-tech/fin-tech firms in particular should (mostly) be doing fine.

~~~
rckoepke
Elective medical procedures have been canceled, so medical spending is down
across the board. Most plans that are ACA-compliant will probably be
reimbursing customers some of the premiums this year, similar to auto
insurance.

I've heard Fin-tech firms have been cutting lots of fat in the last 4 weeks,
although I've also seen some large banks still hiring contractors.

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_se
You handle it by being happy that you still have an internship right now.
There is a lot going on in the world, now is not the time to feel entitled to
anything.

~~~
anongraddebt
Agreed.

Though I will say, it's still shocking to see. Not that cascading layoffs,
furloughs, internship cancellations, and wage/salary reductions are unexpected
right now. Shocking in how surreal it all feels.

My gf and I have a number of friends in MBA/grad programs, and most have had
their internships or job offers rescinded.

~~~
wdb
Yes, I have had three job offers rescinded since March. Meaning got job offer,
accepting it, rescinded, interviews, got a new job offer, rescinded, more
interviews, got a job offer and got rescinded. All due economic situation or
COVID-19.

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throwaway139481
Lyft employee here: I think part of the motivation for this is that
internships are being conducted remotely, so interns do not have Bay Area
living expenses. Another part of it obviously is that we're cutting costs due
to the downturn (the layoffs and salary reductions for full-time employees
were also part of that). This is not ideal, just explaining some of the
rationale.

~~~
throwaway139481
That said, I'm sympathetic to your situation and wish we as a company could
have done more for you. We're all going through a tough time right now.

~~~
johntiger1
Thanks for the sympathy, I don't blame Lyft. They always seem to try and do
right by the employees (at least compared to their major competitor). But the
financial hit is hard. And if they are squeezing the intern program like this,
it really worries me about the future of the company (esp. full time and new
grad roles).

~~~
mattm
The future for the company looked worrisome even before this. Like another
commenter said internships are "terrible productivity/$". Companies look at it
as an investment to be able to hire later on. If there's low chance of hiring
later on then having interns doesn't make much sense anymore.

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bobbiechen
Sorry to hear that. That's an interesting choice to make on Lyft's part, to
cut duration and salary rather than cancel entirely. For the interns, I hope
there's enough structure and guidance to make it worthwhile.

I had an internship cancelled a few years ago, in 2017. Etsy replaced their
CEO and laid off a large portion of their employees, and cancelled our
internships along the way. The message to us was along the lines of, "It's not
about the money; it's going to be chaotic around here for a little while, and
it wouldn't be a good or useful experience as an intern." And they backed it
up by paying out a stipend of a significant fraction of what the entire
summer's pay would have been, which they really didn't have to do. At that
time there was a bit of a scramble, but within a couple weeks all of us would-
be interns got picked up by other companies, and looking back, this unlucky
turn of events completely changed the course of my career, as I ended up
interning with the SRE team at Squarespace and discovering a new world.

I really respect Etsy in making the tough call at the time to cancel outright
(and pay a stipend) instead of dragging things on. But of course, in today's
environment where all companies are affected instead of just one, it seems
much less likely that Lyft's interns would be able to find other internships.
So maybe this halfway measure will work out better.

Best of luck to the Lyft interns and their mentors - hopefully you can make
the best of an unfortunate situation.

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tfehring
For the sake of comparison, $4,800/month (mentioned by another commenter) is
$57,600 extrapolated to a full year, or 1.7x the median US salary. That's the
median for all US workers, so it includes mid-career professionals, not just
college students. There are people as smart and capable as you making less
than $15/hour all across the country - and, for that matter, people who got
laid off from those $15/hour jobs and didn't send their rent checks today.
Have some perspective, be grateful that you're in such a fortunate position to
begin with, and recognize this setback as the minor speedbump that it is.

~~~
literallycancer
What's the median for lawyers, medical professionals, architects, civil
engineers or logisticians?

~~~
tfehring
Probably also much higher than the overall US median of $34k/year. What's your
point?

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kenhwang
On one hand, this makes sense because interns (and junior engineers) are often
terrible productivity/$. Internship programs tend to be more a
marketing/recruitment tool which is a bit of a luxury right now.

On the other hand, this is absolutely terrible optics and feels like
desperation. I know Lyft already started furloughing and cut executive pay,
but this is a bigger % than the 30% executive cut.

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_hardwaregeek
A lot of people here are being rather unsympathetic. Even if it's not the end
of the world, it still sucks. Hopefully you can save some money from not
having to move to the Bay Area.

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n_sanity
Every single other person I've heard from has had their internship cancelled.
I'd consider yourself lucky that you merely got a paycut.

And both my internships paid below yours (after paycut). The important piece
of the internship is the experience, not the money.

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stu2b50
Happy that you have a job still? 25/hr is still better than flipping burgers,
by like a lot.

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renewiltord
Oh boy, that's rough. So that's a cut to 1/3rd of the total comp you would
have made otherwise. Well, almost a decade ago when I interned in San
Francisco I made less than 4000 dollars a month and stayed in a shared room
with other kids. Haha, good times. Hard to remember those days. I bet with the
hours I put in, I was actually close to SF's minimum wage.

I think it's the duration cut that's really rough. I would have taken a shot
at proving myself for rent+food alone.

~~~
emit_time
The internships are remote now, it sounds like.

~~~
renewiltord
Oh that's even more painful. Damn, that's unfortunate for the kids going in
now.

~~~
mattm
This seems more like Lyft trying to actually do the right thing. Training
junior engineers remotely is incredibly difficult not to mention interns.

From a purely business point of view, the economical thing would have been to
just cancel the internships. These interns will probably learn very little and
they will be a burden to people who have to manage them since the employees
workload will increase with the layoffs that have just occurred and all the
uncertainty.

I think Lyft should be commended for this move. Yes it sucks to the interns
but things are not normal now.

~~~
renewiltord
To clarify, I'm more sympathising with the interns than blaming anyone.
Obviously, in these trying times I understand the constraints companies are
under.

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pmiller2
How to handle it is either you take the internship, or you don't.

~~~
johntiger1
I was depending on this internship to support me financially. At the current
rate, it doesn't work out

~~~
paulcole
If you think it’s going to be tough to support yourself on 50% of what Lyft
was offering, wait until you run the numbers on a $0 income.

~~~
DavidPeiffer
I'm not sure what internships at Lyft pay, but their headquarters is in the
bay area. After a 50% cut, they may come out ahead having $0 income compared
to paying rent in their college town and the bay area, higher cost of living,
and moving expenses (if not already covered).

This is particularly true for non-programming roles which pay less. It's
possible Lyft covers housing separate from salaries.

I had 4 internships, never below the median pay for my degree, and I would
have certainly thought twice about doing some of them if my pay was cut in
half.

~~~
kyawzazaw
It's probably gonna be remote. So housing is not gonna be a problem.

And OP having that internship experience is definitely gonna help them for the
future. Considering it is unlikely to get another internship (not even similar
pay), OP should do it. Additionally, their half cut rate is higher than what a
lot of SWE interns get too (not even considering other profession interns)>

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duxup
For the OP, if your are asking what you do as an intern, you do the internship
for 8 weeks.

It's an internship, it's something you do for experience and to get on your
resume.

Unless you think you can't survive on the resulting internship income, or
unless you have a better offer... it would still seem to be in your best
interest to do it.

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nicharesuk
I'd be curious to know if you signed a contract already? If you signed a
contract pre-cut you could technically sue (not sure if it would help but it's
always an option), but if you still haven't signed a contract then this is a
lesson to always have a back up plan and make sure you don't take anything for
granted until that contract is signed.

~~~
alex_g
Most internships are at-will employment.

~~~
throwlaplace
most jobs are at-will employment.

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cracker_jacks
Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller...

Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups?
The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
as a graduate, you'd be extremely lucky to have any job at all, let alone a
job at a tech company, let alone one as well known as Lyft. Let's face it,
with the current vast oversupply of labor, employers have a lot more
bargaining power.

Back in my day, after the Tech bubble burst, I was a coder with little
experience, and I worked for any start up that would let me, just so i could
get more experience. One place, I got paid 0$, with just a thank you and a
slice of pizza (1 slice, not 2).

~~~
ianlevesque
And it was uphill in the snow, both ways!

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guessmyname
Levels.fyi shows Lyft internship salaries if anyone is interested to know [1].

I am sorry to hear that, -50% is a lot of money but not the end of the world.
Take the job and keep looking for the next one, you will definitely find
something better knowing you are smart enough to pass Lyft’s interviews. The
majority of interns in the tech industry do not do much in the first couple of
months after joining the company anyway, so technically speaking you will get
two months of free money and maybe a signing bonus, this is a much better
scenario compared to people who have been laid off, furloughed or rejected
from their internship program.

[1]
[https://www.levels.fyi/internships/?search=lyft](https://www.levels.fyi/internships/?search=lyft)

~~~
zuhayeer
We do have internship salaries (pre-Covid) at
[https://www.levels.fyi/internships](https://www.levels.fyi/internships)

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dzonga
one thing, I don't understand about these companies is why base your locations
in super expensive cities i.e NY, SF, Seattle. And be hurting for cash. if
lyft had focused on recruiting in low cost of living cities for decent
engineers. & have a good remote program. they wouldn't be hurting for cash
atm.

~~~
Jommi
I don't think what you said is really defensible. Yes they might not be
hurting _as much_ if they had majority of their operations based elsewhere.
But I don't thi n you can say they wouldn't be hurting for cash at all.

Also, you should check lyfts company page where they have offices. It's not
just California.

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bdcravens
Levels.fyi shows the rate to be $60/hour for a software internship. If this is
accurate, and it's cut to $30/hour, that's actually pretty good money. Many
people are living on $15/hour.

[https://www.levels.fyi/internships/?search=lyft](https://www.levels.fyi/internships/?search=lyft)

~~~
Matthias247
For comparisons sake also: Internships in germany had been around 700Eur per
month 10 years ago. Maybe it's 800 now.

I think even half of an internship salary at one of the US companies is far
above that - if not even still above the salaries of full-time employees in
other countries. So it doesn't sound that terrible.

~~~
ck_one
In Germany you get at least minimum pay (~1500 Euro). For tech roles, you can
get more (2,5k - 4k). Which is not that of a bad deal considering that all
other costs are lower.

~~~
Matthias247
That would be very new. Maybe for research positions (postdoc). But for
internships minimal wage does not apply.

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cpufry
why not just cancel the internship program for now

~~~
kyawzazaw
are you asking in the perspective of the company?

They probably want to retain some reptutation.

