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That's basically how I look at it. It seems like a great way to get incredible experience when you're young. Plus, I'm still in a position (being a high school

That's basically how I look at it. It seems like a great way to get incredible experience when you're young. Plus, I'm still in a position (being a high school student) where big companies wouldn't even consider hiring me, so it's startups or nothing for now. Even once I'm in college and thus could get big-company internships, I'll probably work for startups instead. The work will be more interesting, rewarding, and fun, and I'll almost certainly learn more from it. But I do agree that once I'm out of college, I probably wouldn't work for a startup that I didn't start unless it was at the point where it could pay me pretty close to market rate.

coffeemug 17y ago
As a piece of advice, while you don't have a choice, obviously work where you can. Once choice presents itself, pick a job where you're the dumbest kid in the group. While all startups talk about how they have the smartest people, most actually don't. Really good people are in a very limited supply. In my experience they're uniformly distributed across startups and big companies, so when you pick a job, pick based on the quality of people you'll be directly working with, not based on the size of the company. Do not assume that smart people are likely to be in a startup (even if it's funded by the best investors) - it's not necessarily true.
codexon 17y ago
Plus, I'm still in a position (being a high school student) where big companies wouldn't even consider hiring me, so it's startups or nothing for now. I don't think a startup is likely to give you an internship (perhaps even less) than one of the big companies.
- coffeemug 17y ago
  We just hired a high school senior for the summer. He was also one of the best candidates we've seen so far.
- jackowayed 17y ago
  Sure they are. I know because I worked for one last year. If I tried to apply to a big company for a programming internship, my resume would never even make it to someone who actually has the authority to hire me. HR would trash it. Startups don't work like that. I've only ever applied to startups small enough that my email was read directly by the founders. So at least I had a chance. I actually had several offers last summer, though I got all of them because I know a guy who knows lots of startup types. Now, though, I just cold-emailed a very early-stage startup and they've expressed some interest. Between "I have experience working for a startup" and "I got into Stanford", potential employers who see my resume at least know I'm not totally worthless. But most HR departments would still take me out of the running immediately.
  - codexon 17y ago
    I never said that start-ups weren't hiring high school students. I said that they were less likely to hire than big companies. Big and medium sized companies have internships for high school students too. They are the ones who can afford to train workers while most start-ups need people who are ready to create a product right away before their funding dries up.
    - jackowayed 17y ago
      I don't think I've ever heard of a big company having a programming internship for high school students. They have internships in other fields, but to my knowledge, programming ones are rare to nonexistent. Correct me if I was just ignorant to them, though.
      - codexon 17y ago
        A simple Google search would have sufficed: http://code.google.com/soc/ http://code.google.com/soc/ https://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/highschoolintern.aspx https://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/highschoolintern... http://www.fastweb.com/college-jobs-internships/articles/205-internships-for-high-school-students http://www.fastweb.com/college-jobs-internships/articles/205... http://www.google.com/search?q=%27high+school+internship%22+programming http://www.google.com/search?q=%27high+school+internship%22+... Obviously the number of these internships is limited. But that is also my point: a high school student (not you necessarily) is rarely suitable for creating commercial products until many months or even years of training. That is why people hire college graduates.

coffeemug 17y ago

As a piece of advice, while you don't have a choice, obviously work where you can. Once choice presents itself, pick a job where you're the dumbest kid in the group. While all startups talk about how they have the smartest people, most actually don't. Really good people are in a very limited supply. In my experience they're uniformly distributed across startups and big companies, so when you pick a job, pick based on the quality of people you'll be directly working with, not based on the size of the company. Do not assume that smart people are likely to be in a startup (even if it's funded by the best investors) - it's not necessarily true.

codexon 17y ago

Plus, I'm still in a position (being a high school student) where big companies wouldn't even consider hiring me, so it's startups or nothing for now. I don't think a startup is likely to give you an internship (perhaps even less) than one of the big companies.

coffeemug 17y ago
We just hired a high school senior for the summer. He was also one of the best candidates we've seen so far.
jackowayed 17y ago
Sure they are. I know because I worked for one last year. If I tried to apply to a big company for a programming internship, my resume would never even make it to someone who actually has the authority to hire me. HR would trash it. Startups don't work like that. I've only ever applied to startups small enough that my email was read directly by the founders. So at least I had a chance. I actually had several offers last summer, though I got all of them because I know a guy who knows lots of startup types. Now, though, I just cold-emailed a very early-stage startup and they've expressed some interest. Between "I have experience working for a startup" and "I got into Stanford", potential employers who see my resume at least know I'm not totally worthless. But most HR departments would still take me out of the running immediately.
- codexon 17y ago
  I never said that start-ups weren't hiring high school students. I said that they were less likely to hire than big companies. Big and medium sized companies have internships for high school students too. They are the ones who can afford to train workers while most start-ups need people who are ready to create a product right away before their funding dries up.
  - jackowayed 17y ago
    I don't think I've ever heard of a big company having a programming internship for high school students. They have internships in other fields, but to my knowledge, programming ones are rare to nonexistent. Correct me if I was just ignorant to them, though.
    - codexon 17y ago
      A simple Google search would have sufficed: http://code.google.com/soc/ http://code.google.com/soc/ https://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/highschoolintern.aspx https://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/highschoolintern... http://www.fastweb.com/college-jobs-internships/articles/205-internships-for-high-school-students http://www.fastweb.com/college-jobs-internships/articles/205... http://www.google.com/search?q=%27high+school+internship%22+programming http://www.google.com/search?q=%27high+school+internship%22+... Obviously the number of these internships is limited. But that is also my point: a high school student (not you necessarily) is rarely suitable for creating commercial products until many months or even years of training. That is why people hire college graduates.