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Interns in tech make more than workers in most occupations
- ajdlinux 10y agoInterns in tech in the United States.
- aoeu345 10y agoAnd interns in Canada. On my second internship, I got paid more per month than my mother who works in the public sector!
- SketchySeaBeast 10y agoYup... I'm in the wrong company.
- necessity 10y agoWhereas I'm the wrong country...
- Gaessaki 10y agoDepends where in Canada. Many large software companies here will pay ~3k CAD per month or less.
- aoeu345 10y agoThat's super low pay. I would not work for that at any company; even as a student I am well aware that they are getting way more than 3k CAD from me in value. No thank you.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoWait, really? I've never heard of Canadians from UW making $8K like they do in SV/SEA/NYC
- victorvation 10y agoA lot of Canadians from UW _are_ the ones working in SV/SEA/NYC.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoYeah, I was assuming the compensation in Canada is why they choose to do so.
- bluebknight 10y agoIt does sound like he means companies in Canada.
- bluebknight 10y agoThere's only about 5 companies in Canada that pay about 5k/month. Everything else pays 3k/month.
- jasonpeacock 10y agoThat's because workers in tech make more than workers in most occupations. When you hire an intern, you pay them almost-entry-level rates because they are doing almost-entry-level work. Interns are not slaves to be under-paid, and tech is a high paid industry. I'm not sure what's surprising about this.
- BlackjackCF 10y agoYup, agreed with this. Call me a privileged asshole or whatever since I work in tech and I get paid well, but isn't that how supply and demand works? Once upon a time, you could get a really well-paying factory job or a well-paying job working in the coal mines since those jobs were in demand. I feel like that's how it's kind of working in software. Factory jobs are going away because robotics are taking over, which creates a demand for engineers to maintain these robots. We're kind of going through a second industrial revolution, except it's a digital and robotics revolution. Unfortunately, that means we're also feeling the crunch of that which means there's a big demand for engineers that our workforce doesn't supply for... yet. So yes, tech interns are going to get paid more than most other places.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoI kinda feel like if we were really going through a second Industrial Revolution, GDP and productivity growth rates would be a lot higher. Maybe we'll manage to unleash an Industrial Revolution if we break up monopolies, fund public infrastructure properly, and do other things to create space for really new enterprises.
- tomjen3 10y agoProductivity is up, massively, for those who are able to participate in the "new" economy. You can reach millions of users several magnitudes cheaper than ever before. Even small companies owned and operated by a single person can have customers spread over the entire world. Needless to say, most people are not able to participate.
- cyc115 10y agoI find the stats looks rather skewed? anyone else thinks so too ?
- akhilcacharya 10y agoThey're skewed by the fact that the top companies are in higher CoL areas. Then again there are lower paying companies in these locations too.
- aarongolliver 10y agoThe tech intern data was a self-reported online survey distributed around tech-focused Facebook groups (eg: I definitely saw and participated in this survey last year, on Hackathon Hackers). The other salary data was from "BLS May 2015 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates". I found the survey useful to compare your offers to other offers at that company/ones nearby. It was way easier to use than glassdoor, especially because the offers increase a little every year and you want to be sure you're not getting screwed somehow. Definitely should be used for any real analysis though, not even blog-post analysis.
- shostack 10y agoI wonder how it stacks up against law and banking internships.
- kctess5 10y agoI've had several big name tech internships, and I got an internship offer from a bank to do tech work. The bank offered around 2/3rd the comp with significantly worse benefits, which surprised me considering that a) they were in NYC b) they were a big name and c) they approached me, not the other way around. Not sure if they pay the trader type interns more...
- vostok 10y agoIt's pretty well known that top tech companies pay more than top banks. SWE interns at top tech companies will make more than trading interns at top banks and entry-level SWEs at top tech companies will make more than entry-level traders at top banks.
- gragas 10y ago.
- vostok 10y agoIs your top trading firm a bank? If not, I am confused which part of my comment is "not true at all". Also, $120k pro-rated is about right for what top tech companies are paying so it sounds like you just happened to not get those offers.
- gragas 10y agoYou're right. I argued against something totally unrelated to what you said. The places I'm talking about are not banks.
- gragas 10y agoIs there any way that I can privately chat with you? I will soon have to decide whether to get into HFT or traditional SWE work. I have a good idea of what a traditional SWE career path entails, but HFT is quite obfuscated (from my position).
- kough 10y agoAlso important to realize that no intern actually gets the full yearly salary -- these internships usually last around 3 months. Not a huge fan of this site, presenting data without context seems like a great way to stir up trouble without doing any actual reporting.
- kctess5 10y agoI agree. Interns also generally receive no extended benefits like 401(k), stock, medical, and so on, so the comparison isn't very fair in terms of total comp.
- chrisseaton 10y agoBut interns do get things like free housing and free cars which full times do not.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoNever heard of free cars - who does that?
- chrisseaton 10y agoI mean free car rental. I got one at Oracle. I presume it's common as it's very hard to get around in the US without a car - often not much public transport.
- webo 10y agoI got a free rental car from Amazon in summer 2013. I don't think they do that anymore tho.
- victorvation 10y agoA classmate of mine interned at a Microsoft office in Sunnyvale and was provided a rental car for the duration of his internship.
- 10y ago
- nness 10y agoSample size for interns\graduate hires was 352 (57 female, 278 male). Which I don't suspect is a large enough sample.
- fourneau 10y agoLooking at their raw data, it looks like there was a total of 718 respondents (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Km9bsx0SWPDiOPMYvremSDujyS5sF0ZQvbxr5S52wSA/edit#gid=1801472043 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Km9bsx0SWPDiOPMYvrem...). Large enough sample to be ultra conclusive? Not really, but I think it gives you a taste for the data and it's unlikely that tech interns /do/ make more than most, but it's not really surprising.
- nness 10y agoThe survey include a 50/50 mix of interns and full-time positions, so some of that data might be for FTE's.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoOffers are pretty standard at companies, they're only differentiated by year (if that). Two of the companies I got offers from are on there and they are accurate outside of housing for one.
- exolymph 10y agoWow, it's almost like supply and demand have an effect on wages.
- markonthewall 10y agoYes, salaries in SV are high. But, you can bet your ass that that sample set is made of students who for the most part come from a handful top-notch schools.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kozikow 10y agoFunny anecdote is that when I used to be intern from Poland on J1 (~5500 USD per month), savings from 3 months of internship in USA divided by 9 months were higher than average salary in Poland. We got most of taxes back. We also had free tuition and great scholarships from EU. It was quite easy to get the internship. Back in my time, ~2011, ~1/3 of students from my alma mater, Warsaw University, did J1 internship in USA.
- alpos 10y agoRelated data http://observer.com/2014/12/the-master-list-of-tech-internship-salaries-revealed/ http://observer.com/2014/12/the-master-list-of-tech-internsh... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/engineering-intern-salary-SRCH_KO0,18.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/engineering-intern-salary... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-intern-salary-SRCH_KO0,15_SDMC.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-intern-salary-SR... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineering-intern-salary-SRCH_KO0,27.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineering-inte... https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-developer-intern-salary-SRCH_KO0,25_SDMC.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-developer-intern... BLS data on pay by occupation http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000 http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000 While the graph in the OP seems a bit subjectively selective, the BLS data seems to support the argument and data from other sources seems to support the 74k number for software intern average salary. Adjusted for length of employment (assuming about three months per year) that would be $19,500 / yr. Not entirely unexpected tbh. There are some articles out there hint at the average seasonal salary being around $69k http://www.simplyhired.com/salaries-k-seasonal-jobs.html http://www.simplyhired.com/salaries-k-seasonal-jobs.html