21 ms·

Interns: Everything you need to know about a summer in the Bay Area in one place

183 points by AlexeyMK 14y ago

stephenlee 14y ago
Your guys are so lucky to have so good place to intern, and paid so much salary. As a foreigner, I'm enviable yours.^-^.
hack_edu 14y ago
Most the rents quoted are several hundred lower than reality, though the bedroom in a shared place price is pretty close. It also fails to underline the competition for cheap, or any, housing. Landing a spot within the first weeks, or even month, will be very hard for anyone new to the town. If you want an apartment in this city you must bid several hundred over the listed price. It is also extremely common to offer 3-6 month's rent down and be ready to cut that check at the open house.
- thrownaway2424 14y ago
  I think it's pretty easy to get an apartment. Show up at the open house, don't dress like a slob (even if you always dress like a slob, just don't), and carry enough cash to pay off the deposit and the first month. Since it's an internship, just bring enough cash to pay for the entire lease. If you don't have cash you'll need bank statements (local banks, so open your accounts several months in advance), paychecks (pain in the ass, right? you might have to couch-surf for the first few weeks), letters of employment, and a reference. But even with all that you'll have trouble convincing anyone to rent to you. Cash is better.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
AlexeyMK 14y ago
Drop us an email if there's any content you'd like to see added to the site, happy to oblige.
- ultimoo 14y ago
  I really like this site. As someone who will be interning in the Bay Area this summer, I will find it very useful if you guys could throw in a forum where folks could connect and find roommates and make friends with fellow hackers.
  - nickbarnwell 14y ago
    The 2013 Bay Area Summer Intern Group [1] on Facebook is what you're looking for. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=group https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=...
gailees 14y ago
Do you actually think the problem here is informational asymmetry? Seems to be a supply/demand problem more than anything. Not enough housing. Not enough qualified summer interns. I don't see how a few blog posts will help anyone...
- pwingo 14y ago
  I disagree- I think that there are a lot of interns out there who don't have the right information in order to optimize their search for internships. I learned computer science a lot later than many of my peers, I stumbled around a lot in the startup world before being able to intern at one of the more well-known companies in the valley- this was only after I had learned many lessons and been rejected or not even contacted by many companies because I didn't know how to present myself in a format that made recruiters want to contact me. Any resource that helps potential interns to learn more about recruiting in the valley- from finding an internship to choosing an internship- is a good one.
  - gailees 14y ago
    but there's just so much bloat out there that just wastes their time when they actually could be actually learning how to better present themselves.
up_and_up 14y ago
Seems like you have some dups in your topic categories: "Finding an Internship", "Finding an Internship" "Choosing an Internship", "Choosing an Internship" Is that intentional? Kinda confused me at first.
- aiur 14y ago
  Yes it is intentional. Sorry for the confusion, we're working on organizing the articles better.
- gailees 14y ago
  definitely confused me too...seems a bit disorganized
tsunamifury 14y ago
Man this housing advice is really pretentious -- only live in Mountain View or SF with an internship salary? Good luck unless you have a trustfund. Get a place in Berkeley or the nicer places in Oakland and you'll have a great experience and can BART into the city in 15 minutes.
- gailees 14y ago
  yeah, it definitely seems like some of these early posts speak from very limited experience.
- nickbarnwell 14y ago
  It's just as easy to find a two bedroom or one BR+den apartment for 2-2.5k/mo and split it with another intern (or two) and come out well ahead. I know tens of people who did this successfully last summer virtually without issue. The big companies provide generous housing stipends, if not corporate housing, and allocating 20% of your essentially untaxed salary towards housing is well worth it to be a few blocks from work and in the heart of the tech community.
- AlexeyMK 14y ago
  [author of said advice] Sounds like you've got some experience with this - are there any particular places you'd recommend? When I was an intern in SF (2011), I lived in Glen Park, which was a half/hour bike ride/couple of BART stops away from work, and I ended up paying slightly over $1,100. I had friends that went and found more distant housing, but we didn't see them all that much/they didn't get nearly as much out of the summer as we did, beyond their company. A lot (most?) internship salaries include a $1,000 housing stipend, so it ends up being not all that crazy; neither of my internships had more than 25% of income go to housing. Can you speak to your experience in particular? I haven't met a lot of people who followed your strategy, but I'd love to incorporate the perspective of somebody who did.
  - nextstep 14y ago
    The price of housing in SF has changed since 2011.
nickbarnwell 14y ago
Just a correction here: http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an-internship-at-a-top-tier/ http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an... MS actually has the Explore Microsoft internship for underclassmen. [1] I'd also suggest adding Yegge's Blogpost on "Get That Job at Google" to required interview reading [2]. It's an excellent resource for applying to any company that highly weights core CS topics in their interviews, regardless of whether you're applying for an internship or full-time employ. --- [1]: http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explore-microsoft.aspx http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explo... [2]: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...
- gailees 14y ago
  Cool stuff...loved those two posts!
ultimoo 14y ago
If you find an internship in one of the big names in South Bay, it is also a great idea to live in Sunnyvale or Downtown San Jose. The rates are quite affordable thanks to the large student population of SJSU. That being said, commuting in the South Bay is a little painful without a car. But riding the VTA is extremely affordable and will get you to your destination, albeit a little slowly.
- lightup88 14y ago
  It should also be mentioned that downtown San Jose is far from bereft of interesting things. Museums, restaurants, and other college students abound.
pshc 14y ago
Some feedback about the page design: When I first looked at the article, I breezed right past those six section links. They look way too much like generic fat-footer site nav or post-article outbound links or something, my brain must have filtered them out. I found myself scrolling down to the ABOUT section immediately and becoming confused.
dudurocha 14y ago
Do you have information for students from another countries?
- cbhl 14y ago
  Part of the team is Canadian, but visa issues are complex. Once you land an offer with a megacorp, their lawyers should try to help you land the appropriate visas. Avoid smaller organizations if you're international.
dupa99 14y ago
"Expect +$2k/month for every greek letter in their name" huh?
AustinGibbons 14y ago
Missing my personal piece of advice: Interested in startups / smaller companies? Easiest thing to do is email / interview with one or two VC firms. I know both a16z and greylock do this, I'm sure others do as well.
nathanfp 14y ago
Congrats Tess, Alexey, Alex, and Owen on building such a fantastic resource. I do think that there is significant information asymmetry in this process for most students, especially those from the east coast who are less aware of startup culture and how to break into it, so having all this bay area content in a single location is a massive help! A few additional points in regards to the comments below: 1. For those asking about international opportunities it may be good to check out this Quora post on how to get a visa and which startups hire international students: http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a-J1-visa-for-an-internship http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a... 2. For those discussing locations I generally agree with the authors points that SF, MV, and PA are best given proximity to events. That said we and many of the companies we work with, have had success with interns living in Berkeley. It is an easy BART stop, has lots of college housing which usually means 4-5 in a house and a lower cost, and while some crime does exist, it is avoidable with common sense and precaution. Since most events are during happy hour times, living in Berkeley definitely does not preclude you from participating in a lot of good events. 3. Additional posts I (and I know many interns we have talked to in the Bay) would love to see include: -How to develop a mentor within a startup? -How to get the attention of startup founders on social media? -The importance of an online portfolio. 4. A couple additional tips I would share with students is that you should recognize that companies and founders are always time-crunched, but always interested in quality talent. Following-up with applications multiple times (and on multiple channels like Facebook or Quora) is always a good idea as long as you are non-spammy and enthusiastic. Same is true during an internship, embrace the hectic life-style, stay positive, over-deliver and remember to stay in touch with people (possibly with thank you cards) after the internship ends. Startups come and go so a full-time job is never guaranteed but your network can become even more important. Here are a few more posts along these lines: http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-internships http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-in... 5. Startups are a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Always keep an open mind about your internship, make friends with not just those in your company but students and startup people you meet outside of it and have a great time! Thanks internproject.io team for such an in-depth knowledge center for interns. Excited to read and learn more about the events and resources you have coming up
- 14y ago
conradev 14y ago
Very cool website! As a high school junior going out to the Bay Area this summer to work, I agree with a lot of the advice for high schoolers. From my own experiences, I would add these little bits: - Completely disregard age requirements when applying. If a company denies you because of your age, then just apply to another company. - Avoid the conventional application process whenever possible. If the company has a job posting anywhere, always take the approach of reaching out to the employee who wrote it, instead of going through the generic application page. You are not a conventional applicant, and this approach allows you to stand out. - Avoid the conventional interview process whenever possible. Not many high schoolers are exposed to courses on algorithms in a conventional class setting, which tough interview challenges are based upon. Find a company that hires in a more progressive fashion where they instead hand you a coding challenge or ask you to explain certain concepts. These interviews are the key to getting you hired, because they allow you to demonstrate your programming ability, knowledge and communication skills all in one. Focus on knocking these interviews out of the park, and removing any doubt from their minds. - Do not mention your age anywhere highly visible. Not on your Github, not on your Twitter and especially not on your resume. Even though I wish it weren't the case, age can be an immediate turn off to possible employers. Once you have a communication channel open, however, be sure to mention your age. - Focus on marketing yourself. Don't only churn out side projects, but also write about them, demonstrate them at tech meetups, submit them to central repositories, etc. Maintain a blog, writing about the things you work on. Maintain public profiles on social networking sites, listing yourself as a freelance developer. This comes in handy when employers are questioning your legitimacy from the get go. From doing this, I actually attracted employers to myself and got a few job offers from prominent companies. Even though I had to deny them all, I asked the recruiters if they had summer positions available, many of which did. If this ever happens to you, make sure to ask the recruiter how they found you.
jfmercer 14y ago
This is excellent. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
michael_miller 14y ago
This is a great resource, I wish I had this when I was interning. A couple tips from someone who's done this a bit (3 times, 2 years full/part time intern at Apple, 1 summer at FB): - Yeah, you get paid a large sum of money, but it really doesn't matter. The $7k/month salary may sound like a ton as a college student, but it isn't. It will pale in terms of your life earnings. Focus on trying out new areas / technologies that you think you might be interested in, but aren't sure. An internship is a chance to try something new out. If you don't like it, you just don't accept their return offer, there's no expectation that you'll continue to work at the company beyond 3 months. - Do NOT intern at the same place more than once. They will try to lure you back by giving you a deadline of 2 weeks after your internship ends. This is BS. If they were willing to give you a return offer, they will almost certainly wait for you to get your other offers back. Competition is too stiff for them not to do this. Interning at the same place twice yields diminishing returns: you'll be working with the same tech, not meeting new people and learning new tricks. Plus, you won't get to experience more company cultures, finding out where you fit. - Don't even consider interning part time during the school year. The pay will seem appealing, but it will take away from your college experience. You only go to college once, you should enjoy it to its fullest, you have your whole life to work. Again, money is insignificant compared to your life earnings. - Interning in the Valley is a rite of passage, but after you've done one internship there, consider other places. NYC is great, I live there and highly recommend it (shameless plug, you can read about why at my blog post: [1]). Boston is great too, lots of biotech startups. Overseas is also a good choice, since you'll get the experience of living in another culture, in addition to doing cool work. I'll end with another shameless plug. I work for Palantir, a really great company that's growing extremely rapidly and working on some pretty cool projects across a variety of spaces: government, healthcare, local law enforcement, finance to name a few. We've also done some kickass philanthropy efforts, such as our work with Hurricane Sandy: [2]. I've only worked at Palantir full-time, but several of my friends have interned here, and said it's the best place they've interned. If you're interested in interviewing with us (for either fulltime or internship), please email me at <firstname>.g.<lastname> [at] gmail. [1] http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-chose-new-york http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-ch... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY
pnmahoney 14y ago
"Palo Alto . . . is very clearly a college town". I think it's worth noting that Palo Alto is not very much of a college town at all.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Oakland resident here. Why shouldn't they live in Oakland? Don't get that at all. I VASTLY prefer it to MTV, Palo Alto, San Jose, SF, etc.
- cbhl 14y ago
  A lot of interns are from out of town / out of the country and will have difficulty navigating the commute from Oakland to {SF, Mountain View, Menlo Park} if they're working from a larger organization. Plus, hanging out on weekends is easier when you're around other (out-of-town) interns, and they will likely be living in {MTV, PA, MP, SJ, SF}.
kevinr 14y ago
No mention of the "oh, you're a contractor, so we don't have to withhold taxes" scam? Then the article is seriously incomplete.
- cbhl 14y ago
  This falls under "you need an accountant and a lawyer", and probably would be out of scope for a website like this. If you've had a bad experience, you could write a blog post about it and send it to the maintainers -- maybe they'll include it as a guest post.
whitewhim 14y ago
As a fellow Canadian Student it would be great if you could write a section on how to obtain a Visa to work for the summer in the Bay Area. Last summer I was offered an internship at a Y Combinator startup in the Palo Alto but had to turn it down due to Visa reasons.
- khuey 14y ago
  Startups typically aren't thrilled to deal with visas. Most mid-size or larger companies will sponsor students for J-1s (or whatever the equivalent for Canadians is).
iansinke 14y ago
How many companies offer internships longer than a summer? I have a co-op position for this summer but after my 3rd year I'm hoping to get something longer, a 12 or 16 month position. Also -- are many American companies friendly towards Canadians who happen to have dual citizenship? To be honest ideally I'd work in Waterloo or Toronto (both are driving distance, ish, from my home) but I'd love to spend time in NYC or the Bay Area too.
SkyMarshal 14y ago
> Consider about an hour of your day eaten up by the commute, every day. In my experience, it's about an hour one-way, so two hours daily. Assuming SF-PA-SF, express Caltrain, ~10m walk on each end.
philip1209 14y ago
Any tips for a new hire in the Bay area? (I just accepted a full-time job in SOMA starting in late May). Specifically - any tips on securing an apartment ahead of time, possibly remotely? I have a week in the corporate apartment, but if I could line something up beforehand that would be preferred.
- rdouble 14y ago
  Be ready to write a check for deposit + 2 months rent on the spot if you find a place you like. Have copies of your credit report with you and a "rental resume" with phone numbers of HR at your new job and your old landlord.
- striglia 14y ago
  When I started working in SF (moving from the Los Angeles area) I had great luck renting a temporary place and apartment hunting after work hours. I used AirBnB but you would be fine with any approach...the point is that apartment hunting is an infinitely better experience in person and you can avoid all the craigslist horror stories involved with remote renting.
rachelbythebay 14y ago
Avoid North San Jose? Wha? East San Jose, maybe. North San Jose is like two trailer parks and a bunch of shiny new complexes. Avoid the trailer parks if that's not your thing and you're fine. I'm talking about anything north of Montague between the Guadalupe and Coyote Creek, and south of 237. North of 237 I'd call Alviso, and that's a whole different thing.
ruswick 14y ago
This is fairly tangential, but do startups and/or medium-sized companies place emphasis on education when selecting interns? As a student in high school, I see effectively no advantage to informing a potential employer of the fact that I attend a certain school. At best, it's inconsequential and yields no advantage to me, as high schools generally lack the sort of prestige that certain universities possess; and, at worst, it will deter possible employers who would be unwilling to permit someone like me to work for them. Is education significant among startups, and how can I maximize the allure of my resume vis-a-vis my education (or lack thereof)?
duked 14y ago
7k for an internship ? I'm a bit confused is this the take home amount or pre-tax ? Because if it's after tax that's around 120k$/year. Can someone, clarify that ?
- cbhl 14y ago
  Top students will easily command the equivalent of $120k/year in the bay, but many will make much less than this. You may wish to choose an offer that pays way less than this if the experience is more interesting, though.
lucb1e 14y ago
It's incredible to see how different the market is in the US than in the Netherlands - and I think we're in line with most other European countries. Interning at big guys like Microsoft or Google is almost entirely unheard of. School never even told about the possibility of being asked technical questions during an interview; interviews are supposed to be a 15 minute conversation about ourselves and about the company. We're always assumed to get an interview. "Startups may hire only one or two interns" is normal, companies hiring more than that are extremely rare, and if they do it's usually because they're too poor to pay real employees. In fact, 3/4 companies I've been with hired interns because they're (very) cheap. So that means no pay. Not that I'm looking for wages, I'm looking to learn something, but still. It turns out the better companies also pay more (or at all), but I only learned that very recently. I never even knew it was customary to get a monetary compensation for your work until a year ago. It became most obvious when I was (almost solely) working on code for mission-critical systems without payment...

183 points by AlexeyMK 14y ago

Your guys are so lucky to have so good place to intern, and paid so much salary. As a foreigner, I'm enviable yours.^-^.

hack_edu 14y ago

Most the rents quoted are several hundred lower than reality, though the bedroom in a shared place price is pretty close. It also fails to underline the competition for cheap, or any, housing. Landing a spot within the first weeks, or even month, will be very hard for anyone new to the town. If you want an apartment in this city you must bid several hundred over the listed price. It is also extremely common to offer 3-6 month's rent down and be ready to cut that check at the open house.

thrownaway2424 14y ago
I think it's pretty easy to get an apartment. Show up at the open house, don't dress like a slob (even if you always dress like a slob, just don't), and carry enough cash to pay off the deposit and the first month. Since it's an internship, just bring enough cash to pay for the entire lease. If you don't have cash you'll need bank statements (local banks, so open your accounts several months in advance), paychecks (pain in the ass, right? you might have to couch-surf for the first few weeks), letters of employment, and a reference. But even with all that you'll have trouble convincing anyone to rent to you. Cash is better.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

AlexeyMK 14y ago

Drop us an email if there's any content you'd like to see added to the site, happy to oblige.

ultimoo 14y ago
I really like this site. As someone who will be interning in the Bay Area this summer, I will find it very useful if you guys could throw in a forum where folks could connect and find roommates and make friends with fellow hackers.
- nickbarnwell 14y ago
  The 2013 Bay Area Summer Intern Group [1] on Facebook is what you're looking for. [1]: https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=group https://www.facebook.com/groups/210814239033807/?bookmark_t=...

gailees 14y ago

Do you actually think the problem here is informational asymmetry? Seems to be a supply/demand problem more than anything. Not enough housing. Not enough qualified summer interns. I don't see how a few blog posts will help anyone...

pwingo 14y ago
I disagree- I think that there are a lot of interns out there who don't have the right information in order to optimize their search for internships. I learned computer science a lot later than many of my peers, I stumbled around a lot in the startup world before being able to intern at one of the more well-known companies in the valley- this was only after I had learned many lessons and been rejected or not even contacted by many companies because I didn't know how to present myself in a format that made recruiters want to contact me. Any resource that helps potential interns to learn more about recruiting in the valley- from finding an internship to choosing an internship- is a good one.
- gailees 14y ago
  but there's just so much bloat out there that just wastes their time when they actually could be actually learning how to better present themselves.

up_and_up 14y ago

Seems like you have some dups in your topic categories: "Finding an Internship", "Finding an Internship" "Choosing an Internship", "Choosing an Internship" Is that intentional? Kinda confused me at first.

aiur 14y ago
Yes it is intentional. Sorry for the confusion, we're working on organizing the articles better.
gailees 14y ago
definitely confused me too...seems a bit disorganized

tsunamifury 14y ago

Man this housing advice is really pretentious -- only live in Mountain View or SF with an internship salary? Good luck unless you have a trustfund. Get a place in Berkeley or the nicer places in Oakland and you'll have a great experience and can BART into the city in 15 minutes.

gailees 14y ago
yeah, it definitely seems like some of these early posts speak from very limited experience.
nickbarnwell 14y ago
It's just as easy to find a two bedroom or one BR+den apartment for 2-2.5k/mo and split it with another intern (or two) and come out well ahead. I know tens of people who did this successfully last summer virtually without issue. The big companies provide generous housing stipends, if not corporate housing, and allocating 20% of your essentially untaxed salary towards housing is well worth it to be a few blocks from work and in the heart of the tech community.
AlexeyMK 14y ago
[author of said advice] Sounds like you've got some experience with this - are there any particular places you'd recommend? When I was an intern in SF (2011), I lived in Glen Park, which was a half/hour bike ride/couple of BART stops away from work, and I ended up paying slightly over $1,100. I had friends that went and found more distant housing, but we didn't see them all that much/they didn't get nearly as much out of the summer as we did, beyond their company. A lot (most?) internship salaries include a $1,000 housing stipend, so it ends up being not all that crazy; neither of my internships had more than 25% of income go to housing. Can you speak to your experience in particular? I haven't met a lot of people who followed your strategy, but I'd love to incorporate the perspective of somebody who did.
- nextstep 14y ago
  The price of housing in SF has changed since 2011.

nickbarnwell 14y ago

Just a correction here: http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an-internship-at-a-top-tier/ http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an... MS actually has the Explore Microsoft internship for underclassmen. [1] I'd also suggest adding Yegge's Blogpost on "Get That Job at Google" to required interview reading [2]. It's an excellent resource for applying to any company that highly weights core CS topics in their interviews, regardless of whether you're applying for an internship or full-time employ. --- [1]: http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explore-microsoft.aspx http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explo... [2]: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

gailees 14y ago
Cool stuff...loved those two posts!

ultimoo 14y ago

If you find an internship in one of the big names in South Bay, it is also a great idea to live in Sunnyvale or Downtown San Jose. The rates are quite affordable thanks to the large student population of SJSU. That being said, commuting in the South Bay is a little painful without a car. But riding the VTA is extremely affordable and will get you to your destination, albeit a little slowly.

lightup88 14y ago
It should also be mentioned that downtown San Jose is far from bereft of interesting things. Museums, restaurants, and other college students abound.

pshc 14y ago

Some feedback about the page design: When I first looked at the article, I breezed right past those six section links. They look way too much like generic fat-footer site nav or post-article outbound links or something, my brain must have filtered them out. I found myself scrolling down to the ABOUT section immediately and becoming confused.

dudurocha 14y ago

Do you have information for students from another countries?

cbhl 14y ago
Part of the team is Canadian, but visa issues are complex. Once you land an offer with a megacorp, their lawyers should try to help you land the appropriate visas. Avoid smaller organizations if you're international.

dupa99 14y ago

"Expect +$2k/month for every greek letter in their name" huh?

AustinGibbons 14y ago

Missing my personal piece of advice: Interested in startups / smaller companies? Easiest thing to do is email / interview with one or two VC firms. I know both a16z and greylock do this, I'm sure others do as well.

nathanfp 14y ago

Congrats Tess, Alexey, Alex, and Owen on building such a fantastic resource. I do think that there is significant information asymmetry in this process for most students, especially those from the east coast who are less aware of startup culture and how to break into it, so having all this bay area content in a single location is a massive help! A few additional points in regards to the comments below: 1. For those asking about international opportunities it may be good to check out this Quora post on how to get a visa and which startups hire international students: http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a-J1-visa-for-an-internship http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a... 2. For those discussing locations I generally agree with the authors points that SF, MV, and PA are best given proximity to events. That said we and many of the companies we work with, have had success with interns living in Berkeley. It is an easy BART stop, has lots of college housing which usually means 4-5 in a house and a lower cost, and while some crime does exist, it is avoidable with common sense and precaution. Since most events are during happy hour times, living in Berkeley definitely does not preclude you from participating in a lot of good events. 3. Additional posts I (and I know many interns we have talked to in the Bay) would love to see include: -How to develop a mentor within a startup? -How to get the attention of startup founders on social media? -The importance of an online portfolio. 4. A couple additional tips I would share with students is that you should recognize that companies and founders are always time-crunched, but always interested in quality talent. Following-up with applications multiple times (and on multiple channels like Facebook or Quora) is always a good idea as long as you are non-spammy and enthusiastic. Same is true during an internship, embrace the hectic life-style, stay positive, over-deliver and remember to stay in touch with people (possibly with thank you cards) after the internship ends. Startups come and go so a full-time job is never guaranteed but your network can become even more important. Here are a few more posts along these lines: http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-internships http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-in... 5. Startups are a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Always keep an open mind about your internship, make friends with not just those in your company but students and startup people you meet outside of it and have a great time! Thanks internproject.io team for such an in-depth knowledge center for interns. Excited to read and learn more about the events and resources you have coming up

14y ago

conradev 14y ago

Very cool website! As a high school junior going out to the Bay Area this summer to work, I agree with a lot of the advice for high schoolers. From my own experiences, I would add these little bits: - Completely disregard age requirements when applying. If a company denies you because of your age, then just apply to another company. - Avoid the conventional application process whenever possible. If the company has a job posting anywhere, always take the approach of reaching out to the employee who wrote it, instead of going through the generic application page. You are not a conventional applicant, and this approach allows you to stand out. - Avoid the conventional interview process whenever possible. Not many high schoolers are exposed to courses on algorithms in a conventional class setting, which tough interview challenges are based upon. Find a company that hires in a more progressive fashion where they instead hand you a coding challenge or ask you to explain certain concepts. These interviews are the key to getting you hired, because they allow you to demonstrate your programming ability, knowledge and communication skills all in one. Focus on knocking these interviews out of the park, and removing any doubt from their minds. - Do not mention your age anywhere highly visible. Not on your Github, not on your Twitter and especially not on your resume. Even though I wish it weren't the case, age can be an immediate turn off to possible employers. Once you have a communication channel open, however, be sure to mention your age. - Focus on marketing yourself. Don't only churn out side projects, but also write about them, demonstrate them at tech meetups, submit them to central repositories, etc. Maintain a blog, writing about the things you work on. Maintain public profiles on social networking sites, listing yourself as a freelance developer. This comes in handy when employers are questioning your legitimacy from the get go. From doing this, I actually attracted employers to myself and got a few job offers from prominent companies. Even though I had to deny them all, I asked the recruiters if they had summer positions available, many of which did. If this ever happens to you, make sure to ask the recruiter how they found you.

jfmercer 14y ago

This is excellent. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

michael_miller 14y ago

This is a great resource, I wish I had this when I was interning. A couple tips from someone who's done this a bit (3 times, 2 years full/part time intern at Apple, 1 summer at FB): - Yeah, you get paid a large sum of money, but it really doesn't matter. The $7k/month salary may sound like a ton as a college student, but it isn't. It will pale in terms of your life earnings. Focus on trying out new areas / technologies that you think you might be interested in, but aren't sure. An internship is a chance to try something new out. If you don't like it, you just don't accept their return offer, there's no expectation that you'll continue to work at the company beyond 3 months. - Do NOT intern at the same place more than once. They will try to lure you back by giving you a deadline of 2 weeks after your internship ends. This is BS. If they were willing to give you a return offer, they will almost certainly wait for you to get your other offers back. Competition is too stiff for them not to do this. Interning at the same place twice yields diminishing returns: you'll be working with the same tech, not meeting new people and learning new tricks. Plus, you won't get to experience more company cultures, finding out where you fit. - Don't even consider interning part time during the school year. The pay will seem appealing, but it will take away from your college experience. You only go to college once, you should enjoy it to its fullest, you have your whole life to work. Again, money is insignificant compared to your life earnings. - Interning in the Valley is a rite of passage, but after you've done one internship there, consider other places. NYC is great, I live there and highly recommend it (shameless plug, you can read about why at my blog post: [1]). Boston is great too, lots of biotech startups. Overseas is also a good choice, since you'll get the experience of living in another culture, in addition to doing cool work. I'll end with another shameless plug. I work for Palantir, a really great company that's growing extremely rapidly and working on some pretty cool projects across a variety of spaces: government, healthcare, local law enforcement, finance to name a few. We've also done some kickass philanthropy efforts, such as our work with Hurricane Sandy: [2]. I've only worked at Palantir full-time, but several of my friends have interned here, and said it's the best place they've interned. If you're interested in interviewing with us (for either fulltime or internship), please email me at <firstname>.g.<lastname> [at] gmail. [1] http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-chose-new-york http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-ch... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY

pnmahoney 14y ago

"Palo Alto . . . is very clearly a college town". I think it's worth noting that Palo Alto is not very much of a college town at all.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Oakland resident here. Why shouldn't they live in Oakland? Don't get that at all. I VASTLY prefer it to MTV, Palo Alto, San Jose, SF, etc.

cbhl 14y ago
A lot of interns are from out of town / out of the country and will have difficulty navigating the commute from Oakland to {SF, Mountain View, Menlo Park} if they're working from a larger organization. Plus, hanging out on weekends is easier when you're around other (out-of-town) interns, and they will likely be living in {MTV, PA, MP, SJ, SF}.

kevinr 14y ago

No mention of the "oh, you're a contractor, so we don't have to withhold taxes" scam? Then the article is seriously incomplete.

cbhl 14y ago
This falls under "you need an accountant and a lawyer", and probably would be out of scope for a website like this. If you've had a bad experience, you could write a blog post about it and send it to the maintainers -- maybe they'll include it as a guest post.

whitewhim 14y ago

As a fellow Canadian Student it would be great if you could write a section on how to obtain a Visa to work for the summer in the Bay Area. Last summer I was offered an internship at a Y Combinator startup in the Palo Alto but had to turn it down due to Visa reasons.

khuey 14y ago
Startups typically aren't thrilled to deal with visas. Most mid-size or larger companies will sponsor students for J-1s (or whatever the equivalent for Canadians is).

iansinke 14y ago

How many companies offer internships longer than a summer? I have a co-op position for this summer but after my 3rd year I'm hoping to get something longer, a 12 or 16 month position. Also -- are many American companies friendly towards Canadians who happen to have dual citizenship? To be honest ideally I'd work in Waterloo or Toronto (both are driving distance, ish, from my home) but I'd love to spend time in NYC or the Bay Area too.

SkyMarshal 14y ago

> Consider about an hour of your day eaten up by the commute, every day. In my experience, it's about an hour one-way, so two hours daily. Assuming SF-PA-SF, express Caltrain, ~10m walk on each end.

philip1209 14y ago

Any tips for a new hire in the Bay area? (I just accepted a full-time job in SOMA starting in late May). Specifically - any tips on securing an apartment ahead of time, possibly remotely? I have a week in the corporate apartment, but if I could line something up beforehand that would be preferred.

rdouble 14y ago
Be ready to write a check for deposit + 2 months rent on the spot if you find a place you like. Have copies of your credit report with you and a "rental resume" with phone numbers of HR at your new job and your old landlord.
striglia 14y ago
When I started working in SF (moving from the Los Angeles area) I had great luck renting a temporary place and apartment hunting after work hours. I used AirBnB but you would be fine with any approach...the point is that apartment hunting is an infinitely better experience in person and you can avoid all the craigslist horror stories involved with remote renting.

rachelbythebay 14y ago

Avoid North San Jose? Wha? East San Jose, maybe. North San Jose is like two trailer parks and a bunch of shiny new complexes. Avoid the trailer parks if that's not your thing and you're fine. I'm talking about anything north of Montague between the Guadalupe and Coyote Creek, and south of 237. North of 237 I'd call Alviso, and that's a whole different thing.

ruswick 14y ago

This is fairly tangential, but do startups and/or medium-sized companies place emphasis on education when selecting interns? As a student in high school, I see effectively no advantage to informing a potential employer of the fact that I attend a certain school. At best, it's inconsequential and yields no advantage to me, as high schools generally lack the sort of prestige that certain universities possess; and, at worst, it will deter possible employers who would be unwilling to permit someone like me to work for them. Is education significant among startups, and how can I maximize the allure of my resume vis-a-vis my education (or lack thereof)?

duked 14y ago

7k for an internship ? I'm a bit confused is this the take home amount or pre-tax ? Because if it's after tax that's around 120k$/year. Can someone, clarify that ?

cbhl 14y ago
Top students will easily command the equivalent of $120k/year in the bay, but many will make much less than this. You may wish to choose an offer that pays way less than this if the experience is more interesting, though.

lucb1e 14y ago

It's incredible to see how different the market is in the US than in the Netherlands - and I think we're in line with most other European countries. Interning at big guys like Microsoft or Google is almost entirely unheard of. School never even told about the possibility of being asked technical questions during an interview; interviews are supposed to be a 15 minute conversation about ourselves and about the company. We're always assumed to get an interview. "Startups may hire only one or two interns" is normal, companies hiring more than that are extremely rare, and if they do it's usually because they're too poor to pay real employees. In fact, 3/4 companies I've been with hired interns because they're (very) cheap. So that means no pay. Not that I'm looking for wages, I'm looking to learn something, but still. It turns out the better companies also pay more (or at all), but I only learned that very recently. I never even knew it was customary to get a monetary compensation for your work until a year ago. It became most obvious when I was (almost solely) working on code for mission-critical systems without payment...