You mention linkedin. The reason I said SMEs is that things at a small company are less process driven. If you want to intern at linkedin, then you probably hav

You mention linkedin. The reason I said SMEs is that things at a small company are less process driven. If you want to intern at linkedin, then you probably have to apply to head office, and probably then intern at head office. But at a small company, if you convince the chief engineer you are in. I got my start at 14 knocking doors on a local industrial estate. I came across a little company developing java accelerator chips for mobile phones. Later they got bought by arm, and that technology became jazelle, which I guess opened the way for running Android on a little mobile proccessor, but when I was there it was 10 guys in a lab. The CEO liked my enthusiasm, but I was pretty useless. On my first day, I tripped the power for the building, and on my second I injured myself soldering, and came in crying while they were negotiating with Samsung in the next room. Still got the scars. I hope at least they found me amusing. The best way to get in somewhere small as an intern would be through your personal network. Knocking doors is acceptable for children, but I think it would come across as for an adult. If someone you vaguely know asks their boss if you can come intern, they will probably say yes. I'm assuming, from the rest of this thread, that where you are at is you are in your late teens, and thinking of going to college in 6 months or a year. Being so young is actually a big advantage. People generally want to help young people. They have an expectation that you won't have much experience, but they will want you to succeed because they would have liked someone to help them when they were young. If you don't have many software engineers in your network, go to local events, talk to people, and be up front about what you are looking for. If they can't help you, they will direct you to people that can. Oh, and keep in mind that while at the moment web/apps are the big thing, software and engineering are bigger than that. It might be that in a decade, the big thing will be applying AI to data to help people make decisions. Or you might want to get into computational biology for drug development. Going to school is pretty important for that stuff.