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

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.<p>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.

Very cool website!<p>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:<p>- Completely disregard age requirements when applying. If a company denies you because of your age, then just apply to another company.<p>- 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 <i>not</i> a conventional applicant, and this approach allows you to stand out.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.

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.<p>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.<p>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...

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):<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>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 &#60;firstname&#62;.g.&#60;lastname&#62; [at] gmail.<p>[1] <a href="http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-chose-new-york" rel="nofollow">http://michael-g-miller.tumblr.com/post/20168723440/why-i-ch...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqtQ9DbeQY</a>

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 <i>any</i>, housing. Landing a spot within the first weeks, or even month, will be very hard for anyone new to the town.<p>If you want an apartment in this city you <i>must</i> 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.

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.<p>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.

Just a correction here: <a href="http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an-internship-at-a-top-tier/" rel="nofollow">http://internproject.io/finding-an-internship/how-to-land-an...</a><p>MS actually has the Explore Microsoft internship for underclassmen. [1]<p>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.<p>---<p>[1]: <a href="http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explore-microsoft.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships-explo...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html" rel="nofollow">http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...</a>

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.<p>Is education significant among startups, and how can I maximize the allure of my resume vis-a-vis my education (or lack thereof)?

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!<p>A few additional points in regards to the comments below:<p>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: <a href="http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a-J1-visa-for-an-internship" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-are-willing-to-sponsor-a...</a><p>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.<p>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.<p>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: <a href="http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-internships" rel="nofollow">http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-in...</a><p>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!<p>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

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.

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

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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.

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.

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

Any tips for a new hire in the Bay area? (I just accepted a full-time job in SOMA starting in late May).<p>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.

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.

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

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...

&#62; <i>Consider about an hour of your day eaten up by the commute, every day.</i><p>In my experience, it's about an hour <i>one-way</i>, so two hours daily. Assuming SF-PA-SF, express Caltrain, ~10m walk on each end.

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 ?

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.

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

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

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

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

Do you have information for students from another countries?