Hello. First post...
I have to do a 6-months internship (placement), from April - September, and I was wondering if you know of any good companies that offer this opportunity. I am not asking for small software houses, I'm sure there are many of them that can do that. I more asking about big companies, like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM etc.
Does anyone have any idea if they offer placements for 6 months?
Have a good day!
EDIT: I'm looking for companies in the US...
Last edited by Dush; 09-04-2009 at 04:57 AM. Reason: ...
...They all do...
The best way to get an internship is to go to a career fair at a local university, where these companies specifically come to recruit.
So, you want to skip the small company stage where you work in a closely knit group of friends who grab beers after work while producing amazing new stuff, and jump straight to the soul-crushing faceless monstrosity stage.Originally Posted by Dush
Hmm. Odd choice.
Code://try //{ if (a) do { f( b); } while(1); else do { f(!b); } while(1); //}
Unless maybe you mean an oppressive bunch of nobodies to whom you will be serving coffee and forced to mimic in a friendly way, with little prospect of finding subsequent employment or gaining real experience.I have heard small organizations are more prone to abusing the possibilities of "internment" but I guess this will vary widely. Some people might rather "jump straight to the soul-crushing faceless monstrosity stage" in the hopes of avoiding "the soul-crushing, easily identified, tedious nowhere stage".
C programming resources:
GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
The C Book -- nice online learner guide
Current ISO draft standard
CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge
At big companies like Microsoft, IBM, etc, interns work on fun stuff like unit tests, build environment scripts, and performance testing. At small companies, interns work on boring stuff like software design, critical bug fixes, and design implementation.
Oh wait...
bit∙hub [bit-huhb] n. A source and destination for information.
Not necessarily. I did my internship for a relatively large company, and my project as an intern was relatively large and included loads of new feature development. It was a fun project.At big companies like Microsoft, IBM, etc, interns work on fun stuff like unit tests, build environment scripts, and performance testing. At small companies, interns work on boring stuff like software design, critical bug fixes, and design implementation.
I pity those who have to write unit tests all day long every day...not that they aren't necessary, just that that's not what this job is all about.
I admit my sample size is small, as I'm not in the habit of changing companies very much.
I started as an intern at a small company (12 people) and stayed there almost 9 years. By the time I left I was the technical overseer for a two million line project.
Now I'm at a somewhat larger (90 people) company but it still feels like a small company. My experience of huge companies is admittedly through what my friends have told me. I know many people who've worked for IBM and Intel.
Code://try //{ if (a) do { f( b); } while(1); else do { f(!b); } while(1); //}
The size of the company has nothing to do with the quality of work you'll be doing...
Yes I could go to careers fairs, but I live in London so I don't have that option.
Right now Google appears not to have any places for interns (from their website).
I'd also like to live in New York for some time, or a similar town, but I don't know what companies are located there (the ones I know are located in Silicon Valley).
I'll hazard a mildly educated guess and say that most of the computer firms here are not huge and service Wall St, eg, doing web-dev. Large software development companies would be located next door, in New Jersey, where they have things like industrial parks, which are an impossibility in NYC (I've lived here for 3 1/2 years and still not seen a single one).
And, honestly, I've travelled enough of NA to tell you: there is no similar town
C programming resources:
GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
The C Book -- nice online learner guide
Current ISO draft standard
CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge
Maybe this is possible in large large companies where the process is more automatic, but I can't imagine a company sponsoring a visa for you to come over and be an intern for six months; that's a reasonable investment of time, paperwork, and money and most probably wouldn't think it would be worth it, I would expect (unless you're a US citizen already). (Edit: This is assuming you need a worker visa for an internship, which actually I don't know, but presumably it's something you should check.)
Last edited by tabstop; 09-04-2009 at 04:19 PM.
Our interns were utilized quite well and we made sure they received good hands-on experience. We didn't want to delegate the trivial boring tasks to them b/c we did not want to discourage them. This year our interns did amazingly well and contributed quite a bit to our project. The best thing for the interns, however, was the fact that they were able to just leave the project and go back to school while the rest of us are still stuck hammering away at it.
We even had a team send off for our interns at a local restaurant. Normally we like to look at interns as possible future employees and so we attempt to make their experience both educational and enjoyable with the hopes that when they graduate they might want to become a full-time member of the team.
This might actually backfire on you and turn you off to the industry as a whole. Google is probably the best in the list but by no means do these big companies have a patent on how to run a happy yet productive dev studio. Each company is different and the atmosphere's equally as different. Don't discount small studios just b/c you want to be at some big name company. Big names do not equal happiness much like small studios also do not automatically equal happiness. Interview for some intern positions and see which one fits you best. You are going to want your first experience to be a pleasant one.I more asking about big companies, like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM etc.
In my opinion you are limiting yourself by only wanting to intern at big companies. There are thousands and thousands of companies out there where you can gain valuable internship experience and no two are alike so why limit yourself to just a few?
The reason I'm limiting myself to just a few is because I've already worked for a big company, so I'm looking for something bigger. I'd rather go back to my old company than going to a small software house, cause yes it might be super-fun in a small company but:
1. It the name of the company that counts in the end
2. The salary won't be competitive
Have you guys considered working in the IT department of an Investement Bank?
That is where you are mistaken. Sort of arrogant for you to assume you 'know' so much about every small company out there don't you think?1. It the name of the company that counts in the end
2. The salary won't be competitive
If you hadn't noticed it is the small companies that have weathered and are weathering the recession better b/c they usually have less overhead and less debt.
Last edited by VirtualAce; 09-05-2009 at 09:30 AM.
Of the two reasons you give, this is the most devastating. I won't discuss the salary. You obviously associate big names to big salaries. A mistake you'll realize soon enough. No need for me to go into a tirade.
But less obvious is that idea quoted above.
Show me indeed a resume with names like NASA, NSA or Microsoft in there and I'll be impressed. But what did you do there? That will be the first question I will look for in your resume. And that is the one that will get you or not the job. Dig it?
Now, for you to even have a glint of hope to come out of a job at NASA that doesn't involve serving coffees, you had to have some sort of hands-on experience and revealed some sort of rare or extreme know-how. These are the skills and features you can only learn and train in obscure small to mid-size companies. Those companies that are indeed the backbone of technological development under most circumstances. Just so you have an idea, NASA doesn't do it anymore (heck! did they ever?). They buy it already done. So, it's those small companies the ones that under most circumstances will shape your future and will guarantee you a comfortable seat on a big company later on in your career.
...
If your desire is to show off your resume with big names, you are in for a short career. A big company cannot ever directly compete with the small companies development cycles, simply because there's too many of them. So under most circumstances they either buy them out, buy their findings or imitate. Only a handful of new technologies get to be developed by them. And guess who will be developing them? Not you. No sir. Remember? You don't have any of the experience or know-how you would have acquired had you worked for one of these small obscure companies you seem to like to ignore.
Last edited by Mario F.; 09-05-2009 at 10:08 AM.
Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.
OK that is perfect, so you guys go and apply to those small companies and leave Google, Apple, Cisco, eBay etc to me. Because we all know that people who work there have boring jobs, and we all know that if we had the chance to work there we'd turn them down. Right.
