Ask HN: How to pursue an unadvertised/nonexistent internship?

I'm in a similar vessel over here in Scotland/UK 30yr old, CS undergrad, wife/daughter etc. I've no experience other than the 1.5yrs coding from University and mostly in Java & php. Around 3 weeks ago I used linkedin to target companies in and around Edinburgh that I thought I could work in, loosely based on product/location but not tech stack. I also used google finance and used different phrases to find larger companies. I contacted managers and HR staff via unsolicited email with my CV and academic transcript.

I've had 3 interviews so far and a further 1 next week with. I've had 1 offer of p/t during term and f/t in the summer.

All 3 companies don't let interns loose on their codebase, understandable tbh. They look at setting a side project, within their 'product roadmap', to develop a proof of concept. Sometimes this ends up not being useful, but the company can keep their current dev team on more pressing issues while undertaking 'research'. Might be worth approaching with this tangent?

I'm assuming that an internship is the same over here as in your locale; a summer job? If python is your chosen path great but don't let it stand in the way of applying to different companies. All 3 of the companies I've interviewed with use .Net and MSoft stacks, of which I have no experience. I found most of the interviewers had been focused on assessing my communication skills instead of technical prowess. Learning another language can't be a bad thing?

Good Luck!

When I was a sophomore in college, I knew I wanted to get into a startup as an intern. (I think there is a pg essay somewhere giving that advice, I followed it). I knew as a mechanical engineer with some software development experience I didn't want to be in one of the web 2.0 startups. I posted an Ask HN question about how to find startups in Manhattan (I lived in New Jersey, about 1.5 hour commute to manhattan each way). HNers posted two groups (NYTech Meetup, and TechNY?, forget the second one off teh top of my head). I sent an email out to those two groups basically saying, here is my resume, I would love to intern for a startup company, preferably one that does hardware, does anyone have any tips.

One of the members on the 2nd board told me about Bug Labs, and gave me the contact email for one of the guys there. I then went through about a 4 week process of playing phone and email tag. I never gave up. I'd get in touch about every 3-5 days and push for an interview. I finally got one, I think just so they'd shut me up. They really had no need/use/idea of what to do with an intern. But I think they knew I wanted it badly enough that it was worth taking a chance on me.

I ended up staying there for the rest of college doing 2 summer and 2 winter internships, and it was definitely the best experience/job I've ever had.

My suggestion is: figure out exactly what you want to do, find a contact in the company (for me it was HR not CEO) and just lay it out really clearly why you want to work for them and what you will do. For me I made it clear that I would pick up all the low priority tasks and free up the other engineers to do other things. That meant at first writing a lot of the manuals, testing, and writing tutorials. It was probably less programming than some other internships, but I was surrounded by some of the smartest people I've ever met, and it was a great place to work.

So just don't give up on contacting them, people in startups are busy, and make sure you make it clear what value you are going to bring to them becuase startups don't have the time or money to keep on interns that don't pull their weight.

I'm also a college junior and have been looking to gain development experience. I recently just had success emailing a startup in my area using their jobs@startup.com address. I listed some of my skills, gave a link to a project that I did, and told them why I was passionate about what they were doing. The CEO ended up emailing me back the same day.

If anyone else is in this position I'd recommend trying this first since it's very good way to express interest in a possible job opportunity with a company.

Heartily agree on all counts. Learning new languages I am definitely not opposed to. I don't have a "pet stack." I just want professional experience for when I move to more, ahem, lucrative locales.

Thanks for responding.