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

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

#111

Post by lucb1e »

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...

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

#112

Post by michael_miller »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #110
michael_miller wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$7k is actually on the low end nowadays :). I was as surprised as you, but talking to my friends, salaries seem to have shot up this past year. Dropbox, Google, FB, all pay over $7k, some well over that amount.

Wow. Fuck me only negotiating for $5500/month at a start-up. Many of my other internship applications got lost in bureaucracy, so I didn't get competing offers (ha, in one case, I failed to get an internship offer from a firm that once offered me a full-time job) to see how far up things had shot.

Just want to emphasize my point on money not being a factor in your decision. Consider you could be getting paid $8500 by working for . That's $9000 over your summer, peanuts compared to your life earnings. Don't sweat it, you'll have the awesome experience of working for a small startup (something I never did), and probably make some really good friends. Enjoy life, you're getting paid many multiples what people with college degrees are making :).

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

#113

Post by michael_miller »

LockeWatts wrote: post #99
michael_miller wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$7k is actually on the low end nowadays :). I was as surprised as you, but talking to my friends, salaries seem to have shot up this past year. Dropbox, Google, FB, all pay over $7k, some well over that amount.

Man, really? I feel kinda screwed then that Amazon is only paying $6k, before housing & misc benefits.

Will you be interning in Seattle? If so, you're likely getting an equivalent deal to $8.5k in the Valley. Washington has no income tax and a way lower cost of living.

Even if not in Seattle, the difference between $6k and $8.5k is negligible for a 3 month internship relative to your life earnings.

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

#115

Post by LockeWatts »

sliverstorm wrote: post #101
LockeWatts wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that cause a pit in your stomach? I love knowing that, as an Amazon intern.

Because I have trouble wrapping my head around $150k straight out of college, even after we've set aside the outliers.

I don't think it'll be that high? I'm not sure. I've heard closer to $130k.

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

#116

Post by LockeWatts »

michael_miller wrote: post #113
LockeWatts wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, really? I feel kinda screwed then that Amazon is only paying $6k, before housing & misc benefits.

Will you be interning in Seattle? If so, you're likely getting an equivalent deal to $8.5k in the Valley. Washington has no income tax and a way lower cost of living. Even if not in Seattle, the difference between $6k and $8.5k is negligible for a 3 month internship relative to your life earnings.

Yes, I will be in Seattle. Sadly we still have to pay the state taxes of our tax home, so the tax rate of Washington versus California doesn't really affect our pay.

However, It's only negligible if it doesn't correlate linearly with a starting salary.

If my starting salary is 20% lower at Amazon than anywhere else, you can bet I won't be returning after my internship.

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

#117

Post by rdl »

jbkring wrote: post #19
dr_doom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Oakland really that bad? I really want the most affordable place I can find. I'm not too scared of crime, I have guns and grew up in a lower class neighborhood, but am worried about theft when I'm not home. edit: I would basically like to live in a neighborhood like Pilsen in Chicago. Affordable, working class, mexican, and close to transit. Any recommendations?

Oakland is like any other city. There are safe neighborhoods and dangerous neighborhoods. Some of the safer ones are: Temescal, Adam's Point, Grand Lake/Cleveland Heights, Piedmont & Rockridge (not technically Oakland).

Absolutely true. For an intern without a car, the critical factor is probably BART access. The best non-ghetto + BART at a low price is probably around 19th street, so "Uptown", toward Adams Point. There are apartments in the $1200 1BR range, vs. 2-3x that for short term in SF (!!!). I'd still probably suggest trying to find a roommate, sublet, or company sponsored thing, even if it's tiny or sketchy, nearer work and social stuff, in SF or PA/MV, though. Temescal (which is farther up, near MacArthur BART) is also a good choice. There's a weird auto-dealer wasteland in between, which was a horrible zoning choice by Oakland, but they're working on redeveloping that, so it should be a continuous area of interesting stuff from ~16th to ~40th at some point.

OTOH, I live in Oakland and drive. I've never gone to anything in Oakland except Amazon locker pickup, Whole Foods (but prefer Berkeley places), and the 580/880 onramps. I step into my car in an underground garage and essentially don't get out until I'm in the civilized/Promised Land (Peninsula).

Berkeley is also maybe more fun as an intern, even if you work in SF, and has BART. I'm not sure what summer housing is like there -- I'd assume there are vacancies in places rented to students during the year over the summer.

Nitpicking: Piedmont is an enclave contained within Oakland (but independent), but Rockridge is part of Oakland. (it's also "Adams Point", not Adam's Point)

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

#118

Post by rdl »

cpeterso wrote: post #32
dr_doom wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Oakland really that bad? I really want the most affordable place I can find. I'm not too scared of crime, I have guns and grew up in a lower class neighborhood, but am worried about theft when I'm not home. edit: I would basically like to live in a neighborhood like Pilsen in Chicago. Affordable, working class, mexican, and close to transit. Any recommendations?

I live in North Oakland, a nicer part of town. Even here, people get mugged at the BART station in broad daylight. Last year, we had a string of restaurant "take-over" robberies. The crime problem is pretty bad and getting worse. Most of the murders, 126 last year and 3 just this past weekend, are gang-related and localized to West and East Oakland ("the Flats"). The safer parts of town are North Oakland, near Berkel…

Oakland PD is also one of the worst departments in the Bay Area (although BART PD and EPA PD take the cake).

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

#119

Post by jimmaswell »

michael_miller wrote: post #61

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 / technologi…

>Don't even consider interning part time during the school year.

Really? All the advice I've heard anywhere else said it's extremely important to do as many internships as possible before graduating. And 7k a month? I thought internships were unpaid.

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