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Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

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Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#3
post #2

I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.

A furnished apartment in NYC probably adds a lot to that salary. The unfortunate part is that the cost of that benefit is also considered income and the taxes for it would come out of the $6K. I interned at Microsoft years ago with similar benefits (good salary, furnished apartment, prepaid rental car, relocation costs & 2 gym memberships) but they paid extra cash to cover the taxes on the non-monetary benefits.

There's no way I would've turned down the Fog Creek opportunity back then, though, it sounds like a very well planned program at an awesome company. There were many internships in the Philadelphia area, for developers, that paid half that salary with no perks on top of the pay at all. On the other hand, the interview process at nearly all the companies consisted of sending a resume and sitting down for 30 minutes to talk about past experience. I interviewed at 4-6 companies a year to get my 3 internships, with a ~75% acceptance rate (offered the internship), and not one involved multiple interviews or a single code screen. The west coast interview process just doesn't exist out here.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#4
post #2

I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.

A furnished apartment in NYC probably adds a lot to that salary. The unfortunate part is that the cost of that benefit is also considered income and the taxes for it would come out of the $6K. I interned at Microsoft years ago with similar benefits (good salary, furnished apartment, prepaid rental car, relocation costs & 2 gym memberships) but they paid extra cash to cover the taxes on the non-monetary benefits. Ther…

I lived in the same place they put their interns for a summer, it's decent and costs ~4,000 for the entire summer, which definitely adds to the cost.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#5
post #2

I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.

How's the cost of living in new york? I'm an intern in michigan and I'm getting way less than 6k a month but I definitely feel spoiled.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#7
post #5
post #2

I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry.

How's the cost of living in new york? I'm an intern in michigan and I'm getting way less than 6k a month but I definitely feel spoiled.

(Manhattan prices) A good studio apartment will be $2000-2500 a month. A one bedroom would be $3000+.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#9
As someone who just went through the internship process with a few different companies, I find this fascinating. This is pretty much what I expected going into the experience (multiple interviews, at least 1-2 coding questions/examples to do, a test maybe). Out of the few companies I interviewed from, I had nothing as intense as this. The majority of them didn't even test coding/theory knowledge at all. They were just simple interviews that lasted 2-5 hours. The hardest part of any interview was a freaking mental acuity standardized test I took at the company who I'll be working for that wasn't hard, so take the term "hardest" lightly. Good news is I accepted an offer at that smaller engineering company! A good portion of my interviews were for engineering companies because of the employers my university attracts, so that could also have affected the technical parts of the interview.

I'm not sure how I feel about how many interviews and how long this process is. I know some of my fellow students would be completely blindsided by such a long process unless it was clearly laid out. The compensation seems nice from the companies that hire around here (I go to a predominately STEM university in the Mid-West and all the companies I interviewed with came to our career fair in February, which is pretty late in the process). I'll make just over half that much monthly, but it'll be June-December and in STL. The highest I've heard from my classmates is 7k/month, but that was from Exxon Mobile and there was very little technical parts of the interview. He did have to take a hair test for drugs though. Ideally, I believe most of the larger corporations, like Boeing, Monsanto, etc, (like the article said) start interviews after the fall career fair.

Another side note about compensation: Seems to be pretty wide spread between 13-30/hr (without adding in housing) at companies around the Midwest. I don't exactly have the greatest academic credentials though (3.0 gpa), so some of the more selective companies may pay more, especially for graduating seniors. Exxon-Mobile being the highest, Boeing right in the middle of that range, and a local ISP looking for a non-coding cs major on the low end for the curious.

edit: Just adding in details as I get time.

FORGOT THE MOST ANNOYING THING

I was given the offer on Friday and he needed an answer on Monday, else he was going to extend the offer to other candidates. This was pretty obnoxious to me, but I ended up taking the offer because I was interested in it more than my other potential offers, but seriously, recruiters, a weekend is not enough time to get back to you with an offer, especially when other companies are asking you to keep them notified with enough time that they can either speed things up or not waste time on a candidate.

Re: Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process

#10
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the cost of living in new york? I'm an intern in michigan and I'm getting way less than 6k a month but I definitely feel spoiled.

(Manhattan prices) A good studio apartment will be $2000-2500 a month. A one bedroom would be $3000+.

Wow, yea now I see why they get payed so much. A solid 2 bedroom around me is like 500-800.
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