"If you don’t mind living further away from one of the central locations, you’ll be able to pay half as much for rent for a nicer place than you could afford otherwise (see heat map).
Saving money is great and all..."
For lots of people, saving money isn't "great and all." It's required. Especially if you happen to be an intern living in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Sounds like you've got some experience with this - are there any particular places you'd recommend? When I was an intern in SF (2011), I lived in Glen Park, which was a half/hour bike ride/couple of BART stops away from work, and I ended up paying slightly over $1,100. I had friends that went and found more distant housing, but we didn't see them all that much/they didn't get nearly as much out of the summer as we did, beyond their company.
A lot (most?) internship salaries include a $1,000 housing stipend, so it ends up being not all that crazy; neither of my internships had more than 25% of income go to housing.
Can you speak to your experience in particular? I haven't met a lot of people who followed your strategy, but I'd love to incorporate the perspective of somebody who did.
Temescal. Macarthur BART has lots of trains to the city and assuming you're going somewhere near a station (like Twitter or Google SF) it's ~ 20 minutes. Strong hipster vibe, and an explosion of restaurants, bike shops, funky secondhand stores, etc. in the last 10 years. Neighborhood is still rough in patches, but rapidly improving. Stay to the North and East of Macarthur BART and you're fine.
Downtown Berkeley. Safe Neighborhood. Lots of young people about, plenty of restaurants. Things tend to close up earlier than in the city. Commute is slightly longer than to Temescal, but the Richmond trains tend to be emptier and so you almost always get a seat.
If you work at Google SF or anywhere downtown, look into the AC Transit Transbay Buses. They are slightly more expensive than BART ($4.20 a ride, last I checked) but you get free Wifi, great views, clean, comfortable coach seats, and nonstop service. That opens up a LOT more territory, albeit mostly away from the concentrations of culture.
But all that said, you're right, SF is the place to be if you can afford it. Don't try to save money as an intern. What you earn during that time is a drop in the bucket, ultimately, and you're only young once. But if you have a crew of people you want to live with, the Easy Bay can be a great bet, and you can spend what you save on trips out of town.
I'm a tech person who rents out a furnished spare room (including to interns in the past) for $1000 in Mountain View, after looking at the going rates; from my experience, your advice isn't too far off. It's just a case of supply and demand, there aren't many people like me in the local area. (Note: We rent via Airbnb rather than their "sublets" specific program, which you call out explicitly.)
If interns team up they can maybe get a short term lease at one of the many south bay housing complexes (Archstone, Avalon, Prometheus, Irvine Company). Most are horrible landlords and several charge ridiculous, but understandable, rent increases if you are shorter term - however, if you're prepared to share and lay out on furniture, it could be a saving over the course of a summer. Plus, could get lucky and find a relocating person or off-season intern to hand off to at the end of summer.
I could recommend several of the peninsula cities near the Caltrain corridor, Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, San Carlos come readily to mind. (in addition to Mountain View and Palo Alto) if you are near the Train station you can pop into SF, or stops with easy shuttle service to Facebook and Google.
East bay near BART is also good if your internship is in the city.
The housing advice in the article is correct - those are the ideal areas. However, it fails to mention the extreme costs and competitive nature of finding a place in those areas.
Living in Berkeley is not a good choice if your internship is in the South Bay. Even if your job is accessible by BART, Berkeley near a BART station is not inexpensive. The nice areas of Oakland are similarly expensive and the not-nice areas of Oakland are a few orders of magnitude more dangerous than the rest of the Bay Area. I used to live in an "affordable" part of Berkeley and had to spend about an hour each way getting to work with walking on both sides + BART. Berkeley and parts of Oakland like Rockridge have their charms, but I do not recommend them if you have the option of living closer to work.
Nowhere in Oakland is an order of magnitude worse. Worse, yes, but few places are that bad. Parts of the Mission, and certainly the Tenderloin (both in the sweet spot on this guy's map) are worse than anywhere BART-accessible in Oakland except West Oakland and maybe Lake Merritt/Fruitvale.
If you're working in the South Bay, yeah, don't live there. But Temescal, for example, is a great option if you're working in the city. Great city feel, lots of cool stuff, and you're still only 20 minutes from the city. That's a shorter commute than many parts of the city itself. It's expensive my national standards, but still cheaper than the city.
You are right, an order of magnitude was an exaggeration. But Oakland's citywide crime stats in most categories are double/triple that of San Francisco.
That said, I don't think crime is the main reason to not live in the East Bay when you are doing an internship. Minimizing transport time to work and/or recreation is why you don't want to live out there. If you are working in SF, live in SF. If work is in the south bay, live in the south bay...or maybe live in SF. It will be expensive but an internship should cover it. If the internship doesn't cover it you picked the wrong internship.
And the point is, depending on where you work, the East Bay is often "closer" in terms of time spent than some parts of the City, because BART is so much faster than Muni or cycling.
The most important thing is to live near other interns. If everyone's in the city, live in the city. If you want to get a house with a few people, or just prefer a more laid-back vibe, the East Bay is a great option.
Yeah, I moved to Oakland because I was tired of my business partner, who lived in West Oakland, getting to my office in SoMA in ten minutes while I endured typically 35-45 minute Muni bus rides from only two miles away in SF, with an astonishing variance of arrival time.
As for the crime in Oakland, some guy got shot in front of his own house in the Mission this morning. People arriving for their internships, not being familiar with SF neighborhoods, shouldn't get the impression that the Mission is some kind of picnic.
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 Berkeley, and the Hills.
Per capita, Oakland is the nation's #1 city for robberies, #1 for vehicle thefts, #3 for violent crime, and #4 for murders. Oakland has only 15 police officers per 10,000 residents, half as many as SF and one-third as many NYC and Chicago.
Oakland is depressing because the city has so much potential. It is centrally located in the Bay Area; close to SF by BART, car, and ferry; has an international airport; and has a large shipping port. But many big employers are scared away by crime, so people have to leave Oakland to work or shop, further depressing the city.
Oakland is the only place in the Bay Area I've been held up at gunpoint. Property theft is a problem in both Oakland and San Francisco. Less so in the South Bay. Even if you are not scared of crime, dealing with the aftermath of a robbery or burglary is a headache. Oakland has a lot of boosters but I have never found much compelling about it. I find it similar to southern-midwest cities, whereas SF is a unique place, unlike most other cities in the world.
Edit: it's hard to compare places in the Bay Area to Chicago neighborhoods. There are plenty of hispanic areas near public transport. They aren't like Pilsen, though. The word "affordable" also doesn't mean the same thing.
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)
Rockridge is definitely part of Oakland, but Piedmont is a separate city. Piedmont seceded from Oakland in 1907 and is completely surrounded by Oakland. I've never heard of any other city engulfed within another.
This property of Piedmont is not even unique within the Bay Area! Fremont (the fourth-largest city in the Bay Area) has an enclave of its own, Newark, which is its own city yet completely surrounded by Fremont.
Just for fun.. The Vatican City is surrounded by Rome, though it's not only a city but a nation state. If you want California, though, Los Angeles has several enclaved cities, such as San Fernando.
Well, plenty of people live there and all, but a few visits combined with Wikipedia [1] have convinced me that I don't particularly want to live there.
There are bad neighborhoods, but it's fairly easy to know where they are. Being street smart + avoiding hotspot areas will dramatically decrease your risk.
The rest of the city has plenty of natural beauty, affordable living, central location, interesting + diverse people, great food, gorgeous weather and fun nightlife.
Wow, true U.S. citizen's problems. I wouldn't even think about crime rates or the need to carry a gun when looking for a place to stay. Come to Europe, it's better.
The 'not so nice' areas of Oakland aren't bad, as long as you stay out of East Oakland.
I'm living in West Oakland right now. My rent is 1/3 the cost of an equivalent room in SF, and my commute is shorter (7 minute BART ride). I feel perfectly safe.
Oakland's crime problems are partially structural. It is much more car oriented and spread out, with a lot of dead zones where nobody is around. Thus it's much easier for a group of people to drive up behind you and rob you and then drive away. Personally, I would not suggest West Oakland unless you are broke. I felt safe, too, until I got jacked.
I don't live in an affordable part of Berkeley and it's still close to an hour each way to SOMA (~10 minutes walk each way, ~30 minutes on BART for Downtown Berkeley -> Mongomery, and a few minutes of slack to avoid missing the occasional train).
Are you sure? I interned in the bay area in summer 2012, and found that my salary was more than sufficient to cover rent in MTV. I received no housing stipend, and rented a reasonably nice place with 2 other interns which was $1200/month each (which I considered absolutely extortionate, not sure if others would agree). Given that my salary was in the $5000/month range, this was, off the top of my head, about 1/4 of my monthly salary, which is to me totally fine.
I don't deny that you can get cheaper outside of SF/MTV (and indeed SF can be much more expensive; my comment is only for MTV), but I dont think that $1200 is 'trust fund' money.
You're correct, I spent two summers interning the San Francisco. The salary most companies pay (at least for engineering interns) is enough to live comfortably in the city... It's just a bit harder to find a place that will sign a 3 month lease, but it certainly isn't out of the question.
It's just as easy to find a two bedroom or one BR+den apartment for 2-2.5k/mo and split it with another intern (or two) and come out well ahead. I know tens of people who did this successfully last summer virtually without issue. The big companies provide generous housing stipends, if not corporate housing, and allocating 20% of your essentially untaxed salary towards housing is well worth it to be a few blocks from work and in the heart of the tech community.
Agreed. But more than pretentious, it's downright inaccurate. I work in SOMA and live in Grand Lake (Oakland), and I have a shorter commute than most of my San Francisco-dwelling colleagues.
Finding a place in SF this summer is way worse than usual because of the America's Cup. It lasts from July-Sept and people are renting houses for $10k/week. Don't thank me, thank Larry Ellison.
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:
- Completely disregard age requirements when applying. If a company denies you because of your age, then just apply to another company.
- 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 not a conventional applicant, and this approach allows you to stand out.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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...
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 / 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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 <firstname>.g.<lastname> [at] gmail.
As a student in school right now I disagree with your third point. I have to pay for my schooling and don't have the money to live without a job so I don't have the choice. Working various internships has given me more experience at solving problems without the hand holding that school provides, and in turn makes homework generally easier.
Before I was lucky enough to land my first internship I worked for eBay as a customer service representative. While they had tuition reimbursement the job was so stressful that I felt it was a major detriment to my education. Jobs like this also don't care about your schooling or life outside of work.
Finally getting to program on the job and solve real world problems has been a change of pace. Your co-workers and management actually give you space, a chance to breathe, and respect that you have full time school outside of work. Working during school hasn't been half bad.
So, respectfully I disagree with your third point. I agree on the other points though.
$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 <big company x>. 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 :).
$7k not-including-housing is only normal if you're a returning intern. Otherwise, it's for the top tier. Last summer, Google was $6667/month for undergrad SWE interns not including housing stipend. The stipend should be a one-time $3500 (last summer, many interns could choose corporate housing instead of the $3500 stipend).
You are correct. This is totally standard nowadays. Source: I've been to about a billion recruiting fairs lately and have a bunch of knowledge of competing offers made to my intern candidates and yes, this is correct, and not just for Google interns anymore.
Including housing stipends of about 1k, but none of the other benefits, most of my friends and I are going to be making almost 7k. Making 7k not including housing would be on the very high end (for non-returners).
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.
>Don't even consider interning part time during the school year
Agreed for undergrads, but part-time internships are great if you're doing a masters. I spent an academic year doing research (most people did their masters thesis research in 1-4 months of full-time work) while I worked part-time at the same place I did my summer internship. Industry pay let me make a phd's salary (i.e. just enough to eke by) with just 12 hours a week of work. It was the best year of my life. I had plenty of free time to enjoy and improve myself (I got in great shape, met interesting people, read a lot) when it was socially acceptable to live like that.
BTW I completely agree on NYC. Moving here from the west coast has its costs, but has been one of the most personally enriching decisions I've ever made.
> 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.
Unless you want to work there after school, in which case returning is a very good idea, because the whole point of the returning internship pool is recruitment.
> 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.
There are lots of reasons other than money to intern part-time during the school year. It provides an outlet to do real-world work and build relationships that will matter for years to come after you've graduated.
The interns who continued to work in some part-time capacity when I was at Apple (and who continued to make solid technical contributions) were almost invariable hired.
> 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
The company in question and the work you're doing matters as much or more than the location you're in. Obviously, you want to live somewhere nice, but if you want to work at a specific company, then that should be what drives your internship decisions.
>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.
I couldn't get gmail to recognize your email (after plugging in your full name in between the '.g.') I might be missing something obvious, but for now I just applied through the website!
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 any, housing. Landing a spot within the first weeks, or even month, will be very hard for anyone new to the town.
If you want an apartment in this city you must 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.
I think it's pretty easy to get an apartment. Show up at the open house, don't dress like a slob (even if you always dress like a slob, just don't), and carry enough cash to pay off the deposit and the first month. Since it's an internship, just bring enough cash to pay for the entire lease. If you don't have cash you'll need bank statements (local banks, so open your accounts several months in advance), paychecks (pain in the ass, right? you might have to couch-surf for the first few weeks), letters of employment, and a reference. But even with all that you'll have trouble convincing anyone to rent to you. Cash is better.
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.
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.
MS actually has the Explore Microsoft internship for underclassmen. [1]
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.
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.
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!
A few additional points in regards to the comments below:
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.
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.
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: http://www.internmatch.com/blog/category/mastering-summer-in...
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!
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
Adding to your advice to look in Berkeley, that's especially wise as housing prices drop a lot during the summer since most UC Berkeley students (who rent a huge percentage of the apartments) are away on internships or breaks of their own. In addition to shared houses as you mention, there tend to be lots of summer sublets at cut rates. Assuming you're reasonably close to BART it's very convenient to SF, not at all convenient to South Bay/core Silicon Valley.
I'd be curious if Palo Alto similarly gets cheaper during the summer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Any tips for a new hire in the Bay area? (I just accepted a full-time job in SOMA starting in late May).
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.
When I started working in SF (moving from the Los Angeles area) I had great luck renting a temporary place and apartment hunting after work hours. I used AirBnB but you would be fine with any approach...the point is that apartment hunting is an infinitely better experience in person and you can avoid all the craigslist horror stories involved with remote renting.
Be ready to write a check for deposit + 2 months rent on the spot if you find a place you like. Have copies of your credit report with you and a "rental resume" with phone numbers of HR at your new job and your old landlord.
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.
Startups typically aren't thrilled to deal with visas. Most mid-size or larger companies will sponsor students for J-1s (or whatever the equivalent for Canadians is).
I really like this site. As someone who will be interning in the Bay Area this summer, I will find it very useful if you guys could throw in a forum where folks could connect and find roommates and make friends with fellow hackers.
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...
I disagree- I think that there are a lot of interns out there who don't have the right information in order to optimize their search for internships.
I learned computer science a lot later than many of my peers, I stumbled around a lot in the startup world before being able to intern at one of the more well-known companies in the valley- this was only after I had learned many lessons and been rejected or not even contacted by many companies because I didn't know how to present myself in a format that made recruiters want to contact me.
Any resource that helps potential interns to learn more about recruiting in the valley- from finding an internship to choosing an internship- is a good one.
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 ?
Top students will easily command the equivalent of $120k/year in the bay, but many will make much less than this. You may wish to choose an offer that pays way less than this if the experience is more interesting, though.
A lot of interns are from out of town / out of the country and will have difficulty navigating the commute from Oakland to {SF, Mountain View, Menlo Park} if they're working from a larger organization.
Plus, hanging out on weekends is easier when you're around other (out-of-town) interns, and they will likely be living in {MTV, PA, MP, SJ, SF}.
Part of the team is Canadian, but visa issues are complex. Once you land an offer with a megacorp, their lawyers should try to help you land the appropriate visas. Avoid smaller organizations if you're international.
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.