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The Internship That Students Drool Over
selan writes "The Baltimore Sun has a feature on Microsoft's internship program and why it is so popular with college students. Not only are interns paid, but they also receive the same perks as other Microsoft employees. At the end of the summer they are treated to a catered barbecue at Bill Gates's house and have a good shot at a full time job after graduation. You do not know the power of the Dark Side."
I have a good friend who interned an MS. He had a good experience, and was offered a job when he graduated. They pay interns very well, but they are expected to pull 55+ work weeks, and have no weekends. If you can get past the stigma of working for the Dark Side, it's a great opprotunity...
Many companies do not pay interns, said Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation for Wellesley, Mass.-based Salary.com, a software company that researches corporate pay and employment practices. He estimated that an internship at Microsoft may pay as much as $25 an hour, or $1,000 a week.
I interned at Microsoft up in Canada for high school, then they invited me back when I was in University. I got a job working for one of Microsoft's partners part-time while I was attending school, and during summer.
It was an amazing place to work, and I'd say as many as 20% of the employees there were interns (In MSFT Canada HQ).
The everyday perks were incredible, free drinks, 1/2 subsidized lunch room, laptop, iPAQ, yearly budget to purchase anything you want (that will help the company)... It was really amazing.
There's more info about the entire interview process and the positions on their MS College Website: http://www.microsoft.com
The general rule is that techie internships (computer science, engineering, etc.) are paid, and fuzzy internships (business, politics, journalism, arts) are unpaid. There are some exceptions to the latter where fuzzies get paid, but there are very rarely to the former where techies are not paid. The reason is simple economics: there is more demand for and less supply of techies, so techies can always blow off unpaid internships and go somewhere else where they get paid, whereas that's not always true for fuzzies.
:-p
OTOH, that doesn't mean that short-sighted tech companies won't slash their internship programs or otherwise leave techies out in the cold. I was supposed to have an engineering internship at On Semiconductor (a Motorola spin-off) paying about $20/hour during the summer of 2001. Unfortunately, the semiconductor industry collapsed that spring, and On cut their entire internship program in addition to cutting lots of permanent positions. Guess who won't ever work for On, or buy any of their parts unless I absolutely have to...
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Considering what they make their customers sign for a *tiny* bit of insider information, I can't imagine what they'd make an insider sign.
Well if you really want to know, I have an MS offer packet sitting in front of me. All the "scary" stuff is spelled out in a 3 page employee agreement. Here's a summary of the points:
1. Employee will not interfere \w MS's business interests or engage in activity that will interfere \w job performance.
2. Employment is terminable at will, by either party.
3. Nondisclosure agreement.
4. MS owns all copyrights developed during an employee's period of employment.
5. MS owns all inventions developed during an employee's period of employment, unless it was developed on employees own time, does not relate to MS business, and is not derivative of work done at MS.
6. Employees must declare all owned intellectual property\inventions\copyrights before employment.
7. Employment at MS must not infringe upon agreements \w prior employers.
8. Employee must return all materials\documents provided by MS.
9.One-year non-compete\non-solicitation clause.
10. At termination, MS can withhold money from employees to pay debts owed to the company for advances, overpayments, and company store.
11. MS is not responsible for loss of personal property.
12. Violation of any of the previous will be prosecuted if necessary.
13. MS will not pay attorney's fees if court proceedings are brought begun and they are related tot he employee agreement.
14. This agreement is governed by all applicable laws of the state of Washington, yada yada yada.
Sorry, it's pretty standard and boring.
The pay is good (damn good for an intern - about twice what I earned as a student engineer on a vaguely similar scheme in the UK).
;) At IBM, the engineers were complaining because after working a few hours of overtime the inters were making as much as the engineers.
:)
How many years of college did you have when you went for this internship? Most places with formal internship programs will increase the pay as you get more schooling. The article says they pay "as much as $25 an hour". I made that much when I had a bachelor's degree and was working on my masters, and half that much when I was a sophomore. Not even Microsoft is going to give $25/hour to someone with Introduction to Programming as their only relevent coursework. So unless you were a graduate student when you went on your internship, don't think it's an equal comparison.
A lot of large tech companies have good paying internships with flexible hours and other bonuses. Intel pays as much as MS, and you're eligible for profit sharing as well. I think AMD gives interns profit sharing, but that's purely theoretical at this point.
Working for a company which actually seems to care about you is a very fulfilling experience.
Adequate pay and flexible hours do not a caring company make. Intel has basically the same benefits in their intership program, but at the end of the day you're a well-compensated cog in the giant corporate machine. Flexible hours sounds great until you realize that there is a lot of pressure to use that to stretch the amount of time you're at work. Does it matter that much that you can come in at 11 when you're expected to work fifty or sixty hours a week without extra pay? But they don't mention that in the article, do they?
There's more to a company than their compensation. I've never gotten the impression from ex-MS employees I've run into that they actually care. Then again, most were similar to me -- though not exactly Free Software Hippies, they also didn't think MS was the paragon of software quality and moral business practices. I guess I knew one guy who liked his job there, but he did idolize Bill Gates (which is kinda like a young boxer idolizing Don King).
My point basically is that good benefits don't mean it's a good place to work in other ways. That's one of the best reasons to do an intership. Getting paid well while you're there is just a perk.
The enemies of Democracy are
My understanding, with dealing with various MS employees, is that they're not allowed to see ANY source code if it doesn't have a license attached. If I show some code to a MS person and that code, by purpose or not, ends up in a MS product, I could sue the company.
Not wanting to take that risk, MS asks its employees to avoid looking at "unprotected" source.
I have been a Microsoft intern the past two summers. I've also accepted a full time position with Microsoft once I graduate from college.
:). It's a slight ego booster.
:)
Some interns have much better experiences than others. I would say a vast majority have a great time, both professionally and socially. I am one of them, although I know some that didn't have a good time at all.
Work is work as an intern. You're expected to gear up fairly quickly, but not so as to stress you out. You *are* an intern - Microsoft is not going to give you a job that is 100% mission critical. However, as an intern, you *can* make significant contribution to your group's products (You can find my name in the Xbox credits
I saw a post that said you're expected to pull 55+ hour weeks. This isn't true. You are required to complete your assignments. If that means you need to work your ass off, and you want a good review, then that's what you have to do. If you're an awesome coder and can get it done in 20 hours, good for you. Go drink the rest of the time
Corporate culture is great. Everyone is supportive about things like personal time, social lives, time off, etc. Morale is really high at Microsoft. Through the roof. The company just treats you right in many different ways.
Being a Microsoft intern was the first time I had a consistent, fulfilling social life too. Pretty much every weekend was a party and having fun around Seattle.
The party at Bill's house is getting to be a bit cliche. I suspect Bill doesn't really want to do it anymore, but he's expected to now. There are so many interns at MS that there are several parties over the course of a week.
On the other hand, it's pretty damn sweet to get to see the inside of Bill's house.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Yup, I was one of them. I landed an internship for the giant in the summer of 2000. Here's my take on what happened:
;)
The Interviews: One phone interview with what I later learned was an HR rep took about 90 minutes. She mostly asked generic thinking questions, encouraging me to think aloud. Stuff like "If you could build your own movie theatre, what would it be like?" A couple of days later, I heard from an actual recruiter who said they'd like to interview me in person. At many of the larger schools, a Microsoft interviewing team will actually visit the campus, but in this case, they flew me up to Redmond. Got a sweet 4 day trip - one day to fly up, one day to interview, one day to hang in Seattle, and flew back on the last day. I will have to say that the interview day was without doubt the most grueling day of my entire life. I was directed to show up at campus at about 8:30 AM. Since I had been provided a rental car and hotel room about 3 minutes away, this wasn't a problem. I spent the first interview with another HR recruiter (Brian Schneider actually, who was quoted in the article). He mostly prepped me for the day, telling me to always remember who the audience was for anything I spoke about and to not worry about getting the right answer, just to talk through what I was thinking. I was then shuttled over another building, where the real interview process goes like this. You sit in the lobby, and someone comes out from the back. They take you back to their actual office and spend 45 minutes to an hour with you. After their questions, they lead you back to the lobby. There's two choices after that. If you did well, another employee will come and interview you. If you didn't, the next person to come out will call a shuttle for you back to the HR building, and your day is over. I wasn't that lucky. What they don't tell is that after every interview, the interviewer writes up a short spiel about you and passes the email thread along to your next interviewer. I spent the entire day in 5 interviews. They literally picked my brain to pieces. The only tough development question I was asked was how I would reverse a linked list and I wrote out some pseudo-code. (I wasn't, however, applying for a 'grunt' programmer position, although I do like to code.) The vast majority of the questions were "how you think" questions: how I would design an alarm clock with an unlimited budget, how elevator controls should work, justify my programming of a TV with 5 buttons. Also several "puzzle" questions which I usually had to think about but got an acceptable if not expected answer in the end. Everything was very laid back - the campus dress code is wear something, and everyone has carte blanch over how they decorate their office. I made it home after 6PM and pretty much just curled up in a ball and slept. They make it a point to get back to you in a week, and when they did, I was shocked at the salary. Let me just say that the article cuts the line a little low. (Although not everyone makes the same amount - you do better in a product group with an app that ships and makes money like Office or Windows, than you do in a business group that just manages internal affairs like payroll databases.)
The Summer: I had a blast. Every intern gets assigned a "mentor" who is more of a guide than a boss. You usually take a bit of his/her work and it actually gets assigned to YOU. Whatever decision YOU make is what stands. It's cool cause you can actually make a difference. Of course everything is still subject to peer review but I can recall some decisions I made. [Our product never actually shipped although some reincarnation of it may appear in the future...] The first day I showed up I had an actual office with my nameplate already on it and a computer hooked up and ready to go. I was free to do what I want, really. And contrary to the article, you work your own hours. Literally. I was provided subsidized housing and a subsidized rental car, as well as a pass card that would let me into any building on campus 24 hours a day 365 days a year. As long as I showed up for any meetings I was a part of, I could work as many or as few hours a day/week as I wanted. Still had to get the work done of course, and I did work some *long* weeks, especially when bug or demo deadlines were coming up. They also *threw* money at me. Every time I turned around, someone was dropping a "perk" off at my office... a designer fleece... a picnic backpack... cool stuff you actually use and not worthless corporate "gifts." Oh, and all the drinks are free all the time to all employees. The many kitchens are all constantly stocked with both a Pepsi and Coke fridge.
The Perks: We had free use of the buildings anytime. Quite a few times we hauled a DVD player down to a "conference room" (think small movie theatre size, not nonproductive-meeting-room size) and set it up on the giant projection screen for a movie night. I never got one peep from security, even when playing laser tag across the corporate campus from 11PM - 2AM with half a dozen other interns. Basically if you work there, have it your way. You have many of the same perks as full-timers as an intern. Free bus rides all over the city. This MS "benefit" card that got us and guests free or heavily discounted admittance to TONS of Seattle attractions. The MS shuttle system is designed to get employees to and from the separate buildings but they also make scheduled trips to various outlying areas. It's all free. Oh, and one of the best parts is the MS Company Store. Yes, every version of every software product MS has ever made is freely available on the corporate LAN, most of the time with those @$#& CD-keys disabled. But if you'd like a boxed copy with a real CD and that pamplet that passes as a manual these days, the company store has all current products at a heavy discount. Books and hardware are usually 50% off retail (I picked up quite a few of the Intellimouse Explorers) and software is 90 to 95% OFF retail. That means copies of Windows were $20-25, and full versions of Office were only slightly more. Felt good be legit for once.
The Barbecue: Yup, we went to Bill's. Met him, Melinda, and even the kids Jennifer and Rory. Played on their private beach. Swung on the swing set. Ate until we were gorged. Pretty much just hung out for the evening. The classic moment was when I had loaded my plate up (it's a buffet) and was walking back to my seat. A waitress passed by with a mouth-watering plate of the best looking fruit-topped cheese cake I'd ever seen. I immediately swung around, saying "I'm gonna make sure and get me a piece of that before it runs out!" The server just turned around, smiled, and said "Oh, don't worry, we never run out of anything." I was shocked but it turned out to be true. When I went to the dessert table later there was still plenty of everything.
The Secret: All in all, the intern program is lucrative so as to benefit MS, not you. An internship for them is basically an extended interview. They like to give internships to those who are one summer away from graduation. That way, if you do well over your three months, they can snap you up right after graduation. If you don't, well, they only lost 3 months worth of salary on you. It's all about finding the top talent.
They don't owe me anything. My point is cutting the entire internship program will probably prove to be bad business decision for them in the long-run. At least in engineering, internship programs are a powerful recruiting tool, and companies tend to offer internships to students whom they would like to hire once that student graduates. When On offered a position and suddenly reneged on that offer, that left a bad taste in my mouth, so even if they wanted to hire me in the future, I probably wouldn't accept their offer. Furthermore, when my friends ask me about employment at On, the only experience I have to share is how little they care about their employees.
Contrast this to what Microsoft is doing. Even though the industry is in a slump, they are continuing to pursue the best and brightest students and lure them through their internship program. Those students come back from their internship and tell their friends about how cool the experience was. Even though I'm not interested in doing business with Microsoft either (for different reasons), their internship program is a good investment for them and their internship practices are a model for other less-visionary companies to emulate.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."