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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."
Sorry if it's a stupid question but I would have thought most internships are paid - at some level or another.
Or have I got the wrong view of this completely?
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
I propose that we create our own intern positions (special sourceforge accounts maybe?), and at the end of the year they are all treated to a barbecue by Linus!
Actually I'm half serious. Perhaps we really should be taking on interns; it strengthens both persons involved in the relation and open source in general.
My wife worked at Microsoft for a couple of years, and they are a GREAT employer. In terms of corporate culture they really rock.
Their raises are always above average, their stock options used to rock (the stock has flatlined for the past 2 years, but before that it went up something like 50-75% ever year).
They have volleyball courts, stand-up video games in almost every hallway, pizza parties, great hardware to play with, great buildings, nice walking/jogging paths right near campus.
And everyone there LOVES Microsoft. They love being part of an org that's in the forefront of technology.
It's pretty amazing to see.
Anyone who hasn't should read Microserfs. While it may not be based on a true life story, it definitely captures the essence of Microsoft.
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. And what happens to 55 to 70 percent of interns that don't get hired?
I'm not sure I'd like to see "Interned for Microsoft" on a resume...it probably wouldn't be worth the legal hassle.
Not only does Microsoft fly you out to Seattle/Redmond for the 2nd round interviews (all expenses paid), they also give you an extra day to tour the city. Which is very nice of them.
Each interview tends to last 1 hour, like Rafi said and questions vary between positions. For Program Managers (PMs) questions are more scenario based, for Software Design Engineers (SDEs) the questions are almost all programming and algorithm questions. Most questions do not tend to have the "right" answers but the interviewers are looking at how the candidates think.
The Internship
Once an offer is accepted by the intern, MS takes care of all the traveling details. From the plane ticket, to the apartment, to the subsidized car rental (I'll talk about this more later), to shipping your computer and stuff to Redmond. Perhaps the most interesting perk is that MS will help you rent a car. Normally, a driver has to be at least 25 years old to rent a car, but with MS interns as young as 18 are able to rent cars. This eventually leads to many accidents a year, the costs of which are all covered by MS. :)
Interns and recruiters also team up to sponsor lots of activities to keep the geeks happy. Activities range from a Puzzle Day, a full day of team-based puzzle solving, to a scavenger hunt through Seattle, to a ski trip to Whistler (only a 3-4hr drive). Other perks also includ free membership to the posh Pro Club gym and a corporate card that offers special discounts to all the sights and attractions across the Pudget Sound area.
Personally, I had a great time as an intern at MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The only complaint I had was male intern to female intern ratio.
..... .. . what about: if you can't beat 'em; join 'em ?? I'm a hardcore slackware kind of guy and spent my last two years of university (honours comp. sci.) without ever touching a windows box, but I'd go work for them, in a heartbeat.....
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
well, i'm not going to remember all of this well, so if someone could help me on this.
if you read "no logo", naomi spends quite a bit of time on microsoft's hiring and employee practices.
1. microsoft outsources a lot of it's employment to "temp" firms like manpower. this allows them to "hire" full time employees, who are never really given a contract. thus they don't have to give them any benefits, nor do they have a guaranteed job (so they're easier to fire). i _think_ i remember that it was said that microsoft only has about half of the people working for them on their payroll.
(1.5). i think i remember reading that "real" employees have different colored shirts than "temp" employees.
2. they don't hire they're internal postal mail staff, pitney bowes runs it.
3. capitalism creates a market, which allows us to purchase items without having to think about the process by which these items came to the market, as we are then only concerned with value. this allows for violations of human rights, destruction of the rain forest, and hairs in our soup.
help out.
Not everyone is expected to work 50+ hours a week or even more than 40 hours a week. It all depends on your group and where they are in the product developement cycle. I can speak for myself and some of my friend when I say we were in by 10 and out by 7, every Monday through Friday. We had social lives outside of the office and almost NEVER went into the office on weekends unless we needed to use the high-speed connection to surf the web (we didn't have high-speed in the apartments). If he didn't take advantage of the Pudget Sound area, he really missed out on the whole intern experience.
...and I apologize if this has been answered ad nauseam, but maybe any MS employees out there can answer: does Microsoft prohibit you from working on open source projects on your own time, even if they aren't related to the project you are currently doing at MS (eg. Windows developer working on the gimp or something)?
I was an MS Intern several years ago. (And was a MacPhile and OSS proponent the whole time.) It was probably the single best work experience I've ever had. And that's even after I mention that my boss and I clashed at every turn and I ultimately got a "no hire" recommendation, pretty much blacklisting me from ever working there again. You can hate the way they do business, or their FUD marketing or whatever you want, but at the end of the day, working there is like being an endowed researcher at the coolest, most well-funded university on earth, where they only let in the uber-smart. It was easily the highest concentration of smart people I've ever had the pleasure of being around. If someone had handed me a crystal ball and told me the shit the economy was about to become I would have kissed some serious ass and made sure I got an offer there.
This too shall pass.
Do you know how many people work shit jobs that they hate because they have no choice?
Lots, but they're probably all fat lazy bastards. You can do anything you want to within reason, assuming you're not a complete moron. The trouble is it may take a lot of unpleasant hard graft to get there, and a lot of people just don't bother. Like many, I went through higher education and University to get where I am today. I'm still paying off my loans, but I'm where I want to be. To be honest, I had it pretty easy, there are plenty of others who've gone through far worse to get where they want.
Thank you. I think this is one of the first /. posts I've seen where the person doing all the talking actually has some experience of the situation.
I've spent some time in Redmond for meetings (WSI), and it looks like a cool place to work. I've also spent some time (and money!) in the company store, salivated over the nice plasma tv / media pc and felt a little geeky in the musuem.
From what I see and hear from my MS friends its a great environment.
Tell me about it.
:)
I went to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. This is one of Microsoft's favourite schools to recruite from, because of the co-op program and because the students are easily moldable. I knew a lot of classmates that went to work at Microsoft for internships and full-time work. After all was said and done, most agreed that Microsoft was exactly as you stated--it's filled with young geeks who don't know what they're missing (and are easily wooed by gadgets), and a bunch of older geeks with no social lives that never leave the Microsoft Campus. They also woo the younger ones by giving them titles like "Project Manager" to make them feel important.
One of my female friends who worked there came back with some real horror stories: the older men there are so desperate they'll throw a tonne of money at any employee with breasts just for a chance at having a date. She said she would never go near that company again.
Is it any wonder where the Microsoft attitude of everything-must-be-Microsoft comes from? The vast majority of employees there never leave the campus and are fed the Microsoft party-line constantly. If you think the Apple "reality distortion field" is bad, try a day on the Microsoft campus.
Blech. At Waterloo we learned that only the pathetic people who were willing to give up their lives for money were the ones who interned at Microsoft. In case you haven't noticed, the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.
- j
Actually this is true. If you saw the Slashdot story about a week and a half ago about the story of NT 4 Development you would see the development of certain work practices that MS still holds to this day. One of them is that all developers are on call 24/7.
Another is that no matter what Windows it is, it takes 12-14 hours to build.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
A job at MS is the holy grail of co-op positions. The MS-resume-box is always overflowing. People have to put their resumes on the floor beside the box. What it boils down to is that whether or not you're offered a job or a return term, if you have MS on your resume you can write your own ticket. They hire only the best and brightest, and other companies know this. I have friends who have gone to work for MS for a term, and on subsequent terms they're picking and choosing between offers from all around the world. Of course there's always the substantial pay and benefits if that line of reasoning doesn't float your boat, and apparently they treat students REALLY well compared to a lot of places. Basically, if MS says "come to work for us", it's never a question of whether you want to...you WANT TO.
:)!
I myself NEVER use MS products unless I have to. I much prefer open source, both from a user and developer perspective. However, were I offered a job at redmond I wouldn't think twice about accepting. Hell...just use MS on your resume to get in with IBM (it's been done many times before
Now, politically I'm not a big fan of Microsoft; but some people are I suppose, and I figure that this isn't a philosophy question. I'll put that aside for the moment. Also, I'd probably gladly work there if I were still into looking for a tech job (not that they'd let me in, the competition sounds pretty tight). It sounds like a pretty sweet gig.
:).
From a stability and performance standpoint on the desktop yes, newer versions of Windows are pretty damn good. I haven't had a BSOD that I couldn't trace back to a faulty device driver or bad hardware since before I started using NT4. Mozilla crashes with about the same frequency of IE (neither of which crashes very much). OpenOffice.org crashes a lot more than any version of office after Office95.
At the same time, from a security standpoint things are as bad as ever. Of all the machines on my network here, the only ones that have ever been compromised are the Windows boxes. All of them, at one point or another. I constantly worry about not exposing them to the outside world. I hit Windows Update at least once a week and my roommates usually do the same. In this regard we're much more careful than most Windows users, and we have the additional measure of hiding behind an OpenBSD NAT box. I'm at the point where I won't store any vital or private data on it.
I don't hate the Windows UI, though I'm much more comfortable in a UNIX environment. I like having a ton of high quality commercial software ready for me to install without jumping through a dozen hoops trying to get it working in Wine or having to resort to VMware. I like that all the games I want to play pretty much just work. In a lot of ways Windows is just fine, and in even more ways it's better than the free UNIX desktop alternatives (though the gap is slowly narrowing). What I can't stand is the fact that it's almost impossible for me to put any sort of trust in a box that runs Windows, no matter what I do.
Oh, and on the server it's just not even fucking close. I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that at this point, though.
You make a good point about the MacOS. Before OSX it was as bad as Windows95 on its worst day. Mac people are zealots that make the most rabid Linux supporters look like level-headed individuals, though, so they'd never complain within earshot of outsiders. Of course now they've got a desktop OS that the rest of the world wishes they had. Good for them. I'll rejoin them when I get a new job and can afford... things... again
Game... blouses.
I have interned a few times at Microsoft as a developer.
First, the pay is great as everyone else said. And you get a rental car for the term.
Workwise: it's a flip of a coin whether you get an interesting group with a cool project or a bland group that doesn't know what to do with you. The recruitors (Microsoft's biggest fuckups) will try to assure you otherwise, but it's not true.
The people at Microsoft are generally helpful. However, the biggest thing to keep in mind is that the only way to get ahead in Microsoft is to be much better than those around you. It doesn't matter if you're all geniuses in a group. You still have to beat them. So how do people do that? They give up their lives. 60 hour weeks are the norm for most developers I worked with, even as they go up the ranks. So they give up valuable time with their family to progress their career.
Interns do about the same amount of work, with most working at least 50 hours, and many 60 hours or more. Hang out with a bunch of Microsoft interns, and you'll notice that all they do is bitch about work. No big surprise there.
For full time, Microsoft snares new hires with a nice starting salary. The salary is high to begin with, but moves very slowly. Of course, now everyone knows that their stock options are useless, and you're never going to become a millionare again from them.
All in all, if you can get it it's a good experience, to see the pros AND cons of working at this unique company. I suggest going there for an internship, but don't sell your life and go there fulltime.
And just how is working for Microsoft immoral?
Because they behave just like how every other big multinational corporation would? Look at HP. Look at Enron. Look at Worldcom. Compare them with Microsoft. Each and every one of them has done much the same deeds as Microsoft, and have been responsible for the demise of smaller companies as well as people losing their jobs.
Hell, they know what they're up against in the industry and produce workarounds. Just because you disagree with them hardly makes them immoral, my friend.
As if Netscape would have donated all their profits and all their wealth to the world so that people live happily ever after? For all you know they would have done much the same thing. Get over it, its competition. Its got nothing to do with whats right or whats wrong. Its business.
Hell, if Microsoft is gonna make billions and if even a significant percentage of that money goes towards charity, I say more power to them. Look at half the people running multinational corps across the world. How much do they spend against fighting AIDS, Cancer or poverty? Just look at how much the "much hated" Gates has donated, and has designated for donation. Go ahead, compare.
See, Microsoft may have been a company that has done a few questionable deeds, but that's just a part of business. Pfizer sells life saving drugs at ridiculous prices in the poorest parts of the world, without even spending a fraction of the costs in manufacturing them. Don't give me that crap about R&D, look at the annual figures - a fraction of the profits are spent on R&D. A company that makes 8 Billion a quarter spends 1/8th of it on R&D. Its not software that we're talking about here, its LIFE!
Software, technology etc are all nice and cool, but calling working for a company whose principles you disagree with immoral is ridiculous.
Something I choose to do? I would much rather work for a company like Microsoft, make lots of money and spend it on charity than work on Opensource software getting paid next to nothing and live a life of hypocrisy believing that some mere lines of code are somehow miraculously going to change this world.
I would much rather have a "non-hard life", earn, live happily and use that money to adopt a few kids whose lives I will change.
Yes, I like Opensource. It is a tool, a movement. Nothing more. But taking it to preposterous degrees and dubbing everything else immoral, unethical and the like is outright stupid.
I did not mean to offend you, but sometimes this almost fanatical attitude by a lot of Opensource evangelists is what disgusts me.
Your complaint seems to be much more focused on interpersonal relations then on your WORK. I would question how much time you spent after hours boning up on the areas you were weak in? You say you got "boring projects" that hurt your motivation? Did you think that you were going to get handed the best stuff right off the bat, with your limited Windows programing experience?
Every year, there are a few interns who thought they they should be tasked with rewriting the GDI, they were so hot-shit. Every year, I collected their pencils when they failed to impress anyone.
Regardless of the perks, Microsoft is not Disneyland. You were not there have smoke blown up your programming ass, you were there to convince people of your skills, and even more than that, of your ability to perform under stress.
There are no bad jobs, just bad employees.
That is probably why they build each night...
Last I heard they had some mondo build system that compiles everything each night from scratch then pushes the updates out onto willing victims desktops. So you can sometimes call up a Microsoftie in the morning and hear that they got a bum distro pushed onto their machine and it will take them a little time to get their machine going.
Some of the structural differences between Java and C# look to me like they are there to allow incremental compilation to be used. OK this is a theoretical possibility with C++ and make but there are actually a lot of pretty wierd interactions that can happen between modules in an incremental build. Java has had a bunch of modifications to address this in part, C# goes a bit further.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I'm a student. I've been actively recruited by MS. Was I drooling when I got my first email? No. I was having a difficult time coming to terms with it.
You see, I, unlike some people, actually act upon what I believe in. I believe that Linux is the future. I believe that MS has bad policies and intentions.
So I did what I thought best: turned the offer down. Perhaps I was a bit rough around the edges on my reply (probably burned a bridge or two), but I did what I thought was best. I ask that anyone who truly believes Linux is superior to do the same with any recruitment offers.... well, I suppose you could turn it down a bit more politely.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
But i think tah the current MS corporate culture will actualy bode well foe MS in global market. Currently, peopel from the nations you mentioned as real competitors for MS are grossly underpaid and over worked if you compare it to US standards.
MS only route to staying ahead in the international market is to do a HSBC. Where you start employing local peopel 'localise' your software. As such, with MS's image as an employer that will take care of you, you are more likely to leave whoever you work for to work for MS, allowing MS to skim off the best.
Hell, with my US$1.3/hr wage here in Asia, I'd jump at the chance to work for a company that will actualy feed me lunch on the lunch alone. Let's not even get into the rest of the perks.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.