US Tech Firms Recruiting High Schoolers (And Younger)

ShaunC writes: Is there a glut of qualified American tech workers, or isn't there? Some companies like Facebook and Airbnb are now actively courting and recruiting high school students as young as 13 with promises of huge stipends and salaries. As one student put it, "It's kind of insane that you can make more than the U.S. average income in a summer." Another who attended a Facebook-sponsored trip said he'd "forego college for a full-time job" if it were offered. Is Silicon Valley taking advantage of naive young workers?

Comments

Re:Not new

[russotto]

In 1999, my company offered an 18 year old summer intern a programming job. He turned us down to attend college. Spending 4 years doing calculus and reading The Count of Monte Cristo was not going to improve his earnings potential. Spending 4 years in a real office doing real programming would have improved his earnings potential.

Short term. But when he tried to change jobs, he'd find a lot of opportunities closed to him because just about every company wants a degree. I've known a number of non-degreed programmers who have gone back to get one for that reason.

Quitting school to found a startup might make sense; at least it's honest gambling. Quitting school to take a regular job doesn't; the job or one like it will still be there when you graduate.

Re:Not new

[Austerity Empowers]

For every 1999 there's a 2001. Jobs like that tend to get either very competitive or just abandoned when the market contracts. Or they just replace you with some other youngin', since that seems to be the way that job segment is working.

Calculus + coding = Job for life, it's a combo that works really well and it's a market where age adds, rather than subtracts, value.