This summer, Newman and several other students got a taste of working at Google and Microsoft. Thanks to free food, a casual dress code and on-site amenities, the students glowingly described internships often considered dream jobs by aspiring computer programmers worldwide — and which they will likely have the opportunity to return to in the future.
“The environment is really fun and productive,” Newman said, adding that his own office had objects like cell phones dangling from the ceiling as well as a “whole bunch of Nerf guns lying around” that programmers turned to for afternoon amusement.
Like most Google interns, Newman worked at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., roughly an hour south of San Francisco.
Maria Nagorna GS, who worked as an engineering project manager there, said in an e-mail, “Google is a very casual place that really encourages people to be themselves and work in their own comfort zones.”
“Employees can generally work at their leisure. If you’re a night person, you can come into the office at 3 p.m. If you’re a morning person, you can come in at 5 a.m.,” she explained. “As long as you get your job done successfully, you are free to work the way that allows you to be most productive.”
Nagorna added that interns have access to nearly everything that full-time employees do, including free cafes, mini-kitchens, a pool, a gym, a basketball court, soccer fields and company-wide social and professional events, as well as recreational classes ranging from ballet and salsa to yoga and running.
Other Google-sponsored events included a showing of the movie “Back to the Future,” complete with replica of the car, and a beach party presided over by a 5-foot-tall sand sculpture of a fish.
“None of these things are really important if you’re looking for a job,” Newman admitted, “but it’s just a lot of fun.”
“And, of course, there are various intern-only social events, such as restaurant outings, an amusement park trip and a boat cruise in the San Francisco Bay,” Nagorna said.
Up the Pacific coast in Redmond, Wash., students also worked at Microsoft headquarters this summer.
Michael Yaroshefsky ’12 was introduced to Microsoft culture with a fashion faux pas. “When I showed up to work in a button-down shirt, I actually felt a little overdressed,” Yaroshefsky said in an e-mail. “Even the CEO wears just a polo shirt.”
Like Google interns, Microsoft interns enjoyed similarly relaxed work environments.
Simon Krauss ’11 described a Saturday in which the interns arrived, were given free pizza and shirts, and then spent the day running around Microsoft’s campus solving logic puzzles, word puzzles and “indescribably weird puzzles.”
Michael Ty ’11 said Microsoft sponsored a variety of events for its interns, including a Cirque du Soleil show. In addition to free food and clothing, the Microsoft interns received engraved Zune digital media players and will receive the new Windows 7 phones upon their release.
The students landed these unconventional jobs through a similarly unconventional interview process.
“In one interview, I had to design an algorithm to analyze a set of words to find anagrams,” Yaroshefsky said. “In another, the interviewer and I discussed the architecture of a database for an educational game.”
“A lot of it is trying to see how you work with the team,” Ty said.
Newman said he knew he wanted to intern at Google after his brother worked there the previous summer. After sending in his resume, he completed two 45-minute “screening” calls over the phone before being interviewed for a third time on a specific project.
At Microsoft, potential interns face an initial round of phone interviews, followed by an expenses-paid trip to company headquarters for a day of interviews that involves programming and problem solving.
Both Google and Microsoft offer competitive paychecks for first-time interns. Newman said that his offer from Google was around $1,300 a week, while Microsoft offered him $5,400 a month. Other interns declined to provide their salary offers.
The students said, however, that money was not the incentive for working at the companies.
“It wasn’t about building up my bank account,” Krauss said. “It was about getting experience doing computer science in the real world.”
Interns from both companies added that the internships could likely lead them into future positions, as it is relatively easy for past interns to secure a summer or full-time position for next year.
“They want to hire as many of their interns as possible,” Newman said.
Ty agreed, noting that unlike financial jobs, Microsoft “only hires interns when they have openings available.”
“If you do your work well, you could get a job offer,” he said.
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