The Internship That Students Drool Over 692
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."
Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or have I got the wrong view of this completely?
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:3, Informative)
Really? Many moons ago (~10 years ago) I did some internship work at Warner Music (Before we had this whole World Wide Web thing, and certainly before Napster was even a wet dream
I'm surprised to hear that most internships aren't paid at all.... I figured they wouldn't pay WELL, but they'd pay at least something!
--DM
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
My idea of the perfect internship (Score:3, Funny)
They're the guys who get the porn acteresses 'ready' for their next scene. Yeah, and they get paid too.
Just watch out for diseases, mate.
Re:My idea of the perfect internship (Score:3, Informative)
My idea of the perfect internship:
Fluffer.
They're the guys who get the porn acteresses 'ready' for their next scene. Yeah, and they get paid too.
Just watch out for diseases, mate.
Um, I hate to break this to you, but I've never heard of fluffers being used for porn actresses. The few times I've heard of fluffers being used, they were for the porn actors.
You sure you want to be a fluffer [ideatown.com]?
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:2)
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:3, Funny)
Umm...did I just step into a time machine? This is 2003 right?
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Say what you like about Microsoft's software/market policy/lawyers, they look like they genuinely take care of their employees. 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). The working conditions are good. They appear to offer considerable freedom in your working practices.
All of these things are genuinely attractive to a graduating student. Hey, if I was thinking of switching jobs now, they're high up on the list of things I'd be looking for too. Working for a company which actually seems to care about you is a very fulfilling experience.
Re:Are most internships unpaid then? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Read it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
For a second or two, I thought that sentance was gonna finish "and have a good shot at Bill Gates's head". Really.
Experience (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Experience (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
This "Stigma" you speak of is only within the "geek" community. You tell everyone at your high school reunion "I'm a vice president at Microsoft" you'll be the envy of everyone. The 5 kids from the computer club might shun you, but no one else will.
Re:Experience (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, you tell everyone "I'm a computer programmer" and the hot chicks will still not speak to you. You tell them "I'm a computer programmer at Microsoft", they probably won't be able to keep their hands off you. The difference in popular opinion is roughly that between garbage collecter and movie star. (I get people asking me why I didn't go to work for Microsoft all the time, usually because they know nothing about my job except I work with computers.)
Re:Experience (Score:5, Funny)
It's with a fairly high confidence factor that I say I think you've never experimentally verified this.
Re:Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
You have 144 hours a week, no more, no less. The more hours you spend at work, the less you spend with friends and family. You can't have a great family life if it consists of kissing your kids before you run out the door in the morning and gazing at them after they've gone to sleep at night.
Re:Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Another is that no matter what Windows it is, it takes 12-14 hours to build.
Re:Experience (Score:3, Informative)
Developers take turns holding the "on-call" pager and only the "on-call" person gets paged to investigate build breaks. Now, if you checked in code that breaks the build, you might get a phone call at home. That isn't even as bad as it sounds, since check-ins need war-team approval for most of the cycle developers only check in once or twice a week, and unless you wrote un-decyperable code, the "on-call" developer will probably patch it for you.
Re:Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Experience (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux Intern (Score:5, Funny)
I have a friend who interned with Linux. He had all the free beer he could download, but the company went chapter 11 before his internship was finished. They didnt pay anything (the OS is free, after all), but they are expected to contribute while they arent playing Quake. If you can get past the stigma of living with your parents, its a great opportunity...
Re:Experience (Score:5, Informative)
Every Friday, Microsoft will treat you to the Friday fest - free food and free unlimited beer. Yes you heard that right - every friday.
They will take you out to trips, pay for your tickets for ball games, sponsor white water rafting trips and what not.
I don't think after this experience there was a single one of us who hated MS anymore (and trust me, most of us were extremely anti-MS to begin with).
They pamper you more than you can ever imagine.
Re:Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. MS stuff may have some seriously bad design flaws dotted around, but can you think of any proprietry commercial software that's any better? Except for safety critical stuff, there's a hell of a lot of bad code out there. MS is only noticed as much because they produce so much of it.
Microsoft Interships (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, you're working in Hell!
hrmm (Score:4, Funny)
Open Source must strike back! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Open Source must strike back! (Score:2)
Good idea, but Linus is not rich, Billy is.
Re:Open Source must strike back! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the real world is not such a utopia. The real world is what you get when the market economy actually works, as opposed to the computer industry, where it's been warped and twisted into a smoking pile of slag.
Open source and free software are about sharing the (intellectual) wealth around, making it available to anybody, not concentrating it in one place. It's a people thing.
This article is the modern day equivalent of stories of how rich and opulent the Kings palaces are, how his staff and manservants live in stunning surroundings and how much they love the King for it. Interesting reading, and it certainly sounds like a cool place to work, but not sadly reflective of anything that can be really recreated while we use our current economic system.
Oh BTW, I might as well remind you that some say [billparish.com] it's all built on a house of cards. Is it true? I don't know. Make up your own mind.
mmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:mmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course MS doesn't say that, they want you to work more. But that's not the point. The standard work week is 40 hours. If you work more than that, you are working overtime, and get overtime pay. If you are exempt (from overtime laws) then you don't get paid for those hours. But the standard work week is still 40 hours. If your employer is telling you you'll have to work more than that, you have to take that into account.
Which is exactly what I was saying -- MS might be offering you 40% more than some other place, but you may be working 40% more as well. Granted exempt status is normal for engineers, but you don't ignore the effects of gravity just because they are "normal", do you?
Oh yeah, and if you can get an HR person to tell you that the work week is 55 hours, I'll be surprised. Show me 55 hours in an offer letter, and I'll eat the Tooth Fairy.
You are assuming that people walk into MS thinking that they are going to work a 40 hr work week. Why?
What does them knowing or not have to do with it? I'm calculating how much my employer thinks my time is worth. How could I possibly calculate that without knowing how much they expect me to work?
You are getting paid for it.
No I'm not, and I'd better not be or my employer is in violation of labor laws.
At most places you get paid for work done - it's not different at MS than anywhere.
No, contractors (can) get paid for work done. Do 55 roofing jobs, make 40% more than doing 40 roofing jobs. Non-exempt employees get paid for the time they work. Work 55 hours, make 40% more than working 40 hours. Exempt employees get paid for not being fired. It doesn't matter how much an exempt employee works, or how much they get done (obviously assuming the amount is satisfactory). They get the same pay.
Your job is "X". Some weeks that might take 40 hrs, sometimes it may take 60 hrs. Whats the problem with that?
The problem is that we've already established that regardless of whether your work takes 40 or 60 hours, you're expected to be at work for at least 55, and you don't get any compensation if you stay longer. If I'm being paid for "X", why do I have to stay 55 hours if "X" only takes 10? Because obviously I'm not being paid for X. I'm paid a salary for working, and they expect me to work 55 hours. My salary/(55 + avg. over-overtime when "X" takes more than 55 and I'm expected to stay) = how much the company thinks my time is worth. Or better, 55 + avg over-overtime = how much work the company thinks I have to do to justify my salary.
We were talking about being family friendly, weren't we? Well, how exactly is it family friendly for me to be expected to work beyond full-time as my normal work week, and for the times that work extends beyond even that I receive no compensation. Another hour away from the kids with 0 pay does not sound "family friendly" to me.
Then of course there's the bigger problem in that the "55 hour work week" comes not from an employee handbook, but from pressure put on employees by managers and more amorphously "corporate culture". So yes, you do walk into a job with at least the literal statement of a 40 hour work week. You may know (roughly) in advance how much extra you are going to be expected to work, but that doesn't mean you are actually getting paid for that extra work, and it certainly doesn't give you more time with the kids.
great employer (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:great employer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:great employer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:great employer (Score:2)
Re:great employer (Score:4, Interesting)
I'ld guess that the perks you see now, and those for the interns are probably designed specifically to foster "love" for Microsoft so when the company has to start cutting real benefits their employees will stay loyal.
BTW. If everyone in an area has above average income, the cost of living goes up pretty dramatically and vice versa. Where I live there are lots of students and state workers. As a graduate student I've been able to buy a house. I doubt that the $100,000 a year accountants in Pallo Alto have been able to buy a house.
Re:great employer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:great employer (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they really or is it just a urban myth?
People used to complain about how buggy IE was, but when finally Netscape's code was released for Mozilla turned out it was no better. So much so that Mozilla had to discard Netscape's code.
Another example, in 1994 I was routinely using a Mac, and it would crash ever one or two hours (cooperative multitasking anyone?). Back then you could read anywhere how bad an unstable Win 3.1 was, but you'd never hear a peep from the Apple camp.
Re:great employer (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that there are so many more people using Microsoft software than anything else that it is natural to have so many complaints. If that garbage that Netscape put out for years had approached hundreds of millions of users, geeks might have torched the Mountain View campus for all the effing bugs.
You also are dealing with a bunch of stupid zero-sum idiots who think that a dollar that Gates has, is a dollar that they dont. There is crappy code everywhere, not just at Microsoft.
It's kind of half and half (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Cracking is fungible... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that this is the case. Yet, a sensible explanation of why this is so is that more people write Windows exploits than Unix. Hence more flaws are found. The old adage of OSS is: debugging is fungible. Well so is cracking. Let's call that Alomex Law "cracking is fungible", as a consequence the most popular platform will be the most cracked. In fact as Linux continues to gain ground we'll see an increase in exploits (side note: about a year ago all our Red Hat boxes were cracked here).
In simple terms, if my goal as evil-cracker is to maximize disruption why would I spend hours pouring BeOS code that would give me access to four computers, when I can build upon readily available cracking utilities that can give me access to 90% of the world's computers?
my internship (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry but... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh no, a company is going to great lengths to make itself appear enticing to prospective employees".
Let me break it to you: These are hard times we are living in. A job is just a job. You earn your shit from 9-5 and get out of there, it's what you do to pay the bills so that you don't sit at home twiddling your knob all day bored out of your skull, so that you can afford a roof, to eat, and buy funky cool things.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me break it to you: These are hard times we are living in. A job is just a job. You earn your shit from 9-5 and get out of there, it's what you do to pay the bills so that you don't sit at home twiddling your knob all day bored out of your skull, so that you can afford a roof, to eat, and buy funky cool things.
Let me break it to you: Morale is not something you can just throw away when the going gets tough. (And no, I'm not saying that there exists such a thing as an absolute morale, I'm talking about your personal morale.) A job is not "just a job", it is something you choose to do. What you do during work hours matters, just as much as what you do during your spare time. Having a hard time is the only true test of your own morale.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the word you're looking for is morality. From what I hear, morale [reference.com] is consistently pretty high at Microsoft.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:4, Insightful)
What offends me is your attitude that there's nothing more important than a comfortable income. To the point that you'd work for Enron, or Microsoft. You're right that Microsoft is no worse than Enron, they're exactly the same. It's an old tired story, but Microsoft has broken many laws. If they weren't as rich as they are they'd have been smacked by the courts. As is, they've merely destroyed the livelihood of thousands of people whose only crime was to want to run their own company and develop their own products.
The worst part of white-collar crime is that it's socially acceptable. Nobody would associate with a car thief at a cocktail party, but the lawyer that represented the thief even though he knew they were still in business. Nobody would associate with someone who rigged a software product to make it appear that a competitors product was defective and lied in court about it, but it's okay to work for this person or buy stock in his company and profit from his crimes?
That's sick.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sorry but... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you're doing it wrong, because personally I'm NEVER bored twiddling my knob.
Disco (Score:2)
One of the offices, for instance, has a mountain scene painted on the wall. Another has red walls and a disco ball.
Disco ball? Please don't tell me that's one of the DISCO [microsoft.com] developers...
Imagine that (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I wouldn't take that position. That would be fucking stupid.
Ah, but at that barbecue... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah, but at that barbecue... (Score:3, Informative)
You've got that one backwards. A lot of different Open Sauces, and you know what's in each one of them. Microsoft is trying to make one closed sauce for everybody and God only knows what's in it.
Not out of line (Score:2, Informative)
The difficult years for internships are for freshmen and sophomores - even at top-notch universities students may end up humping campus jobs for $8/hour in their first year or two.
Personal internship experience. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Personal internship experience. (Score:5, Interesting)
> 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.
Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft, for me the negatives outweighed the positives. In the group I was in I was the female developer. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men.
I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation.
The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. The woman in human resource in charge of the intern program, had to delete some comments from the newsgroup that went over the line. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them.
All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.
In case you read replies... (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you read replies, I should warn you not to take them personally.
The vast majority of the people here read a great comment, nod or shake their heads, and carry on without replying. I was about to do the same, until I read some of the other replies you got... Don't take the anonymous replies from a few cruel jerks with too much time on their hands as opinions representative of the rest of the people on the site. Your comment was a great one, and at least the moderators showed their appreciation.
I internerd (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I internerd (Score:5, Insightful)
It works like this:
1) get graduates straight out of universtiy.
2) condition them to believe working extremely long hours and weekends is "normal".
3) condition them to believe that if you're a real professional then your work is more important than socialising with your friends and spending time with your family.
4) pay them relatively low salaries, but promise big ones in the future.
5) give them free pop, sweeties and toys.
6) See how far you can push the suckers!
When you are older and wiser, believe me you will look back on your free drinks and 1/2 subsidized lunch room and realise how gullible you were when you were younger...
Re:I internerd (Score:5, Interesting)
I went to the University of Waterloo [uwaterloo.ca] 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
Re:I internerd (Score:4, Insightful)
To a poor college student, any multi-millionaire is going to look pretty damned frivilous with his money.
But those "older guys" are probably 35 years old, and just realized:
- because of the options they picked up at microsoft, they could easily spend $1,000 a day, every day, for the rest of their lives, and still have a big pile left over when they die,
- geek girls are cute,
- they never did get married, and
- there are much worse ways of spending a $1,000.00 of your daily "play money" than trying to impress a geek girl
I'm just saying that if I was in that position (single, with several million dollars cash in the bank) I'd probably be hitting on geek girls all the time too.Re:I internerd (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, rich or not, you'd still be a dirty old man without the social skills to realize that being a dirty old man isn't a good way to get geek chicks.
Re:I internerd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I internerd (Score:4, Insightful)
Believe me, I left my mom's basement a long time ago. I'm actually Managing Director (CEO in American jargon) of a small IT company. Myself and my staff get paid very well. There's little stress here (yes, I spend some of my day posting on Slashdot!) And nobody works weekends and rarely evenings. And we have a great relationship with all of our clients.
I started my career working for a company like Microsoft. I very quickly realised that it was a con, and most people working there were like sheep. I got out, and it was the best thing I've ever done.
And you want me to wake up?
Re:Oh really? Idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, after 13 years at Microsoft I am 40 and retired. I am older, wiser and RICHER than I was then, and I busted my ass to get here.
I look back on those free drinks and subsidized lunch room with great gratitude, because until I vested, that was where I got most of my meals. I got most of my exercise on the soccer field and at the Pro Club. I got most of my friendships and sexual conquests from Buildings 9 through 22.
Now, I get to do whatever the hell I want to do, like sit here in my pj's at almost 10 in the morning and look down at all the poor souls waiting to get across the 520 while I can hop in my SeaRay when ever I need to cross the lake.
It was worth every hard, long, fucked up minute I spent on campus because the rest of my days belong to me.
Well, I guess you and me have a different view of the world.
You see, I know how to enjoy myself without needing to be excessively rich. I have lots of great friends who I see very regularly, I live within a ten minute walk of the beach, I go hiking and biking most weekends. I don't work late or weekends. I often get up at 10am on weekdays, because I'm my own boss. And I don't need to be a millionaire to do any of that.
Personally I would not sacrifice thirteen years of the prime of my life for the just for the sake of money. If you think that makes me an idiot, so be it.
You do not know the power of the Dark Side. (Score:3, Interesting)
..... .. . 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.....
College Recruiting website (Score:5, Informative)
I'll take an internship anywhere... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bleh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Grow up, child! Even if it was sarcastic or in a wicked way ment to be 'funny', it's too pathetic for words. Microsoft is like any other company which wants to make money. Employees who work at Microsoft, do that because they get paid for what they do there, like people at Sun or IBM (or Red Hat).
Just because MS mistreats some of its customers, doesn't mean the individual employee there is a bad person, or worse: stupid, because he felt for the 'power of the dark side'. For once, keep marketingpoop and real life separated.
You should read "Proudly serving my corporate masters" by Adam Barr ( I believe he even is a slashdotter). Then you will understand that interns at Microsoft are not picked up at MacDonalds, but recruited at the finest universities and should pass a tough selection program. No wonder as a company they are treated as normal human beings: the best people know they are the best and will only work for... the best, ('best' can be different for a lot of people) so Microsoft will do everything they can to get them on board (like IBM, Sun and other companies will do too).
Re:Bleh! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like the company, THEN DON'T WORK THERE.
And yes, the individual employee DO have some responsibility. You can't go working for a company that actively breaks the rules, then claim that you are 'just an employee'. 'Just following orders'.
Re:Bleh! (Score:4, Insightful)
"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother [online-literature.com]."
quite possibly a stupid question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:quite possibly a stupid question... (Score:4, Informative)
Not wanting to take that risk, MS asks its employees to avoid looking at "unprotected" source.
At the end of the summer, they are... (Score:5, Funny)
Never underestimate the appetite of the Dark Side !
I did it... it rocked... (Score:5, Interesting)
MSFT (allegedly) best company to work for in UK (Score:4, Funny)
"We aren't the Moonies, but it is like a family. I met my wife, Moira, at work and when we got married the canteen even offered to bake our cake!"
I expect their children will automatically be indentured at the age of 16
STOP IT!!! (Score:3, Funny)
must
IBM Extreme Blue (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyways, the only way I can explain EB is to say that it's a cross between a few things. Summer Camp, the hardest work you've put it so far into a job, the best toys (in summer 2000 when I was in it we were given gigahertz p3 desktops, right after they came out, and 600x thinkpad notebooks, both top of the line at the beg of the summer, though IBM came out with the T20 in the middle of the summer and we are all drooling over those) and finally working with some of the best people (students and mentors).
EB is different than most internship programs in that it is basically all student work. You are teamed together in a group of 4-5 interns, and you basically have your own project to do. It's hard to describe. IBM's SashXB for linux [sashxb.org] (XB for eXtreme Blue) development basically came directly out of EB. EB also provides it's alumni with tremendous set of contacts (it's other goal is to be basically a recruiting vehicle to get "the best and the brightest" to come work for IBM) so that any job within reason is open to you within IBM. The summer after I was in EB I worked on the IBM's Linux Watch at IBM Research This summer I hope to be working for IBM Research's Internet Security research team. Working on these cool projects was made possible because of the contacts I made during EB (they basically have flood you with meetings and talks given by senior people in IBM including CEOs Gerstner and now Palmisano)
anyways here are some links as I'm not able to do EB justice.
Boston Globe Article [columbia.edu]
Wired Article on my summer [wired.com]
Lou Gerstner's message to us (real video) [columbia.edu] (ASF) [columbia.edu]
Recruiting video made after my summer in EB [columbia.edu]
IBM's Current EB Recruting Video [ibm.com]
IBM's own page of news links [ibm.com]
anyways, enough shilling for IBM (makes one feel a little dirty, even if it is for a good thing). I loved my experience in EB, and I whole heartedly reccomend it to anyone who is willing to put in 100% effort. For those that want more info there's plenty of other info on the web so hit google and you can figure my e-mail address out of the columbia links (though any non serious emails will be quickly deleted)
words for the weak (Score:3, Interesting)
-- Samuel Adams
(thx to Phil E)
Re:words for the weak (Score:3, Informative)
There is a huge difference between taxation without representation and the ability to put dinner on your family's table. You're not making stuff designed to kill people, what's the big deal of working for a company that wants to pay you well?
MS internship program (Score:5, Insightful)
You're paid - well. They hook you up with an apartment and either buy you a bike or subsidize a rental car.
Seattle/Redmond area is such a cool place, especially in the summer.
Experience with the leading software company in the world. (Linux geeks may scoff, but let's face it, most people see experience at Microsoft as a good thing)
As for those who talk about "selling out" "joining the dark side", etc: It's capitalism, dumbass. Selling out is the entire point of capitalism. If not for MS, then for someone else.
More Then Just The Article (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that they pay their interns but that they pay them really well, and give them many financial bennies on top of it. I had a free, after reimbursement, rental call every month I was there. They place you in really nice housing with other interns, and while you all end up splitting the actuall rent ( $500/mo for just me to share a two bedroom with private baths ) MS tosses in so much more. The apartments are furnished down to wine glasses, cable tv, and a maid every two weeks.
Campus is more than just a work place it is fun, there are pool tables in various locations through campus as well as two sky walkways lined will old arcade machines. The conference rooms are left open for late night movie get togethers with free soda right down the hall. And the annual Puzzle Hunt is amazing.
You can go anywhere on campus at any hour including the front of Bill's lobby at 8pm, just don't take a picture the security gaurds don't like that as I came to find.
I'll stop here
I was/am an MS intern (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Been There, Did That (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Don't know why (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, any job in this economy is a good job. The dot com boom is over and so are the 100K jobs where a pulse was the only requirement.
Second, when you have a big company like MS on your resume, the job market opens up a lot more, even in bad times. I worked at the "Evil Northwest Book, CD's and More company" and don't regret it one bit. After leaving that company I had a job in 6 weeks that paid 15K more a year. Having that those kinds of companies on the resume helps a lot. You can call me a whore, but you'll do it from the unemployment office.
Three, MS treats it employees well. I know of very few companies that offer all of the benefts and salary that MS offers. When it comes down to it, work is only about three things; Pay, Benefits, and Intresting work. MS appears to provide all three.
you mean they really aren't evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
(granted they did have an issue with being sued by the part time people because those people apparently felt that the contract that they agreed to and signed... was unfair - not sure what ever came of that - perhaps with the downturn in the economy those people realized that they were lucky for their jobs and shut the hell up)
I have 10 friends that I went to college with that interviewed with Microsoft, and now 5 of them work there (they all got offers, 3 of them didn't want to move, one of them opted for grad school, and the last thought he had a chance at Apple or something... he didn't last I heard). (I can remember one of the guys wore Tevas, a shirt he had painted in that had holes in it, and ragged cut offs to his Microsoft interview, while some others debated on suits or not - he wanted to make sure that they were only going by his brain... he got the offer... and turned it down to go to grad school)
The guys that work there love it. And in the tech world (I guess only outside of slashdot), seeing that you worked at Microsft actually has some tech cred to it - I know of 3 guys that I went to school with that went on to start their own companies and the MS name on their cv helped get their funding.
I know a guy that works in their computer game department, and I know a guy that works in their XBox game department (I think it is slightly funny that they are even different departments). They each think it is the coolest job on the planet, and I'm not sure I blame them.
I find it really amusing that "everyone" here thinks MS is so evil, when in reality, they are one of the best companies to work for - and perhaps are even doing some things right - as much as it hurts the people here to think.
It is human nature to strive to be at the top, and to some extent, to resent those that sit at the top. Were Apple or Linux to rise up and dethrone the current MS position, the same people here would start griping about the exact same issues that MS is going through because they are side effects of beinga successful company.
and in true slashdot mentality, I'm sure this will get modded troll
Thoughts of a 5 time intern.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I did however really enjoy my time at MS. It's a fun intern program. Microsoft knows how to party and for a college person it's an ideal situation.
However I concluded that my internships really didn't help me in the end. Also because I had been at the company so long Microsoft assumed I was garunteed to work for them after graduation. When I interviewed for FT my senior year recruiting did not listen to my desires. I was lied to about position availability and after battling with them for some time about various things when I showed up I was interviewing for a position in a group I had specifically requested not to work in. This is not unexpected though. If you give someone the perception that they have control over you they will often times abuse it.
Fortunatly I am happier now and am being given a level of responsibility MS would have never given me.
drooling? i think not (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Not easy to get in (Score:5, Interesting)
50,000 people applied?
The US has a population of about 280 million [cia.gov].
Of those, about 3.5% [censusscope.org] are between the ages of 18-22, which I assume is the common age range for student interns. That gives 9.8 million people in the right age range.
Of those, only about 22% [censusscope.org] will be heading for Bachelors' degrees or better. That's 2.16 million.
Only about 10% of those [ed.gov] are studying for degrees in the fields of engineering, IT or physical sciences. That's 216,000.
And then 50,000 applied? That's, like, one in four!
Mmmm....statistics....so squishy...
Re:Isn't an internship at MS a career killer? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Isn't an internship at MS a career killer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Short answer: no.
If you do sign an NDA as part of a job contract, it expires as soon as your job assignment ends. You are free to use whatever knowledge you have inside your head. (Taking along actual source code with you is another matter. In that case, you are actually employed, and the NDA is in effect.)
(IANAL, so don't take this as legal advice.)
Re:In South Australia, they volunteer for gov't jo (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the Olden Days, you often DID have to buy your way into an apprenticeship position where you could learn the trade of your choice. And then you might not get paid beyond room and board til you made journeyman status.
Re:If MS hires and "best and brightest".... (Score:3, Insightful)
"m$ is evil and the people who work there are ignorant whores" and "everything m$ does is stolen from someone else" are among the beatiful pieces of FUD spread by the fine folks who advocate open source/free software. If your enemy looks stupid, it always makes you look good. Or at least that's how the theory goes, I guess.
But do share, if you obviously know so much about how Microsoft works on the inside. You must be a fountain of knowledge waiting to spring on the unsuspecting and undeserving Slashdot crowd. Tell us "how it is".