Ask HN: how to go about finding internships?
It's summer time, and students much like myself are having a tough time finding interesting summer jobs. It's not that I don't enjoy waiting tables or anything, but at some point I think it's time to look for more meaningful employment.
Some background on myself - I've just completed my second year of engineering education, and have project experience coding C/C++ and assembly. As well, I have web development experience with PHP and MySQL on the backend, and Javascript/html/css/Ajax. In terms of non-programming technical knowledge, I've probably taken a course on "$subject mechanics" (fluid, statistical, quantum... you name it).
So I figure my best way out of waiting tables would be to apply for some internships. In particular, being an HN reader, I'd love to work at a smaller company closer to a start up.
But I'll be honest - I have very little work experience. Just a lot of drive/motivation to work on something interesting and challenging, and a few projects to show.
What advice would HN give?
It is probably way too late to make it anywhere for this summer at these companies though, given their structured schedule in recruiting (the intern season at Amazon has already started).
Talk to small companies. I have a friend who literally drove down the highway with a stack of resumes. He walked into every place that seemed like it would be beneficial to work at, walked in, demanded to speak to a manager of sufficient seniority (didn't take no for an answer), explained to said manager his skills and how he could contribute to their business, gave them his resume, and left.
He's also the guy I know who never seems to be lacking a job.
Try some smaller ones - you are on site dedicated to startups so you should find some that hire! My algorithm when searching for interns was going through lots of companies, look into their jobs/careers for interns ad and sending my cv, starting from the most intersting.
Edit: I didn't have lots of projects to show either, but many companies don't really ask for them during interview (however for some it's a must - eg my friend wanted to work in android apps startup and they wanted him to already have something done for android) - algorithm puzzles seem to be popular, also you may be asked to read/write some code and some easy questions checking what you wrote about technology you mentioned in cv. That's really all I think.
If that doesn't happen to fall into place for you, the only thing stopping you from creating your own little side company while waiting tables or something is yourself. Analyze your day, see what irritates you or you wish could be done better (programmatically), and write up something to fix it. Put it on Github, get to know some other coders (maybe even from around your area - I highly recommend hnDir - http://www.hndir.com/ - just to see who all is around your area, and in college as well).
Also, to note, to add on to the dev experience you have, I'd highly recommend checking out some iTunesU or MIT OCW courses on Algorithms and Data Structures. I would do this regardless of your situation this summer. Heck, I'd do both of these regardless of your situation this summer. There are great opportunities out there to be taken advantage of! If you ever want to work on anything, email me (in my bio)!
You don't even have to do the entire thing: just enough to show that you understand the subject material and are a potential threat if left to your own devices over the summer with nothing to do. Put it up on github or your own website depending on the product, and include all the url's in the application or email that you send to the company. It will make you stand out and show that you are interested in working on the types of things they work on.
All it takes is one open source project gaining momentum to completely change a product space. It's less troublesome/expensive for the company to hire you than it is to try and fight a grassroots opensource movement later on. If you can make a company engineer think that they are getting a deal by hiring you early on, then you are pretty much set.
Bonus points: get the sales department to email the engineers for you.
Neither do most other summer interns. Don't worry about it.
The benefit of an internship is skewed in your favor and not the companies; you get to learn (and gain work experience that you need). Depending on where you are, you might be working on an important product, but, it isn't expected that you'll be as productive as a full-time engineer is.
The real benefit that a company gets from having interns is that its basically a two or three month hiring process. If it goes well, you'll be able to another internship with them next summer and/or possibly get a job offer at the end of college.
Practically everyone out there is looking for smart people to hire. If you want to intern at a startup, find one you like and make yourself known. Send them an email with your resume attached and a quick note. At the very least, you'll get a real response from someone (rather than a canned one, or none at all).
My best advice would be try to get involved in local startup/entrepreneurship events if you have such things. Connect with the community, in my experience everyone is happy to talk to others about what they're working on - they won't bite :). Talk to people about their needs and your skills. Good luck!