HACKER Q&A
📣 skydowx

Good resources for conducting effective developer internship programs?


Good resources for conducting effective developer internship programs?


  👤 alejo Accepted Answer ✓
I’ve been hiring interns and managing internships for the past 10+ years.

The number of interns at any given time varies from 1 to 10+

We were a small team at some point (less than 10) and now the company is bigger (~500 engineers).

We hire most interns if they have a successful internship and are interested in working with us.

I really love working with young engineers, mentoring them and helping them shape their careers.

I don’t have any specific resources to pint you to, but typically what I do is to have a bunch of well defined/specified projects, that can take anywhere from 2 to 4 months to complete.

Projects vary so I can accommodate to their interest if they have anything specific in mind:

- testing

- api development

- frontend

- systems programming

- etc

If I’m the mentor of an group of interns, I make sure I meet with them on a daily basis. I will also meet with them 1:1 and provide prompt and actionable feedbak on how they can improve.

I can say that we at my company are really satisfied with the results we’ve yielded during the past 10+ years, and the talent we have been able to recruit and groom through that program.


👤 azhenley
As the company or as a mentor? How big is the company? How many interns are you expecting? Are you asking about the recruiting funnel or just the day to day?

There are a lot of resources from companies about the internship project, less so on everything else.

You might want to look into hiring someone who has organized these programs before.


👤 skydowx
Any practical advice is welcome as well.