Ask HN: Are internships mainly for college grads?
I hit my 3 year first-post-college-job anniversary a few months ago, and I want out of my industry because it bores me to tears (storage, fwiw). Not sure what's next, but I've had a lot of fun lately playing around with Python (it's C/C++ at work). I'm thinking maybe a hip, young web biz is a better fit for me, but I have nothing on my resume remotely related.
I know some common advice might be to build something in Python and show it to a potential employer, but I don't think anything I've coded thus far is substantial enough to impress anyone.
So I was wondering, would an internship doing something web-ish/pythony be an option? Even with 3 years work experience? I'd rather not live off savings, so living expenses would be nice...but is this taking a step backwards? Should I do something instead like work harder writing a neato python app? It's just tough finding the hours to build something cool in my free time after burning out at work all day.
Sincerely, -BoredInMassachusetts
Internships are generally for University students, but it's not a completely strict rule. I worked with a going-on-thirty intern, a graduate student with a wife and a kid! You'll definitely get some odd looks as a non-student, but there's nothing stopping you.
However, given that, I would shy away from the intern route. It is a step backwards in terms of respect and resumé building, and you have enough seniority to set your goals higher than an intern.
I would seek out a full-time job doing some interesting work. Amazon might be a good pick: they have a lot of interesting problems there, and they're looking for solid talent. I had an interview with them for an internship a while back, but ultimately declined the offer for a better position.
Also, don't reject anything that's non-webbish. I know the Web 2.0 / AJAX / Social shopping cart siren is appealing, but there are a lot of cool problems being solved in big established companies too.
Why don't you want to live off savings? Taking 2 months to make something impressive seems like money well spent, to me.
That's actually an option I hadn't considered...taking time off to work on something myself, as opposed to an internship. I know a lot of people around here can operate on 5 hours of sleep and pick up their personal project immediately after 10+ hours of working for the man, but I just don't have the energy reserves for it. I will consider doing that, thank you.
What kinds of things would you like to work on instead of storage?
Not sure on specifics honestly, but it would probably be a web based business (facebook, reddit, amazon) and use python. But maybe it's naive to narrow my search by what language they use.
Why does it have to be web-based?
Because that's what I find interesting I guess. Having a living, active product is just sort of fascinating to me. But I'm sure there's non-web stuff out there that I would dig too. The question was more about the internship thing.
Well, its pretty important to know what your interests are. It sounds like you're not too sure about what you want. From my experience, one learns a helluva lot from an internship when you're not thinking about the money and spending more time loving whatever it is your working on. I don't think there are many Python shops around here, but I do know a few openings you might be interested in ;-).
That is true...I'm not too sure at all. I guess my plan is just to see what's out there and what sounds cool to me. If you know of a few internships or jobs, I'd love to hear about them, 0xdefec8 at gmail dot com Much appreciated, thank you!