Learn why you should do internships, how to choose, and of course, how to get them! This was originally presented on 2nd September 2016 during Friday Hacks #116 hosted by NUS Hackers. Watch a video of the presentation here: https://engineers.sg/video/friday-hacks-116-internships-and-why-you-should-do-them-nus-hackers--1105

1. Internships
and why you should do them
Vishnu Prem, Ng Zhi An
@burnflare, @zhi_an

2. What’s an internship?
huh?
12 - 14 weeks.
Work with a team.
Mentor & Manager.
Intern project.
Do real work, ship production
code.
SIP & ATAP

3. Why do an internship?
but why?

4. Do something impactful while in
why internship?
You get to see your work and
decisions in the hands of
millions of people all over the
world.

8. Learn a lot
why internship?
Learn from some of the
smartest people in world of
tech.
As you learn, you become more
attractive to future employers.
Learning is compounded.
You come back to school with a
lot of context for your
modules.

9. Discover what you like
why internship?
Is it software engineering?
mobile? infra? frontend,
design, UX, testing?
Do you like working in a tech
company?
3 month dry run.
Do you like the company
culture?

12. Fun
why internship?
Travelling is fun!
Working at a tech company is
pretty fun!
Meet the who’s who in tech.
Meet people from other
colleges.

16. Perks
why internship?
USD7000 - USD8000/mth.
Free lodging, food, bikes,
laptops, shirts etc.
Other perks: discounts,
massages, etc.

17. Perks
why internship?
USD7000 - USD8000/mth.
Free lodging, food, bikes,
laptops, shirts etc.
Other perks: discounts,
massages, etc.

21. How can I get one?
zero to one internship

22. The Process
how to go about getting an internship
1. Apply
2. First Contact
3. Phone Screens & Technical Interviews
4. (Onsite)
5. Offer

23. Step 1: Apply
most people don’t make it here.
fear of rejection?

24. Common Refrains
zero to one internship
My resume is not ready.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready for interviews.
I need time to study for my interview.
I don’t know, I really want to work at this company, what if I screw
up.
I applied to a company already, just waiting for a response.
...

25. No.

26. Step 1: Apply
zero to one internship
Internship applications start in the fall (Sept) and stretch till Jan. You
should start applying now.
•Job’s site
•eg. https://asana.com/jobs/
•in general: company.com/{jobs/career}/
•Career fair
•Info sessions/Tech talks
•Referral

27. Internship applications start in
the fall (Sept) and stretch till
Jan.You should start applying
now.

28. Step 2: First Contact
zero to one internship
Maybe a pre-screen challenge
Recruiter gets back to you.
Prepares you for the upcoming rounds
Schedules future rounds

29. Step 3: Phone Screens & Technical Interviews
zero to one internship
I speak only for software engineering roles
Topics include:
• recall questions
• cs fundamentals
• algorithms
• operating systems
• networks
• technical discussions
• coding (whiteboard or collaborative editor)
• problem solving
• runtime analysis
• system design

30. Step 3: Phone Screens & Technical Interviews
zero to one internship
•Several rounds
•phone screens
•technical interviews
•Increasing level of difficulty
•Usually progresses from non-coding to coding.
•Varies most here: Interns vs. full-time
•might have fewer rounds for interns - woot!
•might require onsites for full-time

31. Step 4: Offer
zero to one internship
(Not going to cover this today)

32. Some thoughts on technical
interviews
something you’ll probably have to do
eventually

33. What happens
technical interviews
•45 minutes - 1 hour
•Outline
•Intro, soft questions
•Actual question (usually only one)
•Possibly another question
•Q&A (You ask the questions)
•Might be in person, with a whiteboard, or over the phone, with a
collaborative editor (coderpad, google docs, etc).

34. Sample soft questions (Behavioral)
technical interviews
•Tell me a project that you've worked on that's technically
challenging and walk me through your problems and how you
solved them.
•Tell me about yourself
•Tell me about [X]
•[X] is something on your Resume

35. Sample soft questions (Culture fit)
technical interviews
•Do you use our product? What do you love about it and why?
•Why do you want to join [the company]?

36. Sample technical questions (short, recall)
technical interviews
•What is 0x05 + 0x1a
•What is a deadlock?
•What is“this”? (JavaScript)
•What is the runtime of various operations of a hashtable?
•What’s the difference between a process and a thread?

37. Sample technical questions (non-coding)
technical interviews
•Explain to me what happens when I type“google.com”into the
address bar.
•Design bit.ly

38. Sample technical questions (coding)
technical interviews
•Find an element in a sorted, pivoted array.
•[1,2,3,4,5] => [4,5,1,2,3]
•How many ways are there to buy a given amount of coke if they
come in the following sizes: 1, 6, 24?
•eg. 7 => [1,1,1,1,1,1,1], [1,6] => 2 ways.
•Implement a stack with an additional #min method that returns the
min element in constant time.

39. Sample technical questions (coding, rare!)
technical interviews
•Design and build a simple application in framework X
•Programming language specific questions (how do you do X in
language Y?)

40. Me: Before the interview.
technical interviews
•Practice practice practice
•Don’t cheat. It won’t work.
•Be fresh and ready for the interview
•Don’t underestimate a phone screen.
•logically: you’re expected to bring your best self for the
interview..
•Practice soft questions as well
•Don’t sweat this.
•But often underestimated.
•Don’t want to get off on a bad start.
•Think of questions to ask the interviewer
•Some people have pet questions they like to ask every time.

41. Me: Before the interview.
technical interviews
•Topcoder, leetcode, hackerrank
•Read: cracking the coding interview
•WRITE CODE ON PAPER.

42. At a high level
technical interviews
The interview is meant to be a conversation to access:
•Whether you can fit in as a“peer”
•taking part in technical discussions
•able to“converse”on the same level
•How you measure up against other candidates
•are you good (enough)
•Whether you are someone they’d want to work with

43. Me: during
technical interviews
•Think before you speak
•Its okay to take a few seconds to think.
•jumping to conclusions is pretty bad/unrecoverable.
•Clarify any doubts
•Communication skills.
•You can always ask them to repeat stuff, or for examples, input/
output (when given questions)
•Articulate your thoughts clearly
•this is super important.
•esp. if not in person
•explain what you are thinking, every step of the way.

44. write a function that removes
duplicates from a list

45. Me: during
technical interviews
•OCD, code should compile.
•Don’t be sloppy with semi-colons, braces, indentation, syntax (its
not that hard)
•write pseudocode first, replace with real code as you go along
•test proactively
•after completion, run your code.
•“I’m going to step through my code now to make sure I don’t
make any obvious errors”
•test meticulously
•List testcases on the board.
•Step through every line, every variable assignment.

46. Tips.

47. Grades don’t matter as much
as you think.

48. Learn stuff, well and fast.

49. Hack on side projects.

50. Keep improving.

51. Don’t accept no for an
answer.

52. Internship applications start
in the fall (Sept) and stretch
till Jan.You should start
applying now.

53. Q & A.
thanks.