A perspective I learned about big tech internships when I was a hiring manager:

Internships are, fundamentally, a very expensive recruitment exercise that big tech does, to place "holds" on the most promising graduates, before those people graduate and start to look for jobs.
As a hiring manager, your goal is to *get interns to return* 1-2 years later.

You pay them top dollar. Do lots of stuff to make them feel great - events+perks new joiners don't have. By the time they'd be really productive, they leave.

There's no more expensive way to hire.
So why do companies do it?

1. B/c they believe they will hire the best of the best out of college.

2. Because they want to hire #1 before their competition does.

3. Because they can. They have the money/resources.

4. (Ok, it's great for morale both for the teams and interns)
Internships at big tech vs everywhere else:

Big tech: "We pay what it takes to call dibs on the best college grads."

Traditional companies: "Yay: cheap workforce! Let's pay them the legal minium. They are lucky to put our company on their resume later, when looking for jobs."
Related: the story of one of my best intern hires.

This student was offered an internship at TomTom for €500/month. Wanted to accept but did not have enough savings to supplement and rent a room in Amsterdam.

So they applied to Uber. Hired. Made ~€4,500/month. TomTom's loss.
Why does TomTom (and most local, Dutch companies) pay their interns well below the NL minimum wage?

Because, legally, they can. So they do.

They look at them as cheap workforce. This worked for a long time... until big tech arrived in town, who has a very different mentality.

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More from @GergelyOrosz

11 Nov
More well-known, high-paying companies like Stripe, Twitter, Shopify, etc offer remote positions. Many engineers I know apply, and expect to get interviews at these places. Then get sorely disappointed.

Here's what happens and why it's very competitive even to get an interview:
1. The competition for these places is incredible. They get huge amounts of inbound. Surprise - it's not just you who wants to work remotely at Stripe! Typically thousands of inbounds for some positions.
2. Your current residence. Contrary to popular belief, these companies do not hire in all countries: only in ones they have entities. This typically means US, UK, and a few EU countries. If you're not based in ones they have entities, you're probably out of luck unless...
Read 8 tweets
11 Nov
From an engineer: "I want to do side projects but I'm holding off because of my employer contracts that claim all IP I do at or outside work goes to my employer. What is your take on this?"

There are two major problems with your thinking:
1. If you never start, you will never learn or get to scratch your itch. If you have the bug to do it: do it!

2. On the IP. If you want to build a sideproject for fun: do it! I never worried about Microsoft claiming my Flashlight app or Cocktail site for themselves.

BUT:
3. IF you really are starting a business, you *should* be careful. If it is relevant with what your company is doing, it could fall into the IP. But this is not the "fun sideproject" category.

Either do it in stealth (most people do it), or do it in the open.
Read 6 tweets
9 Nov
Let's talk about high-growing startups or publicly traded companies who have a good (tech) brand, but do not issue equity for most software engineers (e.g. below the software engineering level).

I'll start, and please add ones you know of in the comments:
Netherlands: Adidas, Backbase, Bunq, Coolblue, Mollie (heard it might change!), Nike, TomTom

Germany: Auto1, HelloFresh, N26, Nuri, Trivago, Zalando
It's becoming harder and harder to justify that you are a tech company hiring great people if you are venture-funded/publicly traded and do not issue equity to all tech workers (engineers, PMs, designers etc).

Especially as most competitors do give this kind of equity.
Read 4 tweets
8 Nov
Stack Overflow Jobs is shutting down spring 2022. Existing clients have been briefed: public comms is not yet out. There will likely be another product following from SO: stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are other job boards you can consider posting engineering positions:
LinkedIn Jobs: the obvious place for many. linkedin.com/jobs/

AngelList Jobs: esp relevant for startups. angel.co/jobs

Hired: hired.com

Otta: otta.com

No Fluff Jobs (EU) nofluffjobs.com

Djinni (EU) djinni.co
Remote positions:

Remote OK: remoteok.com

We work remotely: weworkremotely.com

Remote Leaf: remoteleaf.com

Himalayas: himalayas.app
Read 7 tweets
7 Nov
How to mess up an acquisition: do what Intuit is doing with Mailchimp and their longtime employees.
Given how it’s M&A 101 that you *do not* cut anyone’s pay if you want to retain them, and given that Intuit has competent people, this points to this:

Intuit never wanted to keep many of Mailchimp’s employees. They wanted the customers and the cashflow Mailchimp brings.
Many chose Mailchimp and accepted zero equity as the founders said they’ll never sell.

$12B was too high to resist (understandably), and once they sold, its every employee for themselves. Employees got no cut of the sale.

Look out for yourself: don’t expect others to do so.
Read 4 tweets
7 Nov
The 2021 Talent .io salary report is out. These reports work with the data they have, and it's clear that high-paying tech companies don't use "Europe's largest tech recruitment platform" at all, resulting in data that is off from reality.

A thread on why these reports are off:
1. Access to data. Looking at the Amsterdam data distribution, Adyen, Booking, Uber etc all don't have their data here. They all pay €90K+ for seniors in *base salary* - we'll talk about the rest. Uber and Booking €110K & above:
2. Total compensation vs salary. These reports focus on salary, but the highest paying companies often pay a lot more than just salary. E.g. at Uber I had years when my stock vesting that year was above my €100K+ salary. My bonus target was €22K as a senior engineer.
Read 8 tweets

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