Internships for early university / no former employment
48 points by runxiyu
48 points by runxiyu
As a rising freshman beginning an undergraduate computer science degree this fall, I wonder what internship opportunities (FOSS preferred) are there, for applicants in early university or who otherwise have no former employment experience (despite, perhaps, contributions to FOSS).
Possible template, adapted from previous t/job posts:
**Company:** XYZ
**Company website:** WWW
**Position(s):** ABC
**Target applicant pool:** XXX (for example, "graduating in 2030", "any undergraduate pursuing a degree in CS/etc", etc.)
**Duration:** XXX
**Location:** XXX (please include whether REMOTE worldwide/US/EU/etc or ONSITE)
**Description:** XYZ
**Tech stack:** ABC
**Compensation:** XXX
**Contacts:** WWW
I think comments other than listings (e.g., advice and such) should also be welcome here!
I’m a rising sophomore, so I’ve done a bit of searching on this already. In general getting an internship as a freshman is quite difficult, but if you want to work in open source, I highly recommend taking a look at Google Summer of Code! It’s a summer mentorship program where you work on a project with an open-source organization, and even get paid a stipend by Google. Tons of orgs participate, like Debian, Neovim, Rust, Chromium, Blender, Git, etc. If you are interested, begin scoping out orgs now and try to get involved with their communities!
Some thoughts as an engineer who reviewed applications this year for my org. Not all orgs are the same I'm sure, so take my observations with that grain of salt:
Thank you! I think when I apply as a mentee I'll mostly apply to projects where I already have significant domain knowledge and a small amount of existing contributions.
Thank you! I wasn't old enough to participate in this year's GSoC (my birthday is past the sign-up date), but I'll consider this next year!
I can vouch for this, I pretty much owe my professional career to Summer of Code. The people I worked with were very nice, and that network of people is how I've gotten all my interview opportunities in the 10+ years since then.
I am straddling two research institutions so I will post them together because they're pretty similar. I strongly encourage students who are potentially interested in a career in academic research to consider these, even if you're just starting out or are even remotely interested. I am a PhD candidate at CISPA and my supervisor is at MPI-SP.
Company:
Company website:
Position(s): Research Intern
Target applicant pool: Promising undergraduate and graduate (MSc/PhD) students or recent students
(This is pretty vague but TL;DR if you have an aptitude for something that a research group is working on then you're a candidate, even for e.g. strong proficiency in a given programming language/library/system)
Duration: 3-6 months (typically 3)
Location:
Description: Temporary research assistant positions that are extremely specific to the research group and ongoing projects. You should only really apply to specific groups as interested.
Research is conducted in English.
Tech stack: Group-dependent, search around for the one closest to what you want to work on
Compensation: This isn't specified on either site, but I'm pretty sure it's the TVöD Bund (equivalent) for your training level (so, E11 for bachelor's students, E12 for MSc students, E13 for PhD candidates).
Contacts:
You should generally reach out to the corresponding research group leader directly according to your interests. If you're unsure, you can always reach out to me (you can find my email under "People" on https://cispa.de) if you have questions and I'd be happy to help you determine if a particular supervisor would be appropriate/interested in hiring interns.
I would also add, separately to this: research internships appear intimidating but if you feel skilled at one thing or another, you can probably do it. No one expects you to roll in with wizard maths or the ability to invent new programming techniques (though it's cool if you do!). Just normal people who are very specialized, and these are like trial runs for running your own research. If you have any interest: try it out :)
And, the ethics of these institutions are beyond reproach. They are both bound to civil clauses and have strong research ethics mechanisms. You won't be working on things that will be involved in conflicts and the research will be something you can talk about after (and most of the time during).
I hope this is on-topic. If not, perhaps flag the story and discuss here; I'm not too sure where the limits of t/job are.
This is a novel idea. I can see how due to the nature of internships it has to run on a very different schedule from our quarterly threads. Thanks for taking a swing at this area, and best of luck to all our students with their searches.
I just finished my sophomore year of college. I've worked at a handful startups, including one that maintains an open source project (Zed, in 2022). I'll be working at a startup again this summer. If I were to give advice to my younger self, I'd say:
Do good work in public as often as you can. Write code by hand, pull threads on personal projects for fun, polish them, write about them, take them seriously (do this enough, others will too). Contribute to open source projects you use or find interesting to the extent that you can, in good faith, and look natural opportunities for one-on-one mentorship (e.g. reaching out to a maintainer you've built a working relationship with asking if they would be free pair program or answer questions about code, etc..) If you're respectful and curious people will be awfully generous with their time; pay it forward.
When looking for work, find it through people you know, but don't be afraid to put yourself out there. I got my first internship in high school (2021) by cold-emailing like ~17 different startups and open source projects I thought were cool with like an essay each. (This was the era before LLMs, so maybe the mechanics of this have changed). I heard back from like 11 places. Of those, 4 offered an interview -- I got two offers, I took the one I found to be more exciting. I found my next internship through a friend I met doing open source work, when I mentioned I was looking for an internship. It can be hard to get the ball rolling, but once you do, people will help if you ask earnestly.
With respect to working in open source today? I think what Zig does with respect to paying contributors is pretty cool. NLnet grants for working on open-source projects are also very cool. Most open source projects are small, so building trusted relationships is very important. One thing that helped a lot was emailing people I respected asking for advice. A long time ago I had a rule where if I ever came across an email address while reading blogs, I would send a note of appreciation for what they had written. Some of the coolest people I've met and the best advice I've received has been in response to those short little emails.
For anyone reading this looking for internships: best of luck! Let me know how I can be helpful.
Edit: unfinished reflections about finding my first job at a startup.
got my first internship in high school (2021) by cold-emailing like ~17 different startups and open source projects I thought were cool with like an essay each.
An interesting discovery is Outreachy (paid, remote, FOSS, for people underrepresented in tech). Hm.
(not affiliated, just another student) Igalia has a mentored grant program (FOSS, remote, paid) every year. Submissions already closed for this year, but you might wanna keep it in mind for next year
https://www.igalia.com/2026/02/27/Igalia-2026-Coding-Experience-Open-for-Applications.html
I publish every internship I see among systems-y companies in track in a weekly newsletter (it's free). (Check the archives.)
You're a freshman. Chill out and have fun, and work some job that gives you money to do that.
I don't really think this comment is necessary. Some schools require you to have an internship. This can be very useful and insightful for them.
Look at the US Department of Energy National Labs. If your ethics are compatible with working adjacent to nuclear weapons, in my experience they are very good to interns. There are opportunities to contribute to or even originate open source software, if you follow their processes. And, if you hire on as staff, I feel that there's more opportunity for learning and branching into new areas than in a lot of companies. I spent several years as a part-time/full-time intern and then immediately hired on as a senior member of technical staff.
thank you so much for starting this discussion. it's so daunting to enter the industry right now.
Procter and Gamble offers internships each summer. The internships started about a week ago, so it's too late for the main internship program for this year, but you can prepare and apply for next year in the fall.
I have worked closely with some of the people who lead the internship team and they are great people. Some of the projects are interesting, but much of the time they are unrelated to what you would actually do. For example, a colleague of mine interned on a marketing team (while majoring on comp sci) and then was hired as a SWE.
It is not open source related, and only some of them (I believe <10%) are specifically related to technology. However, these internships are specifically for students and if you perform well then you will receive a job offer.
In all likelihood you'll be based out of Cincinnati Ohio, but there are internships elsewhere. Feel free to ask questions if you have them.