Rock Your Internship

Summer is coming and it means that lots of people are going to apply for internships.

I got my dream job at JetBrains through an internship program, so it’s true to say that I was a successful intern. I’ve also been a host and seen several interns hosted by my colleagues. Some of them were offered to stay with us full-time, some of them weren’t.

If you’re trying to get yourself an intern position somewhere, I strongly encourage you to google “advice for interns” or smth like this. There are lots of smart people who already shared really useful tips on the matter. However, it seems that most of the interns don’t do that, so I’ll just add my 5 cents. At least I’ll be able to share this post with all my future interns :-)

Do your homework

It’s actually a bit of universal advice that can be applied to anything.

You definitely need to find and read/watch everything you can about the company you apply to. For example, for some companies (including JetBrains) you can find talks/interviews where development process and practices are explained. Knowing about them in advance is a huge advantage.

If you know your potential mentor’s name, you can find her/his interviews/talks/blog/different profiles. Trust me, you can save yourself from disappointment just by visiting someone’s twitter before deciding to work with this person.

If you know in advance what you’re going to work on, it’s also worth it to spend time investigating the product/technologies/everything else relevant.

Clear expectations

It’s easy but extremely important: if your primary goal is to stay at the company after the internship, you should discuss it with your mentor at the very beginning.

At some companies, they can hire an intern even if they don’t have a headcount for a full-time position after the internship. When selecting a particular projects/teams to apply to, it makes sense to select those where your chances to be hired after the internship are the highest. For example, if it’s a product team and the project looks like some research/experiment, it means that the team doesn’t really care if your project is successful or not. I think, you also can check if there are any openings on the team. If they’ve been actively looking for new people, they can bring you on board instead.

Show your best side

Of course, technical skills matter.

However, nobody wants to work with you if you stink. Nobody wants to work with you if they have to ask you to do one simple thing 10 times before you actually do it. Nobody wants to work with you if you’re constantly late for meetings. I believe you get the idea.

People talk to each other

It’s funny, but I see that really often. An intern decides to ask other developers all the questions because this way for her/his mentor it would seems that she/he is doing great. Guess, what? People talk to each other!

Log your progress

I’d recommend doing it openly for everybody on the team. This tip can be beneficial for you in so many ways. Just a few examples from the top of my head:

1. Your mentor would appreciate how easy it’s for her/him to follow your progress
2. You can use it as a reference for your mentor to show how much you’ve actually done
3. Writing down questions/problem you’re struggling with sometimes helps you to answer them yourself and definitely helps you formulate your thoughts better before you ask somebody else
4. You can preserve answers that you got from your mentor so as not to ask the same questions all over again

Ask for feedback

Getting feedback is important, especially negative feedback. However, people also tend to avoid saying unpleasant things to other people. So use tricks: underline that you need feedback to grow, ask really specific questions (for example, “How much time did you think it would take for me to this task” etc).

Pay attention to how others do things

Many questions and comments could have been avoided if only you paid more attention to how others do things. For example, check how other members of your team create tickets in the issue tracker and do it in a similar way. The same concerns commit messages.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

You don’t need to confirm every decision and change with your mentor. You were offered this position because you’re perfectly capable to make good decisions and write good code. Be brave, make your own decisions!