Ask HN: Average summer intern salary?

18-20k seems high. I suppose in the case of someone with great experience relevant to a particular team that might be possible, though. At MSFT the specific interns were usually chosen by HR, or at most a team of people that HR wrangled into volunteering. They were then sent around to teams where it seemed they would fit best.

In that situation there's probably fairly little room for negotiation. If you're dealing directly with the hiring manager, or at a smaller company where the wall of HR is not so impenetrable, probably there's more room. I wouldn't think of it as equivalent to starting full-time salary, though, because a full third to a half of your internship may be largely coming-up-to-speed time.

In general, you get hired as an hourly employee for summer internships instead of a salaried full-timer. Hence, salaries will vary from company to company depending on their valuation of intern's work so getting a bead on what's "average" will be quite difficult.

Once place to look is glassdoor.com. See if the companies you are applying to have listings there and what people have said about them, and any average salaries. For instance, search for Intern in the jobs category and you should see listings showing average salaries for posted companies, if people provided the info.