HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are there any remote internship opportunities?

27 points by stratosvoukel ↗ HN
I am a CS student from Athens, Greece. It's this time of my life that I must get into a demanding and high throughtput work environment with lots of learning opportunities (aka internship). Unfortunately good internship opportunities in Greece (I cant speak for other countries) are very rare. Especialy for modern technologies like Rails etc (lack of a mature startup ecosystem).

Are there any Ruby/Rails startups willing to accept remote interns/apprentices? If yes please include email to send CV/Motivation letter. I guesss a lot of people (including me) would really love working for a startup (especialy one that is using our favorite programming languages, tools etc.) . Additionaly I think that such opportunities would benefit both sides as well as the general local ecosystem (eg. more experienced people in Greece).

PS. This question is for both paid and unpaid internships.

33 comments

[ 21.8 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] thread
btaitelb
I tend to prefer having face-to-face interaction with interns, because it lets me determine more easily what they're understanding and what they're struggling with. Physically being in the same space can also create a more helpful environment where interns are comfortable to ask questions as they arise. Still, this is becoming less and less important with virtual offices, and tools like StackOverflow that can be better than asking a coworker anyway. Also, I've found that with introverted interns, communication can often be better through email than in person. Since I work on a distributed team at Coshx Labs, feel free to ping us about our intern program and if we'd be a good fit for each other.
stratosvoukel
Great! I have contacted you via your contact form!
xxpor
Are you dedicated to staying in Athens? Or are you just figuring that no one will be willing to pay for you to come to the US/UK/whereever. Because if it's the latter, I think you would be surprised.
stratosvoukel
Travelling is not a huge problem for me, apart from the fact that I would have to be in Athens for my exams. I had the impression that it would not be very easy for a startup to pay for travelling expenses for an intern. I would love if you could you point me at some. (Although, I have the impression that travelling to the US for an internship could be rather hard due to immigration limitations.)
antoinec
It actually depends of how long your internship should be. For 5-6 months it won't be that hard to find a startup which will pay you enough to cover your living and travelling expenses
jerf
I would not limit yourself to a startup. Larger companies can provide fine internship experiences, and by opening up the field you may find it easier to find something to get your career started. Barring the most bureaucratic of internship targets, no startup worth working for is going to consider it some sort of black mark that you interned with a larger company. Plus larger companies will find it easier to deal with the paperwork.

You need to concentrate on just getting a foot in the door, and worry about how to leverage that into your ideal career once you've got that worked out.

(And just let me clear, I'm not saying only apply to larger companies. I'm saying, play the whole field for now.)

xxpor
Visas for interns are actually pretty straight forward in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-1_visa
stratosvoukel
I see! Although (correct me if I am mistaken) a lot of US internship positions require that you are already eligible to work in the US, clarifying that they cannot offer help with visa applications etc.
GoldiKam
That's what me too have observed. In the application forms they have a special option to choose if u have a US visa
gary4gar
interesting.

can give a list of few of the prominent companies that could do offer 5-6months internship & cover living costs.

twp
Have you considered Google's Summer of Code? https://code.google.com/soc/
stratosvoukel
I will probably apply this summer, although working for a commercial project, in a close-knit team would be really interesting for me :) Also GSoC doesnt offer a lot of opportunities for Rails development.
splatterdash
Depends on where you look. Last year (this year, actually) I saw several openings looking for Rails experience I think.

Besides, the projects are pretty open about it. You can approach a project and come up with your own ideas. Not only this makes you more noticeable, it gives you the flexibility to do what you really want.

excid3
I just want to second this. I participated in GSoC 2009 and absolutely loved it. I'm from the US and worked with 2 mentors in Switzerland, a student in India and a student Colombia.

We worked on a package management system like APT for Windows, and while it was a bit unrealistic for 3 students in 3 months, I learned more in those 3 months than entire years at college.

Edit: There's also a Ruby Summer of Code in the same respect as the Google one. http://rubysummerofcode.org/

tjbiddle
Have you ever checked out Chocolatey? Interested how it compares to what you were working on. ( http://chocolatey.org/ )
excid3
That looks pretty similar. We were building a GUI tool for it and a really diverse hosting service that would let you torrent the packages and what not.
jjb123
Email us at internships [@] crowdtilt.com. There may be a unique opportunity to do something remotely with our API (just launched to the public this week).
eriksank
Have you tried the open-source product startups? They are approximately all set up virtually. I have never run into one that actually had a real office. It should not matter to them where you are physically, since they are not dragging along a costly legacy of habits that requires it.
PanMan
Why would you want to do it remotely? I have worked with interns from a lot of countries, and this is something especially the EU makes a lot easier (but I've also worked with interns from e.g. Egypt). And while we have done remote internships, I'm convinced being in the same spot works a lot better, for both parties.

Depending on the company, you won't get rich, but we have always tried to make sure interns could at least break even, and off-course learn a lot. Some of them stayed, and I have now one remote person working for us in Egypt, who used to be an intern (and stayed in Amsterdam, where we are based, during the internship).

stratosvoukel
It is not much of a choice. While I have no problem travelling for an internship, I am pretty much limited only in EU and I was rather unsure if there are a lot of offers that include living and travelling costs. Does your company offer intern positions at the moment?
pedalr
We'd love to talk to you - founders@pedalr.com ... working on V2 of the service (http://www.pedalr.com | https://angel.co/pedalr) and business model. Please send your CV if you'd be interested in working on the intersection of content and ecommerce with a fun group and some great advisors. We're Ruby, MYSQL, Wordpress.
jacobmarble
Once upon a time, I found a software product I really liked. I emailed the (very small) company and asked if I could intern, and they said yes.

A year later, I did it again, with a different company.

I only tried this twice, and it worked both times. In both cases, I was paid enough to cover expenses, and the second company offered me a job. You could probably start by doing the same, but be clear "remote only".

objclxt
Hi - you say startups, but have you considered going a bit larger? I work for a large mobile (~800 employees, NASDAQ listed) technology company whose co-founders were Greek, and our largest engineering team is in Athens. I know some of our products are Ruby based (not my department, I deal with native mobile apps).

If you want to get in touch with me I can forward your CV to the right people. Just checked and we're recruiting Athens based interns right now (and they're paid). Plus you'll get to do a lot of work with our offices in SF and London. Send me a DM on Twitter (@objclxt) and I'll ping you my e-mail.

stratosvoukel
Great thanks!!

Update: Well I checked out your employer's intern opportunities and they are only employing state-funded internship positions in Athens (and I am overeducated to be eligible for a state-funded job, they are only for high-term unemployed with lower education). On the contrary they offer real intern opportunities in London. This is a great example of how twisted intern opportunities (and jobs in general) can be in Greece, unfortunately. If there are offers for university students, and they just are not on display on the website, please let me know :)

grkballer44
Fellow greek located in the us, interesting start up opportunity avAliable. Email grk3288@yahoo.com
readme
If you're going to work remotely, I would recommend skipping the internship. If you know rails and can throw together a nice webapp, and you're studying CS, you're qualified to do real work. Just apply for some contracts on the basic freelancer sites out there, get some experience, then apply to more ambitious places.

Open source participation could also provide meaningful interaction with others on par with an internship.

lukeqsee
"If you know rails and can throw together a nice webapp, and you're studying CS, you're qualified to do real work."

Dead on. I cannot stress this enough. The world is full of people that need little apps done. I'm a CS major, and I've never been without a friend or two bugging me to do a project for them. There are also many companies that need a competent web developer. With time and effort, you can effectively shortcut the internship and gain real experience, doing real projects and get paid real money.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
jbverschoor
If you fancy some backend stuff for social games, send an email to j.verschoor@bloomsix.com
TheMrTortoise
lol isnt the point of an internship to learn?

Best place to learn is right next to someone. There are significant communication barriers in remote working. Sure they can be mitigated but presence and a piece of paper is not to be underestimated.

If you can intern remotely just get a job as you would have to be capable.