Student placements at Amazon, Microsoft and Google - a round-table talk
- 1. Student Placements @ Google, Microsoft & Amazon Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the owners and do not necessarily reflect their companies.
- 2. Introduction Viviana Sutedjo Benedikt Mayer Liangda Wang ● CS at TUM and Medicine at LMU ● 3rd time interning at Google ● Flutter Freelancer ● Bouldering, making music ● Master Information Systems at TUM ● AWS SDE working student ● Ex-SAP, ex-P&G ● Traveling, gaming, cooking ● Informatics (M.Sc.) at LMU ● Machine Learning Engineer at Machine Learning Reply ● Former Working Student at Microsoft, Intel, Siemens, LMU, UniBW ● D&D, cooking, gardening
- 3. 1. Apply on https://careers.microsoft.com/ 2. Most interns: Pass assessment center, HR and technical interviews 3. Most are direct matches Good to know: ● A lot of positions are salesy ● Most technical positions require prior experience ● Hiring happens throughout the year, alerts are your friend Application 1. Apply on https://careers.google.com/ 2. Pass Coding Interviews (+ coding challenge?) 3. Intern Matching phase Tips: ● Focus on a strong CV ● Interviews are totally doable, don’t stress yourself out ● The recruiters, hosts and interviewers are only people 1. Apply on https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ 2. Pass Interviews 3. Matched a team (direct hiring possible) Notes: ● Intern positions could open all the year -> check frequently or set alerts ● Part-time working student role in few teams possible ● Common intern tech roles: SDE, SysDE, Solution Architect, Applied Scientist
- 4. MTC Software Engineering Working Student: ● HR interview: Conflict resolution and representing the company are important Tips: ● Show your experience ● Most positions are client facing, show excitement! ● Know about Microsoft’s products (Azure, Dynamics365, Microsoft365) Interview SWE Internship: 2 coding interviews Research internship: 1 coding + 2 research (?) interviews Tip: The result is not necessarily the most important part => Communication and problem solving! SDE Internship: ● Optional: online coding assessment ● 2 interviews: 1 technical + 1 behaviour Tips: ● Behaviour question based on Amazon Leadership Principles: e.g. Dive Deep, Ownership, Invent & Simplify ● Many teams behind a job description - express your interests and preferences! ● AWS Certification beneficial
- 5. In the Microsoft Technology Center: ● Mainly building demos ● Conducting workshops with customers ● Interface with technical sales Technologies (my project): ● Azure (duh) ● Docker ● Python (for data) ● C# (for desktop apps & servers) ● Javascript (for web servers) ● BonsAI (Reinforcement Learning) ● HoloLens 2 Project Generally: Real projects with real use cases. SRE more on internal tools, SWE more on user facing side. Treated as full time employee in most respects Artifacts: ● Project (code) ● Design doc ● Intern presentation EC2 Enterprise ● SAP on AWS projects ● Automation framework and web application for SAP benchmark certification Technologies I used: ● Java, Python, React, TS ● Hands-on experience & experiments with lots of AWS services: EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway, CloudWatch etc.
- 6. ● Great office (especially MTC) ● Delicious pizza in the cantine ● Cool student community 🍰 ● Everyone is on a first-name basis ● You will meet amazing people, who really want to support you ● Sales are in 99% of peoples targets ● Pre Corona: Great team offsites Culture ● “Googleyness” ● A lot of internal tools... ● No blame culture ● Really fun offices:D ● Amazing intern program ● Everyday is your DAY 1 ● LPs are reaaal and exist not only on walls! ● Working backwards ● Startup culture - bias for action ● Writing culture -> Design doc review meeting, PPT unusual
- 7. It’s really what you make of it! Technical sales people are really happy to have engineers at their side Microsoft Corp (US) and Germany are very different - use both to your advantage Intern community enables you to see the bigger picture Experience ● Good insight into what it is like to work in a big company > Perspective ● Imposter syndrome is real! ● Very fun experience, lots of learning ● Living somewhere else for three months is cool ● Amazing networking and long lasting friendships ● During Covid -> work mostly remote ● Lots of networking opportunities ○ Intern Circle ○ Intern Coffee Shuffle ○ Mentoring program ● Lots of learning opportunities, you’re encouraged to get AWS certification ● Flexibility and fun
- 8. Depending on the role: Typically Quarterly evaluation ● Project status ● Demonstration in front of the team ● Customer and colleague feedback Overall tip: Do good and talk about it! Intern Evaluation Mid- and end term evaluation ● Coding ● Communication ● CLs Mid- and end term evaluation ● Code ● Intern self evaluation and mentor/manager evaluation form based on LPs ● Presentation / Live Demo ● Design Doc ● (User documentation) ● (Engineer documentation) Bar raiser: someone outside your team
- 9. Working student positions can typically be extended indefinitely A lot of interns stay as working students Changing between departments is encouraged Full-time positions: Aspire program Engineering positions: ● Cloud Solution Architect ● Microsoft Consulting Services ● Premier Field Engineer Return offer Conversion: ● 6 feedbacks (2 per internship and 2 from interviews) ● Returning interns typically don’t have conversion interviews Or returning internship You can return as ● Intern, if graduate after 2022 ● Full time, if graduate before 2022 Usually return offers are bounded to current team, but you can also choose to switch a team Contact person: ● SDE Internship - Rafael Galiani (Tech HR) ● EC2 Enterprise team - Andreas Schuster or me:D ● Brand Specialist - Minda Qian
- 10. Q&A
- 11. Thanks for coming! See you soon!