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Intern at a YC Company

blog.ycombinator.com

136 pointskatm79 comments

In case anyone still can't access it:

by Y Combinator

Would you like to intern at a YC company this summer? We're helping place paid interns at YC-backed companies like Dropbox, Stripe, Optimizely and others.

You'll get:

> A chance to work with one of Silicon Valley's most exciting companies

> An invitation to YC's intern conference

Please fill out our application[1] by March 21, 2014. We'll notify you by March 31 if you've been accepted.

[1] https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/intern-at-a-yc-com...

>Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing you.

Does this violate equal opportunity employment or is there some weird legal exclusion?

An interesting point. I doubt if it would be used for that, but it could be.

I think it's probably a bad idea in general, and most large companies avoid doing it just because it could be used for this (age/gender/race discrimination).

Sure you're eventually going to interview, but this could open a company up to potential actions by a much larger pool than just people who made it to the in person interview.

Perhaps alternatively, this is a test by some hot new, stealth-mode YC startup to test the viability of video interview screening? And simply using interns as a small test subject pool.

Furthermore, because interns are the testing pool. The turnover of selecting quality interns and seeing how they turn out over a summer internship would provide good data for whoever the startup is doing this.

They do the same thing for regular YC applications, so I don't think its anything crazy new.

Though, there's a large difference between overt "we want to discriminate against who joins our private secret society" and "we want to discriminate against potential employees."

The goal of the video is so they can form opinions about you more quickly. They don't want to waste time getting to know you or your history on paper if you turn out to be somehow unlikeable or unworkable as a person.

[Also see: online dating. When you read profile text, you read it as yourself and form opinions based on your ideal world view. When you end up meeting and dealing with someone in person, you end up seeing how much they completely don't match the ideas you formed from textual communication.]

As someone with no legal expertise in any area: Well, the companies are getting age/race/gender information from seeing you and they could use this information to discriminate against a protected class, but I don't see how its different from in-person interviewing where they would have access to the same information.

>I don't see how its different from in-person interviewing

An in-person interview is a two-way conversation and costly (in time and energy) for both sides. It is ideally a rich experience with a lot of infomation.

What we have here is a call for a very short (1 minute) one-way look at the candidate, who is asked in incredibly vague terms to introduce themselves.

IANAL but it seems like an attorney could make a case that such a short video with so little non-visual content -- no meaningful prompt, no real chance to show skill -- is a pretext for discrimination based on age or race or gender. Not that I'm saying it is, mind you, but asking for a video "introducing you" does suggest that the content of what the speaker says is incidental to who the speaker is. Particularly for a job that does not involve introducing yourself all the time (are these sales interns? receptionists?).

Why not a prompt like "...introduce yourself and explain why you're interested in working for $COMPANY..."?

I find the YC interview videos a lot better than solo videos because one of the most interesting data points is how the team seems to interoperate, which you can sort of get a sense of in a 1 minute video. It's a lot less of an argument in a solo process.

> An in-person interview is a two-way conversation and costly (in time and energy) for both sides. It is ideally a rich experience with a lot of infomation.

That's a valid point, but I don't think that discrimination laws say anything about the time and effort required by each party.

Time and effort are being used here as evidence against wrongdoing, not as something inherently legal or illegal. Think "security footage confirming an alibi". Laws about murder say nothing (or very little) about security footage, but that doesn't mean it can't be used as evidence.

Suppose that it is illegal to discriminate by using information of type A and that the following media transmit the following types of information:

In-person interview (IPI): A,B,C,D,E,F,G

Vague video upload (VVU): A,B

Cover letter + resume (CLR): B,H,I

In this slightly oversimplified example, it would be illegal to request VVU+CLR because the only possible motive for requesting VVU+CLR instead of CLR would be to obtain information that was illegal to use.

YCombinator already openly discriminates man, there is no need for secrecy.

We use video in the YC applications because when a group applies to YC and describes their business on video, we get a lot of information that can't be explained in print. And so, we have the mindset that using video is always a helpful tool for evaluation. However, in the case of interns applying for jobs, we've realized its not adding the same kind of value. We're not sure about its legal status, but even because it could possibly be a grey area, we took it down because we don't ever want to cause any hassles for our portfolio companies.

Is this for the intern applications, I don't see it in the form.

> Please submit your application by March 21. We'll notify you by March 31 if you've been accepted.

That's it? There's no interview or coding test? I'm all for a quick process, but I've never seen a tech company accept interns like this. Or does accepted mean you've been accepted for an interview at a YC company?

It looks more like a higher-level or job searching for startups. If YC thinks you're a good fit, they add you to a job pool for the start-ups to pick and choose people to actually interview the candidates. Some companies function like that, where the "startups" are the company teams.

This is all perception of whether YC will actually follow this method of course..

It means you've been accepted for an interview at a YC company.

A bit of advice. Do check that you are not doing an internship with immature first time CEOs/CTOs.

I've seen an intern lied to, abused and dismissed without recommendation letter and promised salary by a CEO/primary founder of a YC company that I was with. This was no fault of that intern and AFAIK was done primarily because that [recently immigrated from India] CEO wanted to save about $3k of moneys. One of the reasons I've left that company and dropped from YC BTW...

edit: a clarification. this is anecdotal evidence and probably doesn't reflect statistics of YC companies in general.

I agree. However, as with all things in startups, while there are a lot of founders who are still very inexperienced with managing, there are also probably some founders who are fantastic mentors.

Interesting how you consider "[recently immigrated from India]" to be relevant here.

I don't know. Maybe I'm very wrong here. But I think there is a correlation between 'fighting for scraps' behaviour and 'recent immigrant'. I do not have statistics to confirm that.

Any prospect of accepting high schoolers who have the necessary skills? Would it help if I am concurrently enrolled in college as well?

Go for it and apply. I'm sure you're qualified :-)

Thanks, I'm filling out my application at the moment :) Hopefully being in HS doesn't affect my prospects too adversely.

Might have an opportunity for you. If you don't get an internship at a YC, let me know! (details in profile)

I can back Krish up as a talented dev.

Thanks :)

I always see this and want to say this: if you are a high schooler, do not ask for permission to apply, just apply.

I suggest looking at interns all year long and not just during the summer months. University of Waterloo has a co-op program for students where they have work terms throughout the year.

Interns can be very high value if the environment is setup for them to contribute.

Agreed. Especially since University of Waterloo seems to be churning out more talent than ever.

A little more info for those interested:

University of Waterloo has the generic Computer Science program as part of the Math faculty, as well as an another Software Engineering program as a joint program between the Math and Engineering faculties. Both programs offer co-op all year around. For more information, check out: https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers

As a co-op student at the University of British Columbia's software engineering program, I want to back this comment as I have 16 months (continuously) of co-op left to look for internships!

Any chance this will be an ongoing program not limited just to summers?

I ask this because there are a growing number of schools (including mine) that have full time Intern/Co-op programs in during the Fall and Spring semesters that I know would have interested and talented students.

This is Kat, YC's Director of Outreach. We're beta testing this program on a small scale for Summer 2014. It may evolve based on how things go this summer, but I can see it becoming an ongoing program.

Awesome,thanks for the reply. I'll keep an eye on it going into my last Co-op next Winter/Spring.

What if I graduate in march (this year)? Can I still apply? (I would require a J-1 visa, but recent grads can get it, it seems)

Is this just for technical internships?

This is a great idea which I thought YC should have been doing for some time now. It also translates well to hires because of culture, experience, and passion for the team/product.

I think most US undergrads start applying for internships during the fall semester and many of them will have already accepted an offer by now. I strongly suggest YC to open up this application earlier, ideally in October or November.

In my experience at Stanford, this usually wasn't the case. Most people started looking for internships around February-April. Obviously not the case everywhere... but it's the case at arguably one of the closest talent pools to YC.

Both Google and Facebook stopped taking applications in late February this year. So you guys should probably start earlier

Stanford's recruiting schedule seems to move earlier every year. There was a major intern-focused career fair at the beginning of October.

I'm a current Stanford junior. In my experience most people feel stressed if they haven't committed to an offer by early February. The major career fairs for internships take place mid-January, with a more full-time oriented fair occurring in October.

The majority of CS majors I know were locked in before mid-February.

When I was in school, most of the big tech companies were done with intern applications by the end of March or so. Anecdotally, my employer has ~10 interns each year and all but one or two have signed offer letters by the end of February. I would definitely suggest moving things up in the future (obviously its too late this year).

I'm curious if YC itself is looking for interns.. it looks like they might need help fixing the blank screens people have been getting, haha. Nonetheless, this is awesome!

Can grad students who are interested in leaving academia apply?

Yes :)

This is sweet news, I don't have any actual job experience so getting an internship this way would be amazing. Good luck to everyone applying!

Do we get a choice of what we do? I am interested in testing and security only not so much feature building and front-end work.

Also, do grad students qualify?

>An invitation to YC's intern conference

That sounds neat. Will interns working at YC companies but not placed through this program be invited?

Incoming Dropbox intern here. Interested in that as well. Could someone from YC answer that? Many thanks!

Another YC intern here. I want to know this too.

This is intriguing but the application website isn't working for me. The blog post is working fine though.

Do you think applying for this as well would negatively effect one's summer YC application?

Wish this was posted earlier, already landed a job. Will this only be available for summers?

What if I'm not from the US and require a work permission? Any chance of applying?

I have no inside info, but my guess is probably not. Unless we're talking about AirBnB or Dropbox, most YC companies aren't going to want to take the time out to deal with the regulator¥ hassles of H1B sponsorship.

That said, for the perfect candidate, exceptions will be made.

Internships would fall under J1, which isn't all that hard to get.

North American interns with a technical background should be eligible for TN visas as well.

Are you speaking from experience? I've found the TN process really confusing for an intern, and if you have any experience with the application process, I'd love to hear about it.

TNs aren't for internships. J1s are.

Yes. Get the company's lawyer can fill out the paperwork for you and you show up at the airport with the paperwork and receive a visa. You can't apply in general for a TN, it is company specific.

J1 Visa is a breeze and is meant specifically for this

J1 visa is meant for this and it's pretty easy to get if you're still in school

Same question here. From my friends who interned at Amazon, Facebook etc. the visa seemed pretty easy to get (we're Canadians), but those are bigger companies, not sure if the same applies to YC startups?

Does anyone know what are the dates for this internship? Is it May-August?

Are there remote interns ?

Yep, would it be possible to work from a different continent and a different time zone?

I get a blank screen....

Works for me. On, err, IE6.

Also getting blank screen, on iPhone 5s

maybe this is part of the test?

/jk

Nothing but a blank screen in the latest version of Chrome.

I've noticed a strange bug with the latest version of Chrome where pages sometimes don't render. Try opening the developer tools, this usually causes the page to render for me.

I've noticed the same bug, but dev tools doesn't seem to do anything and view-source is blank. This one though seems to be a site issue:

    $ traceroute blog.ycombinator.com
    traceroute to posthaven.com (50.63.202.48), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
     1  10.142.83.65 (10.142.83.65)  0.892 ms  0.719 ms  0.769 ms
     2  216-13-232-1.dedicated.allstream.net (216.13.232.1)  1.213 ms  3.646 ms  1.234 ms
     3  216-23-136-13.dedicated.allstream.net (216.23.136.13)  2.256 ms  8.470 ms  1.299 ms
     4  66-46-123-225.dedicated.allstream.net (66.46.123.225)  18.638 ms  12.393 ms  13.011 ms
     5  eqix-ch.godaddy.com (206.223.119.141)  58.324 ms  61.302 ms  60.216 ms
     6  * * *
     7  * * *
     8  * * *
     9  * * *
    10  * * *

etc

Is this the first year that they are doing this?

Do you have to be a current student to intern?

Can international students apply?

Crossing my fingers!

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