Want to work on the highest profile software projects in the world? Want to get paid more per hour for an internship than the average CS grad makes out of school? Want TechCrunch to call you a genius? Then read on to learn how to land a killer internship at companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, or Apple. In the following paragraphs I will teach you how to land interviews and succeed at technical interviews. This is the guide I wish I had three years ago when I was starting out as a fresh-faced frosh.

My Credentials

I’m Software Engineering student at the University of Waterloo in my third year. In the past two years I’ve interned at a startup called Xtreme Labs, Amazon.com, and Google. At Amazon I worked in the exploding industry of cloud computing – creating the next generation of Amazon Web Services. I worked on Elastic Beanstalk. At Google I contributed to the upcoming Honeycomb release of Android. In addition to these internships I have interviewed with many startups and established companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Zynga, Bloomberg, Hulu, and Qualcomm.

I still have three more internships to go before I graduate. I expect to learn even more about the interview and internship process in that time, so this is not the definite guide to software engineering internships. Feedback, corrections, and suggestions are welcome.

How to Land Interviews

Scoring interviews with respected software companies is difficult, but with an impressive resume it is possible even in your early years. The key is standing out. Your grades don’t matter as much as your side projects. If you submit a tight resume that boasts that you build websites, work on a start-up, and run an active github account, you’re almost guaranteed an interview with any tech company (Exception: Microsoft, they only interview upper year students). Once you complete your first internship, interviews are easier to get because once you work for one big software company, the rest want you.

Don’t have any side projects or notable work that sets you apart? Unfortunately you might not get a top-tier interview in your first few years of school. But maybe you’ll get lucky, especially if you follow my resume do’s and don’t’s.

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