A newly hired Facebook intern works alongside his colleague.Facebook/YouTube
The tech industry is famous for its internships. With more open jobs than the industry can fill, companies use internship programs to scout for talent and to give them a leg up when making offers to graduates.
And that means interns in tech are up for some pretty exciting experiences, full of interesting work, parties, and great pay.
Job hunting site Glassdoor sifted through its giant databases of self-reported salaries to come up with this list of the best-paying tech internships, based on at least 25 salary reports in US dollars by US-based interns in the past year.
In cases where companies offered the same median monthly pay, the company with the greater number of salary reports entered by former interns into Glassdoor's site receives higher rank.
No. 15: MathWorks, $5,120 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,120
Mathworks makes popular programming languages and modeling tools for technical computing.
Internship details: MathWorks interns are assigned mentors to help them achieve milestones with plenty of regular feedback on their performance. Internships last between three and six months, for summer and throughout the year.
An interns says: “Amazing workplace and wide range of career options.” —Former Web Developer Intern
No. 14: Adobe, $5,120 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,120
Adobe offers cloud software for graphics, photographers and marketers.
Internship details: Adobe is a big name in software. Interns work with master statisticians, experienced designers, engineering fellows, community activists and so on.
An intern says: “Lots of benefits, great employee perks and events, including a chance to have a meeting with the CEO. Became a full member of a team for 3 months.” —Former Computer Scientist Intern
No. 13: Workday, $5,440 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,440
Workday sells financial and HR cloud software to businesses.
Internship details: Workday calls its internship program Generation Workday, and says the program balances fun, support and challenge.
An intern says: “Interns got to design and build their own project. Treated like a full time employee, and everyone was always willing to explain the code base / language to us. Workday is a super collaborative and supportive environment.” — Current Software Applications Engineer Intern
No. 12: Juniper Networks, $5,440 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,440
Juniper Networks makes equipment to build and protect computer networks.
Internship details: Juniper Networks believes talented interns are vital for innovation.
An intern says: “Excellent internship program, awesome work culture for interns, friendly HR team, visibility to higher executives during internship.” — Former Infrastructure Engineer Intern
No. 11: Intuit, $5,440 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,440
Intuit offers finance and tax software and loans.
Internship details: Intuit interns get to work on cloud, web and mobile technologies. It has a rotational program to let interns try different entry-level positions.
An interns says: “Amazing people and culture. Happy and relaxed doing the best work of their lives. Great benefits, bleeding edge tech, meaningful work and delighted customers.” —Former Intern
No. 10: NVIDIA, $5,770 a month
Median monthly pay: $5,770
Internship details: Interns join in all aspects of the business, like company meetings and events, plus a bunch of special, intern-only activities. Internships are available year-round, for a minimum of twelve weeks.
NVIDIA makes computer graphics technologies used by applications like video games.
An interns says: “State-of-the-art technologies. Interns are given real projects, i.e. you are given tasks which otherwise would be assigned to full times. Extreme flexibility in choosing/changing tasks/projects. Smart (even legendarily) people; you sometimes meet and work with people whose books you read in the grad school.” — Former Systems Software Engineer
No. 9: Google, $6,000 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,000
Google is an internet search giant that also sells cloud software, makes the Android operating system, Chromebooks and the Pixel phone and has its hands in a variety of other tech businesses.
Internship details: Google is famous for its internship program and it hires interns for all sorts of departments, not just for technical roles. For example, its BOLD interns, which stands for Build Opportunities for Leadership and Development, places interns with teams across its sales, marketing and HR orgs.
An intern says: “Great management who is always in constant contact and able to assist with any situation.” — Former Street View Operator Intern
No. 8: VMware, $6,080 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,080
VMware sells enterprise software that helps data centers run more efficiently.
Internship details: VMware is another company that is famous for its internships, which features challenging work mixed in with plenty of social activities.
An intern says: “First of all, the salary package they offered me as an intern was above my expectations. The project I worked on had a very small-company feel, partly since we were working on a pre-1.0 product (which was very cool), and also because my manager did an excellent job of keeping the distractions from senior management to a minimum.” — Former PhD Intern
No. 7: Yahoo, $6,080 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,080
Yahoo is an internet portal site for email, news, entertainment and games.
Internship details: Although Yahoo will soon be joining Verizon's AOL, it has become known for its summer internships. There are few companies that have internet sites as big as Yahoo, so there's all sorts of projects available from Office of Inclusive Diversity, to robotics, to social media, legal and entertainment.
An interns says: “Great people, great pay, great perks, and an overall great learning opportunity.” — Former Ad Operations Intern
No. 6: Yelp, $6,400 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,400
Yelp is a website that hosts user reviews on local businesses to help people find everything from barbers to restaurants.
Internship details: Yelp hosts roughly 150 interns each year. Its program consists of three 3-month terms and the biggest cohort works with Yelp’s 400-person-strong engineering team on projects like software development and design.
An intern says: “Unparalleled experience. The community manager is basically your mentor. Knowledge is unlimited in this job and can open many doors if taken seriously.” — Former Marketing Intern
No. 5: Apple, $6,400 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,400
Apple makes iPhones, iPads, Mac computers but is also known for its iTunes store and other software and devices.
Internship details: Apple hires interns all year with both summer programs and during the academic year. Interns work on critical projects in the U.S. and around the world.
An intern says: "Very innovative culture, supportive teammates and management; it’s run like a series of small startups instead of global company, makes it very easy to take ownership of work.” — Former Hardware Engineering Intern
No. 4: Amazon, $6,400 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,400
Amazon is the world's biggest ecommerce retailer and is also known for Alexa Echo device, Kindle tablets and its cloud computing platform.
Internship details: Amazon is as a fast-paced workplace. Interns are offered training, work on real projects under guided mentorship, and attend presentations from senior leadership.
An intern says: “Great supervisor, great benefits, great location, great work experience. I learned a ton in this position that I believe will serve me well in future endeavors.” — Former Human Resources Intern
No. 3: Salesforce, $6,450 a month
Median monthly pay: $6,450
Salesforce sells cloud software to businesses for sales, marketing, service and app development.
Internship details: Salesforce calls its interns by the cute name "Futureforce" and employs interns at offices all over the world. Interns get opportunities to shadow other employees, mentorship, development courses, and more.
An intern says, “Salesforce truly does a great job of making you feel like a part of the team, they have been very helpful throughout my career.” — Former Client Service Intern
No. 2: Microsoft, $7,100 a month
Median monthly pay: $7,100
Microsoft is one of the world's largest, most powerful software companies that also sells PCs, games and other devices. It is also known for its world-class R&D labs.
Internship details: Microsoft is another company that is famous for its internship program, which exposes students to all sorts of tech and includes legendary parties. The summer programs are typically 12-weeks long and let participants rotate through different departments.
An intern says: “Meaningful intern projects. Great diversity of teams: Microsoft has their hands on absolutely everything, so you get to talk to a lot of very smart and interesting people. Probably has the best intern benefits out there. Intern events are amazing. I've had great mentors. It's a great time to join Microsoft in the midst of its reinvention.” — Former Software Engineer Intern
No. 1: Facebook, $8,000 a month
Median monthly pay: $8,000
Facebook is the world's largest social network and includes other businesses like photo sharing site Instagram as well as virtual reality company Oculus Rift.
Internship details: Facebook intern program has been ranked #1 on Glassdoor for two years in a row. It is, as you would expect, a top-notch program and pays exceptionally well.
An intern says, "Amazing perks (free food, snacks, transportation, housing (own bedroom and bathroom!), as well as completely paid for intern events on the weekends.” — Former Software Engineer Intern
