Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 165 What Are Some Tips for Interns? Pay, Performance, and More

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165 What Are Some Tips for Interns? Pay, Performance, and More · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: What are some tips for interns?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Specifically around pay, performance, and more of those types of things.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is a question I was asked on the suggestion site, and one I think would be a great for us to cover on today's episode of DevQuestions.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: So let's dive right into what are some of those tips for interns.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to answer a few of the common questions I get around internships that I think will give those tips and kind of clarify some things around internships.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's an important subject to understand and know, especially as you're looking at should I even get an internship?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the first question.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are internships a good option?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, yeah, they are.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: They definitely can be.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I do want to clarify and remind you that the common answer, the right answer to almost every question is it depends.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: It depends is the right answer.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, internships are a good option as long as you watch out for some pitfalls.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: So why are they a good option?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they allow you to get your foot in the door.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: So let's just say that you, you know, you're looking to get an internship, you're offered internship at Acme Corp.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you're gonna make anvils.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, cool.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you get your foot in the door, you get to see how the business works.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you're gonna be the lowest person on a totem pole, you're gonna be the person that is, you know, is working in the kind of the junk jobs, but that's okay.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: You get to see how the business works, you get to see how to build software and how that works.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of that, you have some contacts in that company, and that company knows you.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, it's a much higher probability where you will have an opportunity to continue on as an entry-level developer when the internship expires.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, or if it's not your last year of college, you're doing it, you know, between semesters at college.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, at the end of your college, you know, when you graduate, uh, you might have a better option of getting a job at that company.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one benefit.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Another benefit is it gives you some experience.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Again, yes, you may get some kind of bottom-level jobs, but that's okay because that will give you kind of the best experience in some ways of just getting in the flow.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: How does how does this work?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: They may give you some repetitive tasks that are just easy, maybe.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's okay because now you get to experience the flow of I've been given a ticket, I have to check some code on, or I have to work on some code and create a commit and I have to create a pull request and get it reviewed and get it pushed into production and watch that process go.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Even if it's easy code, that's great experience getting that flow down because when you get to more tough code, having that flow down is really helpful.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, on the other hand, you might get code where you're like, I have no clue what to do.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: This is super hard and I I'm lost.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: That also is good experience.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because believe it or not, that's gonna happen for the rest of your life.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's not something where you're gonna get to a certain point where you're like, oh, this stuff is easy now.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can just, you know, blaze through any code I want.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, code gets easier in some ways, and you can write more code easily as you progress, but usually what happens is you get the code that's your level or higher in difficulty.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, or get the simple code when you're a senior developer.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: You don't get the, you know, fix this one line or this one bug is super easy to fix.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: You don't get those as a senior developer.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: What you get are this authentication system has a problem talking to that system, and it's dropping these packets and this look, and you're like, I have no clue.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: So getting the experience of having the I have no clue moments early will allow you to learn to not panic, to work through it, to break the problem down step by step, to help get help from other people in some ways.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Don't just start there, though.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: It'll help you, you know, learn how to use the tools to figure out and track down problems and so on, so that you build up those skills of problem solving because you're gonna need those skills for the rest of your career.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then the the third reason why I think internships are a good option are because it does give you something to put on your resume.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: When you look at working in the real world, you know, getting your first real software development role, well, often they ask for work experience.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And even if you have a degree, they'll ask for work experience.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we've talked about that before on dev questions.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to check out how to get work experience before you get work experience, I have a video or two on that.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, having something on your resume helps you stand out compared to somebody else.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, internships are a good option in a lot of cases.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now, let's talk a little bit more specifically because there are times when they're not.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: So the next question is should I get paid as an intern?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you should.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So as an intern, and we're gonna talk about unpaid in a minute, but as an intern, that's where you need to be.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh work for free only as a last resort.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it will still give you work experience.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: It will still give you something to put on your resume, it will still give you some look into organizations and how they work, but it is a last resort to work for free as an intern.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And here's why.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: If the company won't pay you now, they're not going to pay you well later, if at all.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, there's been studies done where they have found that unpaid interns have a low rate of being hired by companies, where paid interns have a very high rate of being hired by their companies.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, and it's not just any company, the company they intern for.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if you intern for a company that does not pay you, then the odds are low they're gonna hire you.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if you work for a company where they do pay you as an intern, the odds are high that they will hire you.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you still have to prove yourself, you still have to prove yourself competent, you still have to do well in the role, but it's not just on you.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: If a company is that cheap, they will not pay for interns, then they are not treating you as a person.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're treating you as a way to get around the system, to make more profit for less input, to really squeeze people for all they're worth.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're trying to take advantage of you.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So if it's a last resort, if you have no other options, an unpaid internship can be of benefit.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not nearly a benefit of a paid internship.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, number question number three, what are some ways to get the most out of an internship?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you have been hired as an intern, you're you're coming in day one, you know, you're you're bright-eyed and you know, you're you're looking to make the most out of this.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: You want to make sure that you don't just treat this as drudgery to get through, but you want to get the most out of it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the first thing is you want to learn to learn.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: You want to figure out how to learn what you need to.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And this is something that I learned early on in college, actually.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So in high school, I was a pretty much straight A student.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: There was one or usually is uh English, there's my subject to get a B in.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: But everything else was pretty much straight A's.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't really study, I didn't really work for it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: I just kind of rolled in, did, you know, did the tests and rolled back out and got my A.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Guess what I didn't learn to do?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't learn to study.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't learn how to gather information that I needed.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: It just kind of came natural to me.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, college hit and that changed.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: It changed in a radical way.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, I'm sitting there going, I'm not gonna pass this class if I don't figure out how to study, how to learn.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that was a really important thing for me to do because it's not just for school that you have to learn things.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to your job, you're gonna have to learn how to interact with their custom software.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have to learn what their custom software does, how their processes work, how the business operates, what the workflows are.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: All these things are important.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't know how to learn well, then you're gonna struggle.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to say, hey, can you remind me how to do that again for the fifth time?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, um, I figured how to do this thing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you've shown me before like eight times, but I need to know again.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's a problem.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's where you find that your coworkers become frustrated with you.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because typically, and of course there's always exceptions, but typically, when you are an internship, intern or even a new developer, when you're working in a company early on and you've never learned how to do something at that company, and you go to your coworker and say, hey, I have never, you know, done a I've never completed a ticket at this company.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've got this help ticket where I've got to change some code.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know how to change the code, but how do I get the rest of the process done?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like how do I get it into production?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Typically, your coworkers will be happy to help.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: They'll be willing to show you the process, willing to walk you through those steps to get it from completed code to in production.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: The first time.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: The second time, probably.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: But by the third and fourth time, what you're doing is wasting their time.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're using them as your Google.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you're saying, hey, you know what?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, Google, fix this for me.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you know, hey, Chat GPT coworker, fix this.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And no one wants to be that for you because they have their own job to do and they're taking time out to help you.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: So learning how to learn is important.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Learning how to get that information from your coworker and retain it is really important.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one of the ways to get the most out of your internship is to learn how to learn.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Practice learning well.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure you're you're tracking with information and capture it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna miss some stuff.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to not get stuff right.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Correct it for next time.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Apologize.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Say, hey, I'm I'm sure you show this to me already, but I misplaced my notes.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can't figure out this step or I missed something.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Can you show me again?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Learn how to learn, learn how to work with your coworkers.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um another thing that's really important is learn how to do the grunt work.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And people don't typically like grunt work.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And by grunt work, I mean work that is repetitive.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: When I was hired in high school as an intern, so I was hired as an intern to an electrical engineer.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And when I first started, my job was repetitive.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was, I don't want to say boring because it was fascinating to work in a new environment, in a manufacturing environment, and all the rest, but at the same time, he would hand me a box, a box full of pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on spreadsheets that filled the entire page.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: So stacks of these.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: And my job was to put those numbers into the computer.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of grunt work.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then after I was done with that, my job was to go and remeasure things.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to record that and put it in the computer.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I had other jobs that were just repetitive and boring and not even really anything to do with being an engineer or software development or any of that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: I could have dragged my feet.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I could have said, this is beneath me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I could have said, you know what, I'm going to stretch this out and, you know, get as much like enjoyment as I can by not doing too much overtime.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, I worked really hard.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I worked as fast as I could.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I figured out ways to work faster.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: I figured out how to use the number pattern on the keyboard to the point where my fingers were flying like an accountant.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was getting information there as fast as possible.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I figured out the repetitions to see how I could use those repetitions to just kind of copy and paste rather than have to retype everything that was the same.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so by doing that, I got through a lot more work than expected.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: So much so that I ran out of work to do.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when I ran out of work to do, my boss started giving me some more grunt work at first.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: But then he said, Hey, you know what?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Can you figure out how to write this piece of software?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was free time for him because I got all the work done that was needed to be done.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was able to, you know, not worry too much about, you know, making me do stuff.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, hey, you know, try this out, figure this out, and see if you can get it to work.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I was able to write software for him that was really valuable and gave me a lot more experience than they otherwise would have.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So by learning to do the grunt work and learning to do it well, I built up a good reputation with my boss.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: I built up a good reputation with my coworkers, and I was able to get new and additional opportunities that were more in line with what I wanted to do and also were kind of beyond where I normally would have got as an intern.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: So embrace the grunt work.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Embrace that work that's just repetitive and might not be the best or the most enjoyable, but try to get through it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Try to use that as an opportunity to build relationships, to build trust, and to become a better employee.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: With that, the next thing is volunteer to do more.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And this is one that kind of goes with the grunt work thing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: There are, when you have a software deployed into production, like a complete, you know, complete application that's pretty large, uh, a typical enterprise type application, and your team's job is to support it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's getting a lot of help tickets.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of things where this is broken, this is this is wrong, this needs to be tweaked, whatever.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of those will be repetitive, there'll be small things, there'll be the annoyances where it takes a lot of repetitive work to get them done, but they're really nothing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Volunteer to do them.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Say, hey, you know what?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know all the crazy code stuff, but I can clean out that bottom layer of stuff and just get it done.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Volunteer to do more.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Volunteer maybe to say, hey, you know what?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: I built this project at school that seems like it'd be mostly good for a good fit for this.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: What if I on the side, still during work hours mostly, but what if on the side I built this so that it would make your lives easier?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, volunteer to do more than what you're doing shows initiative and it allows you to get more experience.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Build relationships as well.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you're building software, you're learning how to build software, you're learning how to become an employee.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the important parts of being an employee and working in an organization is that you don't work alone typically.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's not this, you are an island, you get to choose everything, you get to be the director of your own destiny.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's not typically true.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, typically you have a boss that's saying, here's what to do, or here's the stuff I need to get done.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you have coworkers that you have to work with, and maybe even people that are underneath you, you know, that you uh that report to you, that you have to manage as well.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not as an intern, but maybe.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so you want to work on building positive relationships.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mean like a dating type relationship.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean work relationships, meaning show your coworkers that they can trust you.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: Show them that you're willing to help.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Show them that you can have a good attitude even through bad, you know, hard times, and show them that you're a team player.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Start to build those relationships because, first of all, it's going to make your life easier as an intern.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: When you come to a problem as an intern where maybe you've not seen this code before, but you have to fix it, and you're like, this is a hard problem.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I've tried all my debugging steps.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: I can't figure out why this is not working.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then you go to turn to get help from your coworkers.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you have built a positive relationship, your coworkers will be much more likely to look positively on helping you.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: If, on the other hand, you turn to your coworkers and you have abused those relationships, you have not learned how to learn, so you're using them as your own version of GPT, you have done the bare minimum, and you have not done your work very well, they're not going to be thrilled to help you, especially since they have to take time out of their day where they have responsibilities as well.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: So building those relationships will really help just in getting your work done.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: But then remember, you're an intern.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Your goal is eventually to be hired somewhere.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Not only does having a good relationship help you to get hired at that company, but those coworkers that are coworkers for today aren't always going to be working at that same company tomorrow.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you the number of times where I've had people that I've worked with, we've built positive relationships with, that later I talked and they're a different company or this company or that company.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: And now, if I wanted a job at that company, it'd be a whole lot easier because I know someone there.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so having those positive relationships will really help start to build your network of people you can rely on and talk to if you ever need a job.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, finally, the way to get the most out of an internship is to be open to hard feedback.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: You will make mistakes.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: You will not be up to the task of doing everything.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: There will be times when things don't go well.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of trying to avoid it, instead of trying to push it off onto somebody else, instead of making excuses for it, instead of even in your mind making excuses for it, listen to the feedback.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be given in the most positive way.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: You may not have a boss that is great at building you up as they give you hard feedback.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: You may have a boss that just blames you for everything.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Still try to learn and take from the feedback what you can to improve.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it may not all be valid, but try very hard not to throw everything out because some of it isn't valid.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So learn from that hard feedback because the goal is to grow.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And growth does require some missteps.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when when my boys were were very young, they just started to learn to walk.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they didn't just start to walk.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: They they started to walk and they fell down.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: They they held on to things and they still fell down.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, even after they started to walk pretty well, they were still kind of unstable on their feet.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it's like to be a developer.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're not going to start off running marathons.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to start off just barely getting by the walking.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you will fall down sometimes.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And having somebody come alongside you and say, you know what?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't put your feet opposite each other, it helps you not fall down so much.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: That can be hard feedback to hear that you're walking wrong.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: But if If you listen, if you forget the ego for a minute and step back, you might go, oh, let me try that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when you try that, you may have better success.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: So being open to hard feedback.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, now question number four.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: What are some red flags around internships?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: What are some things to look out for when you know evaluating a potential internship to say, is this the right internship for me?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the the first one is one we've already talked about, but let's make sure we're very clear on this: no pay.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: No pay is a red flag for an internship.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: If a company is offering an internship, but they're not offering to pay, they're looking to get free work.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of what they're saying.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there again, that's a generalization.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: There can be situations where a company says, hey, we really can't afford an intern, but you know, we can help you out and give you some experience.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: That could be a reason why they wouldn't pay.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so not ever red flags are not the don't do this ever.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Red flags are this is a warning sign.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is a thing to look out for and at least question why and go and maybe use it as a negative compared to another option.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: So no pay is a red flag to look out for because as you talked about before, it usually indicates the organization is not really invested in you as a person.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're just looking for something from you for as little or nothing, for as little as possible or nothing.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, red flag number two, no real work.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you are interning as a software developer, there may be times when you're the person writing it coffee.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: There may be times when you're the person that's you know cleaning up the conference room after a meeting.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: There may be times when you do things that just don't seem like software development.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna happen.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: As software developers, there's times when there's things we do that aren't software development.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: But if there's no real work, if there's no software development in the job, that's a problem.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: They're supposed to be.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's no real work, that's a pretty big red flag.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you talk to their current or former interns and they say, yeah, I really didn't do much to do anything.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Or it this may sound great, but they say, Yeah, I sat around and played video games all day long.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't care.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's not great either because an internship isn't just about getting some money if they pay you.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just about getting a job, it's about getting work experience.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not getting that, you're really missing out and you're wasting your time.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: So no real pay or no real work, no real pay either, but no real work is another red flag.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the the final big red flag is no feedback.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to them about what's the feedback process like?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Who am I gonna work with?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: How much are you gonna work together?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: And who do I talk to to you know, learn more about this process?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because if they say, okay, you're an internship or an intern, great, get in this cubicle and don't talk to us, just do the work.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it's grunt work, whatever.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're not getting any feedback, how do you know you're growing the right direction?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know you're not making mistakes?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know that you're actually learning the right things?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's, you know, I use the driving analogy quite a bit.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're going from one city to another, let's say you're going from New York City to Los Angeles, that's a long drive, right?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of the learning process of becoming a software developer or becoming a great software developer, is that that driving process.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no real feedback as an intern is kind of like getting a car in New York City and just taking random routes.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: You might be going the right direction, you might not be.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you might cause yourself some problems going down the wrong paths, the wrong drive, the wrong roads if you're not sure you're pointed in the right direction.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's what feedback is.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Feedback is saying take a left turn here.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Feedback is saying get on this road.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of things that we need as software developers, especially in our internships, because that that forming process is the point.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: The point is not just that you become a cheap employee for the company.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: An internship really should almost cost the company more than they get in value.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of the point, is that you are giving back to that intern.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: You're building the next generation by building into them, by giving them value back.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're not doing that as a company, well, then you're not forming interns well.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: You're not actually giving, you're doing them a disservice.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: You're actually creating potentially worse developers.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: So as an intern, you want to make sure that you're looking for do they give feedback?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do they help me grow as a developer?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my thoughts on the kind of tips and tricks around internships and how you can find the right internship, you know, evaluate your internship, and then make sure you get the most out of your internship once you're in it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you have a question, go to suggestions.iamtimcorey.com and leave that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully, I'll answer in a future episode of DevQuestions.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 27:46
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• 27:53
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• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 28:05
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