Interning at Google — the whole story Part 2 — The internship
This is the second part to my “Interning at Google” series. Read the first part here. Hope you enjoy reading about what the internship is like:)
The first day with zero hours of sleep
The big day has finally come. It’s 7 am, I nervously pack my backpack with the long list of things they told me to bring on my first day (passport, printed contract, etc.) and arrive at the Google office about an hour early.
There is already a line of excited new interns waiting in front of the lobby, chatting with each other about their journeys. We are called in one by one to be checked for identity, after which they hand out our temporary Google badges.
Our photos for our printed badges are also taken that day, which of course I did not forsee and thus I look very tired on my badge. Little did I know how many times I have to show that embarrasing picture to other people.
About two hours later, a massive room is filled with the 135+ new interns that start their internship this week. We are told everything we need to know, and we are also given Noogler muffins!
After a long day filled with presentations, we are collected by our intern hosts and thus, the adventure begins…
Wait…what? Confusion
The first week(s) are filled with mainly…confusion. You see, inside Google, the engineers use an equivalent of “outside” tools that are better fitted towards a Google engineer’s needs (with everything, I mean everything; gLinux, versioning control…). This means, you have to get to know a lot of tools until you can start effectively working.
Besides figuring out how to do basic things like commiting my first change or learning an entire new programming language I also attend many meetings with the team lead and the team, where I get to know what exactly was my project task and how the team can help.
Getting lost in the office!
Of course, I took the time to explore the multiple offices that Google Zurich has! I found some signs on the bathrooms that also confused me for a while:
There are many really exciting rooms in the office. One of them is the library, where we spent many nights playing boardgames:
But even if you are tired, rest assured!:
There are many more perks such as huge gyms, firepoles that connect different floors, massage chairs, etc. So yes, the Google offices at times do feel like a giant theme park. Of course, the food is also amazing, you can always choose between different restaurants which serve different options as well. If you are not happy with your choices, you can book a cooking class to improve your home cooking skills. An intern friend of mine and I for example learned how to make fresh pasta — as stereotypical pasta-based students do.
Getting the hang of it
After a while, I am finally ready to get work done. I am paired up with a UX intern to work on our joint project, and what are the chances — we are both from Munich! We meet up regulary to discuss our next steps and the project comes along nicely.
The following weeks kind of melt together. Days are spent working, while evenings are spent with other interns playing board games, watching movies, or jamming out on the gStage. A quick thing to say here: yes, interns really do spend the entire day in the office. I did feel like regular FTE’s don’t do it as much, maybe because you get used to it, or because it gets boring after a while. But as an intern, you really want to get the most out of it, which we certainly did!
Generally speaking, interns get treated very nicely. There are multiple intern outings — stand up paddling, a visit to a tech museum, bowling — and also an intern summit, where all EMEA interns are flown into Zurich and spend two days filled with fun events together. We even had our own party boat cruise:
The last days — saying goodbye:(
The end of the internship is generally spent documenting your work, giving a final presentation and then, sadly, saying goodbye to everyone. My UX intern partner and I baked some cakes for our colleagues and organized a small get-together in our last week. It was really sad knowing that this was our last time in the team, but it was great to see that so many came to say goodbye to us interns!
There are so many more stories that could be told about the internship. But I do hope that this gave a short insight into SWE internships at Google. If you are interested in hearing more, or have specific questions, feel free to ping me at Linkedin.
My take on the internship
Here we are, three months after the internship. I am back at university, studying to finish my degree. I’ve had many fellow students ask me many questions about the internship, and while I hope I answered general questions in telling the story above, here are some extra comments from my side:
- Google is a huge company and you will feel that. Not necessarily in pressure — I feel like Google does a really good job at pacing the engineers and creating a friendly community — but in the measures that it takes to get a project done: Projects, changes and especially new ideas can take quite long to be reviewed, there is a separate process for everything, etc., which not everyone likes. So yes, not everyone will enjoy working at such a large company. I certainly do.
- Being an intern is great — but also intimidating. Google has a very selective application process, and you can definitely feel that everyone there is very intelligent and capable. While it did teach me a lot technically speaking, it was at times hard to look at myself and to believe that I am worth being there. The imposter syndrome is real and so I found it important to be aware of that and actively try to tackle it.
Overall, I throughly enjoyed my internship — so much that I will come back next summer, if all goes well. I can only recommend to apply (also to other companies you are interested in), because an internship is an invaluable opportunity to get a look inside a company and also to get connections for future job searches. It helps you to determine which path you want to take and which fields you are interested in, so just do it!
