back to article Who earns '$7k a month' but can't even legally drink? A tech intern!

Tech company interns are paid up to $7,000 a month, making them the most well-compensated trainee worker bees in America, it was claimed today. The youngsters' surprisingly high salaries were published today by job review website Glassdoor, which drew up a list of the 25 highest-paying companies for interns. Anti-terror-tech …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ummm...

    Did Glassdoor mention that these interns are usually the best and brightest coming out of university? Hence the high salary leading to an even higher salary once they prove they have the "right stuff".

    Basically, it pays to be smart and study at university

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ummm...

      Basically, it pays to be smart and study at university......

      .....and to qualify with the right degree, ideally one that helps a company / government MAKE money, rather than one that is seen as a cost.

      1. Ted Treen
        Unhappy

        Re: Ummm...

        You mean my degrees in "Golf course management" & "Media studies with creative dance" won't make me rich???

  2. DaveDaveDave

    What's an intern?

    Sounds like these guys are on graduate trainee programmes or some such, not doing internships. If you compare like with like, $100k a year is also roughly what the best young bankers, lawyers, accountants, and so-on earn.

  3. Borg.King

    Seems fine to me

    Interns, who often join these companies for around 8-12 weeks during the summer break between their years at university, are selected after 5 or 6 interviews and compete with several hundred others for these positions.

    For the companies mentioned, they really are the cream of the crop, and those companies really want to have them return in full time employment after they finish their courses.

    A graduate starting as a software development engineer in the valley could expect to be paid more than $100k a year. The return on investment is several times that, if you can get them to stay for a few years. They are at their most productive and innovative whilst in their twenties.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Seems fine to me

      "They are at their most productive and innovative whilst in their twenties."

      ... you mean Execs find young hot-shots code gimmicks faster and are easier to exploit than older developers who have learned not to make as many mistakes and be careful who they give ideas to.

  4. Herby

    OK...

    Where does one sign up. Sounds like a nice company to work for.

    Never mind the fact that I'm a bit (no comment) older than the 'average' intern.

    Yes, I live in "Silicon Valley" and the housing costs are high. It helps to take advantage of "Proposition 13" though.

  5. ckm5

    Glassdoor is self-reporting

    You fill out a form, no one verifies if it's true or not. There *might* be one person actually making that much as an intern (and spending 1/2 their pre-tax pay on rent), but it might also be wishful thinking.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seventy grand a year before taxes isn't a hell of a lot in silicon valley - I've heard tell of guys who were making 90 grand and living in their cars because they couldn't find an apartment they could afford. So, yeah, it's a first world problem, but these kids aren't exactly showering in Cristal.

  7. Irony Deficient

    Comparing a top tech intern’s income to median household income?

    The US Social Security Administration’s estimate of the median annual individual worker’s wage in 2012 was $27,519.10 (i.e. £16,434.71 or €19,939.93 at current exchange rates).

  8. John Savard

    Unsurprising

    If someone who wasn't an adult was earning a large salary, that would be surprising. But in the U.S., adults between the ages of 18 and 20 cannot legally drink.

    1. Irony Deficient

      Re: Unsurprising

      John, such young adults cannot legally purchase or publicly possess alcoholic beverages (otherwise, the state/district/territory would be ineligible for 10% of its share of Federal highway funding), but whether they can drink such beverages is still determined by state/district/territorial law; most jurisdictions allow consumption in private locations (homes, clubs requiring membership, &c.). In Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, young adults can still legally purchase and publicly possess (as well as drink) them. Note that a majority of the states also allow underage drinking of some variety — typically either in the presence of the minor’s parents, or in specific locations, such as when partaking in a religious sacrament.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Unsurprising

        "...when partaking in a religious sacrament."

        Is that why 'mericans are so religious? Just a cover story for "underage" (sic) drinking?

        1. Irony Deficient

          Re: Unsurprising

          Anonymous Coward, should you care to look, you’ll find under-age in the OED. We have a habit here of jettisoning hyphens from compound words more rapidly than does Rightpondian English. Traditionally hyphenated compounds like log-jam and pigeon-hole are no longer hyphenated here, and my guess is that the hyphenated under-age is critically endangered here, if not already extinct.

          How would you propose discovering truthful answers to your questions?

  9. Pet Peeve

    What the story doesn't say is a) this is temporary employment, often with no benefits and no guarantee of a job after the internship is over, and b) you make this much because they will work you so many hours that on a per-hour basis, you're not making nearly as much as the salaried employees.

    Anyone who says a job is nice solely on pay doesn't appreciate the existence of a life outside work. Is it worth doing as a kid out of school for a few months? Probably (though look at the employment contract closely). Is it going to get you some great dough? Maybe, if you don't flame out from working 80 hour weeks.

  10. IT Drone

    Leave Adam Smith out of this...

    Your comment about "Adam Smith's large, uncaring invisible hands" is a bit off track. Adam Smith was making the point about supporting domestic over foreign industry. An invisible hand would guide the individual to do what was in their own self interest and in so doing benefit the annual revenue of the whole of their own society (and not that of other countries). Something Adam Smith suggested statesmen and lawgivers should not mess about with. Not really an argument over one person getting a better paid job than the rest...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I thought the answer was 'One Direction'...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Thats more hoping

      Not so much that they'll soon be /interns/, more that they're soon /interred/

  12. Bernard

    Why on earth do firms need to justify paying their employees well?

    Programming, like stock market trading, is a job where contribution to the business is pretty easy to gauge and age is poorly correlated with productivity.

    It's no surprise at all that workers who are highly productive in high profile industries get paid well, and looking at the absurd valuations that these companies fetch when they're perceived to be ahead of their peers any CEO would be doing wrong by the shareholders if they didn't throw money at talent.

    I'm actually surprised there aren't more 18-21 year olds who skip university altogether and just go straight in to coding. Perhaps there are but they're not captured here.

  13. ecofeco Silver badge

    The exception

    As other comments here have pointed out, that's the exception, not the rule.

    The rule is you're lucky to even find an internship, let alone get paid and paid more than beer and pizza money.

    1. Tomato42

      Re: The exception

      The rule is you're lucky to even find inters that are worth hiring, let alone worth high pay.

      The problems are are on both sides of the fence

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The exception

      Internships are easy to find....Oh you want one that PAYS?

      Sorry thought you wanted to work long hours for free, in the desperate hope you may get a job at the end; which of course you won't as we have a whole heap of other desperate slaves, sorry interns, lined up behind you.

  14. Christian Berger

    I think it's a good sign that Palantir has to pay that much

    It gives me hope that the young and talented still have values and won't just take any job without thinking. It's not easy refusing a $7000/month job when your likely alternative is unemployment.

    It think it's great that most of the young people don't want to start at such a company which produces software to justify targeted killings of most likely innocent people. It's a sign that people don't want that. It's a sign that the public is different to those unwashed hordes gathering at NSA sponsored conferences.

  15. John Pombrio

    First in your class at a great college?

    At the top of your class in college, yeah you get to pretty much pick your salary. My son had a job offer and got it bumped up by $10K by showing the acceptance salary at another firm. Plus the $10K bonus, plus shares in the company. $90K a year a month job before he even got his degrees. Gave it all up for going to get a PhD in Comp Sci at Brown (the school gave him a free ride plus $22K stipend tho).

    1. Valeyard

      Re: First in your class at a great college?

      you know more about your son's financial history than I can remember about my own, Dinner conversation must be a blast at yours

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