Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. This search giant dabbles in pretty much everything, from searching the internet and offering e-mail services, all the way to developing its mobile operating system, self-driving cars and robotics. Google is actually one of the most wanted employers in the world, and getting an internship with this Mountain View giant can be a really tedious process. Speaking of the internship, we have an interesting story to share with you, courtesy of Business Insider.
The source has shared an interesting story about Rohan Shah, who is currently a software engineer at Google. Mr. Shah is 22 years old and was offered the internship at the search giant before his senior year of college at the University of Illinois a couple of years back. Rohan Shah was actually offered an internship by Qualcomm prior to Google, but he really wanted to try his luck at Google, and that’s what he did before accepting Qualcomm’s offer. How hard is it to become a Google Intern? Well, this San Francisco-based company accepts only 1,500 interns, and over 40,000 of them apply every year.
Mr. Shah was accepted by Google in the Spring of 2013 and became one of the company’s interns. He said that the interview was a really slow and tedious process, he actually had an interview with around five different teams before he was accepted. After his internship kicked off, Mr. Shah was immediately impressed, by pretty much everything. In case you don’t know, Google actually covers the cost of housing and commute, and interns actually get roommates while they’re at Google. Rohan was assigned three roommates, all of them foreigners, two from Argentina and one from Ukraine.
“Just in the first week you feel like you’ve been an employee for a year. You get acclimated with the company very quickly, my first day was amazing,” said Rohan, who was actually paid about $6,100 per month ($80,000 per year) while he was an intern. So, what do Google interns do all day? Is it all fun and games? Of course not, Shah said that interns have to work a lot, but they also participate in a number of team building activities; trips to museums, movies, biking, hiking, various trips, etc. He participated in various projects with his group, and learned a lot while interning there… Google actually puts a lot of faith in its interns, gives them a lot of responsibility.
“One thing that really surprised me working at Google was that every single employee is extremely creative and extremely active. There’s a very clear divide between work and life. Google engineers are very well-balanced. I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google,” said Shah, and added that he even met Sergey Brin while he was bowling with his friends on campus. Speaking of bowling and extracurricular activities, the Googleplex actually has over 20 cafes, multiple gyms, a wellness center… and a lot more perks.
Rohan Shah has actually attended Qualcomm’s internship right after Google’s, and said the following: “Both internships helped me develop basic software engineering skills that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned from school projects (how to code search efficiently, how to unit test properly, how to use version control systems, etc.)”. That’s more or less it, as previously mentioned, Rohan Shah is currently employed at Google, working as a software engineer.