Team and Culture · Published April 14, 2026
Notes on Running an Internship
Interns are not cheap labour. Train them as future colleagues and the return is surprising.
We take one or two interns a year, mostly from local universities. Early on they did chores and edge modules with mediocre results. After changing the arrangement, interns own small features independently and conversion to full-time rose.
Principles of arrangement
Real tasks, not exercise projects. Real work has acceptance criteria, users and deadlines, which changes learning intensity.
A dedicated mentor with protected time: at least two one-on-one code reviews each week.
Mistakes are allowed but must be documented: how it happened, how it surfaced, how to avoid it.
How far three months can go
Month one: environment and process, plus one or two small requirements.
Month two: own a module end to end, with the mentor reviewing and gating.
Month three: join retrospectives and give one technical share.
An internship is a long-term investment. Teaching others is also how a team re-examines its own knowledge.
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