Pros
Lot of smart helpful people Strong engineering culture Free food (at least on my team) Cool occasional events ( free ice cream, food trucks) Above average pay for interns
Cons
I think there are serious problems with the Techstar program. I joined this program after graduation and believed that I would be offered a permanent position if I did well. I got great performance reviews but after 6 months I never had the opportunity to convert. You are basically a contractor (no benefits) and get tricked into believing you will be offered a position. My manager told me that there was “no open headcount”. Yet, some interns were hired because they knew the right people. They got hired because of who they knew and not necessarily because of merit. Why isn’t there a transparent process where all interns have an equal opportunity to compete for an open position? I felt my intern manager was inattentive and did not care about my success. The whole experience was very disappointing coming from a company who’s motto is “people first”. Other: -Subpar laptops (extremely slow and filled with bloatware) given to interns which at times prevented me from working -Some outdated offices that need to renovated -Some projects use extremely outdated tech stack.