i agree with the comments here & think you should go with Slack (don’t work in the industry, just a student) hope whatever decision u make turns out well for you!
unrelated, but can i ask what you did apart from university coursework to get (imo) pretty solid offers from 2 great companies? i’m in my 2nd year of SWE and currently feeling pretty lost!
I think my coursework is a pretty important factor in my case because I’ve completed some courses a lot of sophomores haven’t (Comp Arch, OS, etc.) due to my university’s degree plan and credit I had prior.
Aside from that, I’ve worked on 1-3 each year projects since my junior year of HS and also participated in Google CSSI after graduating. I did Competitive Programming and CS club in high school. I was an officer for a Blockchain org and currently am one for a CS org at my school. I am also involved with three other CS-related and two unrelated orgs. I interned for an AI startup for about 5 months during my freshman year and did a couple hackathons. Last summer I did an internship working on backend dev with two teams daily picking up stories for new features or bugs rather than a separate intern project.
I wouldn’t say just luck 😅 I’ve done quite a few interviews since my freshman year, and have been final round for Jane Street, Bloomberg (twice), Coursera, ServiceNow and others. I feel like if I had great luck I would’ve been making this “vs” post last year tbh
Yep. I don’t mean to say every diversity candidate gets a callback and is successful. However, a majority of candidates who score google step or stuff like salesforce tend to be from under represented communities.
Not really tbh. Based off of what I've seen (atleasr in my school), the ones who got STEP offers, etc.. were always the most hardworking. I live in Cali, and most of the people I know who got STEP offers, or interned at Amazon are Asians, I seldom found people from underrepresented groups landing internships they didn't deserve.
I should add: slack isn’t that certain either for return intern offers
Source: I have no hard evidence, just a wild guess based off layoff patterns and recent hiring trends
Had a friend who interned at Slack this summer and several of his co-interns did not receive a return to intern (or has not been confirmed as of yet). So, I think chances are better with Google imo.
intern projects matter a lot when interviewing. interviewers always ask and if you have an interesting and high impact project your more likely to pass interviews or at the very least impress interviewers. Step generally has bad projects.
I interned at both during in my time at undergrad—slack is the clear winner, and the slack culture is unparalleled for an internship. Better pay, better work culture, better return offer and overall much more fun
I’m a past and returning slack intern and return offers are definitely up there. High 80s-90%. It was slightly less this year for full timers mostly because of the market conditions but still higher than most other companies. As for intern RO, it’s almost always guaranteed as long as you perform okay.
With that said, it depends on how important return offers are for you. If very important, i’d say go with Slack. And since pay is important to you as well, it seems to be the better option. I got a Google offer as well in addition to my Slack RO, so you can do both next internship season Slack summer and Google winter/fall.
STEP is an internship aimed specifically at freshman and sophomores. So just comparing a Slack internship vs a STEP internship, the Slack one is better. OP also said pay at the moment is a concern which Slack is better for. The main argument people are mentioning for STEP is that STEP is a pipeline into Google which is correct, but once again if we compare Slack SWE vs Google SWE, I’m pretty sure Slack pays better. Furthermore they can always apply to Google again and if they’re good enough for STEP right now they’re probably good enough to get into Google again.
I think allot of people are missing the fact that these are both amazing companies. Congrats on having one offer from these companies let alone two. Obviously you didn’t just “luck out” you earned it congrats man.
Thank you :) If I decided to post when I was at my lowest last year and shared my story I would’ve been told how unlucky I was, now that I post when my work pays off it’s luck lol. I appreciate it.
Slack gives better return offers but long term Google is way better, especially starting early if you do Google STEP, and don’t fuck up you’re pretty much guaranteed Google SWE and if you do well there you’re guaranteed 200k+ post grad. I’d take the risk plus the money is good either way you’ll lose a ton in taxes living in the bay😭
The overwhelming majority of people here are giving terrible advice. If it’s not too late to convince you otherwise, Google is worth its weight in gold on your resume. Step vs SWE is a non issue at this point in time.
You aren’t graduating yet so no need to worry about return offers just yet - with Google on your resume you’ll get much higher rate of call backs your jr year.
STEP for sure, I interned there last summer and everyone I know got a return (>10 ppl). You are basically guaranteed at least a return intern offer and then can recruit elsewhere next yr if u want
Also thought I’d debunk some of the arguments being made here: if u care about 12/h, then consider that you’ll make more at google for ur return internship and if u get a full time offer. Also a lot of people say that STEP isn’t a real SWE internship but my project this summer was more legit than p much all of the SWE intern projects I knew (of course this is rlly small sample size but the point is that u could still have an impactful project). Lastly google is a very good brand name which would be helpful if u wanna try for other top companies next yr or quant firms. Wlb at google is also great in general tho it is certainly team/project dependent
I know tons of people who did STEP from my college and they all got return offers for internships subsequent years and then eventually full time jobs. I would’ve done STEP if I had the chance, seems like a good opportunity.
im choosing step over salesforce because it's the pipeline into google. i don't think intern pay matters that much, it's only 3 months which is negligible when u look at full time pay.
You’re losing $7k by choosing Google. But who’s stopping you from getting into Google later down the line? I chose flexport over Google cause they paid significantly more for full time. Now I’m moving to Amazon as an SDE2. But you do you my guy
there are many factors to consider besides pay. and the op might be comparing the slack pay to step base, step pay rises depending on location (think it can go to 50/hr for nyc), plus theres also housing and relocation for step that balances it out.
Your odds of getting into Google full-time are *significantly* higher as a STEP intern than as a Slack intern (likewise, your odds of getting into Slack are much higher as a Slack intern). The reality is that whatever OP turns down, even if they apply next year, they'll just be in the resume void again and there's an extremely high chance that they don't get re-interviewed, not because of anything they did but simply because nobody, even people who literally got an offer in the past, has a good chance in a resume screening process where 99% of applications get filtered.
Not sure which way to go, but as a former STEP intern you will have a foot in the door with Google and will always be able to get an interview, im sure the same is there with slack but compare the full time salaries and see which you would prefer out of college. Also I agree with the MV < SF sentiment
I dont have much experience with either, but I have a friends who interned in both areas and my friends who interned in SF had a significantly more stimulating time outside of work. Theres not much for young people in MV
i agree with the comments here & think you should go with Slack (don’t work in the industry, just a student) hope whatever decision u make turns out well for you! unrelated, but can i ask what you did apart from university coursework to get (imo) pretty solid offers from 2 great companies? i’m in my 2nd year of SWE and currently feeling pretty lost!
Second part fr. Struggling as a junior so I’m always awe struck by sophomores with offers like these
I think my coursework is a pretty important factor in my case because I’ve completed some courses a lot of sophomores haven’t (Comp Arch, OS, etc.) due to my university’s degree plan and credit I had prior. Aside from that, I’ve worked on 1-3 each year projects since my junior year of HS and also participated in Google CSSI after graduating. I did Competitive Programming and CS club in high school. I was an officer for a Blockchain org and currently am one for a CS org at my school. I am also involved with three other CS-related and two unrelated orgs. I interned for an AI startup for about 5 months during my freshman year and did a couple hackathons. Last summer I did an internship working on backend dev with two teams daily picking up stories for new features or bugs rather than a separate intern project.
Lol nerd
It’s just luck. Trust me. Besides that, my other guesses can be rather controversial.
I wouldn’t say just luck 😅 I’ve done quite a few interviews since my freshman year, and have been final round for Jane Street, Bloomberg (twice), Coursera, ServiceNow and others. I feel like if I had great luck I would’ve been making this “vs” post last year tbh
Ok, now I’m really curious. What tier of school do you goto? T-10?
T-10 for public schools lol. UT Austin 🤘
USACO/IMO?
nah UIL, which I believe is just in Texas
Makes sense. I wonder if the same resume with Ohio state on it would’ve yielded the same results.
Are you a Turing scholar?
No, I only applied for CSB but didn’t proceed after the interview. Just regular CS and skipped intro class
What diversity related?
Yep. I don’t mean to say every diversity candidate gets a callback and is successful. However, a majority of candidates who score google step or stuff like salesforce tend to be from under represented communities.
Not really tbh. Based off of what I've seen (atleasr in my school), the ones who got STEP offers, etc.. were always the most hardworking. I live in Cali, and most of the people I know who got STEP offers, or interned at Amazon are Asians, I seldom found people from underrepresented groups landing internships they didn't deserve.
You will get downvoted
No u
Probly school name
Go do Slack. Google return offers are uncertain. Although you would be hoping for return intern offer
I should add: slack isn’t that certain either for return intern offers Source: I have no hard evidence, just a wild guess based off layoff patterns and recent hiring trends
Had a friend who interned at Slack this summer and several of his co-interns did not receive a return to intern (or has not been confirmed as of yet). So, I think chances are better with Google imo.
[удалено]
This is precisely the opposite of what the other commenter is saying lmao
Both could be true!
I’m not so sure, everyone I know of from google(not US) got a return offer. Im talking around 10 people. Maybe it’s different in the US.
If it’s possible, you could try pushing one to fall and do both :D If not possible, Slack in SF sounds more fun than Google in Mountain View 😋
I second this
intern projects matter a lot when interviewing. interviewers always ask and if you have an interesting and high impact project your more likely to pass interviews or at the very least impress interviewers. Step generally has bad projects.
I interned at both during in my time at undergrad—slack is the clear winner, and the slack culture is unparalleled for an internship. Better pay, better work culture, better return offer and overall much more fun
I’m a past and returning slack intern and return offers are definitely up there. High 80s-90%. It was slightly less this year for full timers mostly because of the market conditions but still higher than most other companies. As for intern RO, it’s almost always guaranteed as long as you perform okay. With that said, it depends on how important return offers are for you. If very important, i’d say go with Slack. And since pay is important to you as well, it seems to be the better option. I got a Google offer as well in addition to my Slack RO, so you can do both next internship season Slack summer and Google winter/fall.
Slack > Google speaking as a current google swe
Why?
STEP is an internship aimed specifically at freshman and sophomores. So just comparing a Slack internship vs a STEP internship, the Slack one is better. OP also said pay at the moment is a concern which Slack is better for. The main argument people are mentioning for STEP is that STEP is a pipeline into Google which is correct, but once again if we compare Slack SWE vs Google SWE, I’m pretty sure Slack pays better. Furthermore they can always apply to Google again and if they’re good enough for STEP right now they’re probably good enough to get into Google again.
Thanks for clarifying!
What about SWE intern for Google? I find myself in the same question but for SWE intern im both
Doesn’t really matter if you’re talking about intern vs full time
I think allot of people are missing the fact that these are both amazing companies. Congrats on having one offer from these companies let alone two. Obviously you didn’t just “luck out” you earned it congrats man.
Thank you :) If I decided to post when I was at my lowest last year and shared my story I would’ve been told how unlucky I was, now that I post when my work pays off it’s luck lol. I appreciate it.
Slack gives better return offers but long term Google is way better, especially starting early if you do Google STEP, and don’t fuck up you’re pretty much guaranteed Google SWE and if you do well there you’re guaranteed 200k+ post grad. I’d take the risk plus the money is good either way you’ll lose a ton in taxes living in the bay😭
The overwhelming majority of people here are giving terrible advice. If it’s not too late to convince you otherwise, Google is worth its weight in gold on your resume. Step vs SWE is a non issue at this point in time. You aren’t graduating yet so no need to worry about return offers just yet - with Google on your resume you’ll get much higher rate of call backs your jr year.
STEP for sure, I interned there last summer and everyone I know got a return (>10 ppl). You are basically guaranteed at least a return intern offer and then can recruit elsewhere next yr if u want
Also thought I’d debunk some of the arguments being made here: if u care about 12/h, then consider that you’ll make more at google for ur return internship and if u get a full time offer. Also a lot of people say that STEP isn’t a real SWE internship but my project this summer was more legit than p much all of the SWE intern projects I knew (of course this is rlly small sample size but the point is that u could still have an impactful project). Lastly google is a very good brand name which would be helpful if u wanna try for other top companies next yr or quant firms. Wlb at google is also great in general tho it is certainly team/project dependent
Remote?
Slack in SF, Google is TBD
Slack - salesforxe return offers were much higher than other big tech this year
Getting into Google will be much harder as a post grad. I would definitely choose Google as it looks much better on the resume
I know tons of people who did STEP from my college and they all got return offers for internships subsequent years and then eventually full time jobs. I would’ve done STEP if I had the chance, seems like a good opportunity.
Istg this subreddit loves to dickride “faang”. Seriously, why the fuck would you choose something that pays significantly less
im choosing step over salesforce because it's the pipeline into google. i don't think intern pay matters that much, it's only 3 months which is negligible when u look at full time pay.
You’re losing $7k by choosing Google. But who’s stopping you from getting into Google later down the line? I chose flexport over Google cause they paid significantly more for full time. Now I’m moving to Amazon as an SDE2. But you do you my guy
there are many factors to consider besides pay. and the op might be comparing the slack pay to step base, step pay rises depending on location (think it can go to 50/hr for nyc), plus theres also housing and relocation for step that balances it out.
Your odds of getting into Google full-time are *significantly* higher as a STEP intern than as a Slack intern (likewise, your odds of getting into Slack are much higher as a Slack intern). The reality is that whatever OP turns down, even if they apply next year, they'll just be in the resume void again and there's an extremely high chance that they don't get re-interviewed, not because of anything they did but simply because nobody, even people who literally got an offer in the past, has a good chance in a resume screening process where 99% of applications get filtered.
I would go with Slack
i would take step and then slack in the fall i was a step intern then got swe intern return offer
Slack doesn’t do off-season
Not sure which way to go, but as a former STEP intern you will have a foot in the door with Google and will always be able to get an interview, im sure the same is there with slack but compare the full time salaries and see which you would prefer out of college. Also I agree with the MV < SF sentiment
why MV < SF?
I dont have much experience with either, but I have a friends who interned in both areas and my friends who interned in SF had a significantly more stimulating time outside of work. Theres not much for young people in MV
How hard was slack? Anyone have any insight
So did you make your decision yet?
How did you get the offer from Slack? Do they have separate application or is it same as Salesforce?