This is a cross post from Beta, a news letter for CSE students written by CSE students

If you’re a second year cse student or above, it might be time to start thinking about what you want to do after uni. A great way to get started is with an internship. Several companies offer internships in Sydney, but I hope to convince some of you that doing an internship overseas or even taking a grad job in the US is a good idea.

First, a bit of background: If you’re a good software developer who is about to graduate from a computer science (CS) or software engineering (SE) degree, your job opportunities in Australia are quite limited compared to a student with similar talents and skills in the US. Google is probably on top of your list, and then possibly Atlassian, and if you’ve done a bit of research, a few smaller companies that you like (and that’s a big if because they sure are hard to find. Ever heard of micro-forte? OKLabs?). Your other options include doing a PhD to further delay your entrance into the real world in the hopes that conditions will be better when you’re done, or self employment which includes being an indie or freelance developer and starting your own company; anything to make a decent living without ending up at a bank or any organization that doesn’t appreciate recursion or python’s clean syntax as much as you do.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are the big 4 of technology companies, and then there are some you might not have even considered, such as Amazon, Nintendo, Nvidia, and Adobe. Out of those companies, only Google hire software and CS grads in their Sydney office. If a PhD and self employment are off the table, then Google stands above the rest as the best place to work, whether as an intern while you’re doing your degree, or as a graduate when you finish. Google Sydney is a great place to work (just ask anybody currently working there); but they can’t hire everyone and for one reason or another, you may also not want to work in Google Sydney.

What you may not realize is that the big 4 tech companies (as well as many others like Amazon and Nvidia) all offer internships and grad jobs to students all over the world, including Australia. Since they’re all competing for the same pool of excellent CS students coming out of American universities, they treat their interns and employees very well, and this is reflected in their salaries and working conditions. These companies treat their interns very well. They will sort out your visas (even if you’re not an Australian citizen), fly you to the US, pay a decent salary, and subsidize a lot of your accommodation costs. A good CS or SE grad in the US can expect to get at least 75k USD as a starting salary plus benefits and bonuses, and often more. This figure was a lot better when the exchange rate was was favoring the USD, but it’s still a pretty good figure. A good CS student in the US will have done some internships at these companies and receive several offers from different companies, which make starting salaries even higher. In comparison, the same CS or SE grad in Australia will often have to work at a bank to get close to that salary, and the work conditions for software engineers will almost certainly be worse. If you’ve seen the recent cse email about starting salary statistics, the highest and many of the above-average salaries are paid to people going to work overseas.

I just returned from an internship at Microsoft, and overall it was a great experience. They had intern social events every two weeks and many of us got heavily subsidized rental cars to drive everywhere. Interns even got free gym membership like full time employees.

At Microsoft, the work environment is great for engineers. Most engineers get to work at around 9:30-10am, and leave at 5-6pm, most full time employees have their own office to minimize distractions, and an unlimited supply of free soft drinks, milk and coffee.

Google of course is famous for their free buffets, gaming rooms (and even laundry services in their Silicon Valley office), and I’m sure Apple and Facebook have their own perks as well. Mark Zuckerberg used to take interns out to lunch!

Even if your eventual goal is to have your own company, or even if you don’t want to move overseas, doing a 3 month internship in the U.S. at one of these companies is still a great experience, and unlike anything you’ll find in Australia.

Your peers might site Macquarie bank or Deloitte (two of the biggest recruiters of CSE students) as good options, but these companies are not technology companies. The best marketing student will want a job at Proctor and Gamble, not Microsoft’s marketing department. Similarly, if salary is equal, the best CS student will take a job at Google over a job at Macquarie’s IT department any day.

Of course, the focus of this article is about the benefits of working at big companies overseas. If you don’t want to move overseas, or prefer to work in smaller companies that move fast, allow you to use your favorite open source tools and decide which tools and frameworks to use that, look out for an article by me in the next few issues of Beta! I’ll be profiling some of the hidden gems of great places to work in Sydney that don’t quite have the recruiting budget of a big co to tell you about themselves.

Update:

I should also point out that the cost of living a fair bit lower in most places in the US is also lower than it is in Sydney, in addition, some states like Washington (where Microsoft headquarters reside) don’t have an income tax, hence you would only pay the federal income tax, which is much lower compared to the income tax in Australia.