How to find a small company, in another country, for a 1-year work term?

October 29, 2009 6:42 PM

I'm currently a third-year Engineering Science student at the University of Toronto, majoring in computer engineering. As part of my program, I'm supposed to do a 12-16 month work term. While there are a variety of large tech companies that recruit directly from this program, I'm interested in working at a smaller, preferably U.S.-based technology firm. How should I go about finding a suitable place?

For more background, I'm interested in a wide variety of programming languages, such as Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, OCaml, Python, Ruby, etc. I'm proficient in C and C++, but I prefer to avoid them when I can. I'm hoping to find some sort of web- or software-development firm, still in at a more startup-y phase, that would be interested in hiring a student for a year. Do I have any hope in this endeavor?

posted by james.nvc to work & money (7 comments total)

Startups aren't going to pay to relocate you, and may be reluctant to pay you at all. Look around Toronto.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:53 PM on October 29, 2009

Craigslist. Email every company in toronto on this list http://www.techvibes.com/blog/global/category/start-up-index
posted by captaincrouton at 7:26 PM on October 29, 2009

woops missed the us-based requirements.
posted by captaincrouton at 7:46 PM on October 29, 2009

The US-based is more of a "would like to get out of the city" thing than a hard requirement. Thanks for the list, I will definitely be consulting that.
posted by james.nvc at 7:57 PM on October 29, 2009

Check indeed.
posted by harmfulray at 8:22 PM on October 29, 2009

If you are really really good, then you should probably think of applying to Joel Spolsky's badass intern program at Fog Creek Software.

It's a small company that does some pretty complicated work, but Spolsky is notorious at recruiting the very best he possibly can. You get rewarded handsomely if you can get it.

Good luck!
posted by dnesan at 8:47 PM on October 29, 2009

I was considering applying for Spolsky's internship program, but I require permanent right to work in the U.S. for that, not just a student visa, which I lack...
posted by james.nvc at 9:55 AM on October 30, 2009