Where can I find a summer intern to do some 3d game engine hacking?

May 9, 2006 11:06 AM

Where can I find a summer intern to do some 3d game engine hacking?

This question is a followup to my post here asking about a 3d game engine project. The company I work for is now actively searching for a summer intern to help out on this effort. Considering that this job involves getting paid to play with game engines and similar stuff, I imagined that it would be easy to find undergrads or other hacker types who would be interested in such a position. So far, we haven't had much luck.

I'm looking for online forums and other sites where I might be able to find people like this. Hopefully this doesn't violate the AskMe guidelines - I got a very good response to my previous question so I hoped there might be people on here with some ideas about where to look.

posted by chos to computers & internet (5 comments total)

have you tried career offices/forums/postering at schools that have good programs in what you're looking for? Or, especially, the schools that you and your coworkers went to? I also know a couple MIT-specific routes to connecting with people who would be up that alley, which I'd be glad to email you.

(And I think I might know someone personally who'd be interested - do you have a write-up I could pass on?)
posted by whatzit at 11:46 AM on May 9, 2006

Sent you mail with some specific addresses to try.

Also, you may have to keep in mind this is rather late in the year for finding people for summer positions...
posted by whatzit at 11:51 AM on May 9, 2006

Waterloo Co-op. While it is in Canada, they send a lot of students on work terms to the US every year. Microsoft hires a ton of them, as do smaller companies as well. Students typically get a J-1 visa. You probably don't even need to hire a lawyer to complete the paperwork. But IANAL.

Waterloo has the best computer science program in Canada and is the home to a large number of both high-caliber researchers and students. They're great, blah blah blah. I have two degrees from Waterloo, so I'm biased.

Unfortunately, they're more organized than you are and it's probably too late to hire someone for the summer term who is any good. But you could get one for the fall, or next winter, etc.
posted by GuyZero at 11:52 AM on May 9, 2006

Second Waterloo co-op - I am a grad of the Computer Engineering program. Every four months literally thousands of mathematics, science, and engineering students are looking for four-month internships. Waterloo Computer Science is indeed the best in Canada and many of its students intern at top tech companies.

If you are in the states it will be difficult to get the visa settled in time - even the expedited visa probably takes two weeks. The summer work session has already begun so the best students have already taken jobs - however I guarantee there are still many qualified students looking for work. It is at least worth an exploratory e-mail to the co-op department explaining your situation to see if they can help.

Alternatively... you could find some professors doing graphics research and see if any of their grad students would be interested in doing an internship. Try the big CS schools - MIT, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Washington, Stanford... browse their websites and look for people to contact. Or try a local school - that might prove less difficult, since there won't be relocation issues for the students.
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:26 PM on May 9, 2006

You might also want to communicate with Full Sail. What you describe in your linked message is definitely doable - we do it where I work to provide 3D representations of monte carlo simulations run in Extend, among other things.

Our base platform is Torque and we use a special bolt-on we wrote to control objects, however you can telnet into a text console and call functions with the OOTB functionality. If you were to commit to that platform you could look on the Garage Games website for someone.

All that said, I see you're in my area and we haven't come across anyone with Torque qualifications worth a damn locally other than the ones we've brought up to speed outselves. If you want to drop me an email and can talk in more detail about what y'all are trying to do and who you work for maybe I can assist somewhat.
posted by phearlez at 1:57 PM on May 9, 2006