Ask HN: Canadian HS student getting job in SF? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Canadian HS student getting job in SF?

1 pointrentgen2 comments

I am senior in highschool (17 years old) going to university next year. Before heading off to university I would really like to spend the summer in San Fransico.

Over the past 4 years I have worked at several (3)startups doing mainly data science work. One of startups got acquired and the other 2 are still going strong. I also do some freelance web development work on the side, mainly to pay for school.

I would just like to know what the best course of action would be for me. I know its hard to get a job for one summer, 2 months is a small amount of time. So, the company would have to take a risk on me.

I was thinking of renting a place on AirBnB to save some money. My father has a U.S citizenship so I have the whole work Visa situation under control.

In general, how feasible do you guys think this is? I have the year to prepare for the trip.

First - that sounds awesome. Just generally, I pretty much always think an experience like that is worth so much, regardless of if it goes as expected or not. So if you can make it happen, try it!

Onto the details - It will be expensive. AirBnB is probably also not going to be very cheap. Your best bet is probably to find a sublease from someone on Craigslist. You can probably get a room at a decent price doing that, but it would need to be done in person to avoid CL scams.

For the job I probably don't have the best perspective to give you a perfect answer, but generally I think it would depend most on what your expectations are and what size the company is. A small startup probably won't have the time or energy to expend on a 2 month temp. A larger startup might, but the challenge would be to get their attention.

You're best bet might be to apply to some sort of internship program - I think I've seen a couple larger startups have things like that. Not sure about the pay though. Or you could try to find a company that needs contract/freelance work.

Thanks a lot!

Craiglist has this stigma associated with it so I generally try to avoid it. But maybe I will give it a try!

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