Working At Intel

As someone doing computer science in university can I ask how did you get to work for Intel and how did you like it?

Well Intel actually has a pretty cool intern program that they run during the summer. They offer you a 3-4 month job with good pay. Normally the interns will all just get an apartment or something together to keep the costs down. They also have a program called RCG which is Recent College Graduate. This is where they pretty much hire you right out of college. I have heard mixed things about the RCG program but that is to be expected as there are two sides to every store. I started as a contractor (temp working that had a set amount of time, normally 12 months) and was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. Normally they require degrees to start working in there but there are times when you can get though the hoops. How did I like it is kind of a loaded questions of sorts and I don't want to come off sounding jaded. So there were many positive things that come along with working for any large company. They rented out a movie theater for the release of Ireon Man 3 and provided snacks and drinks for free. You could bring up to like 4 people to see it. They got everyone tickets to the zoo out in Portland and provided lunch for everyone, paid to go even. Some of the bad things were the clear lines that were drawn between green (contractors) and blue (perm) badge employees. If you were green, you were not invited at all to anything. Period. It doesn't matter if you are the only green in a division of blue, you get to sit at the building and watch other people have fun. It was like having a broken leg the day summer vacation started and you had to sit in your chair while everyone ran wild with squirt guns and ice cream. They offer free soda and fruit to all blue employees but greens had to pay for them. This was pretty much overlooked as everything thought it was stupid as hell. Overall I would say that most of it was positive and I might go back to work there after I finish up my degree.

what kind of benefits did you had, like did you get free processors?

Once and a while they would have drawings to see who would get a retail version whatever we were working on. It was a rare thing to have enough for everyone to get one. Our team had upwards of ~80 people work on a product so it would cost quite a lot to provide everyone with something such as a CPU @ $1000 per. We would get 50% off cpu/mobo etc from the store and all the 2GB flash drives you could ever want!