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Alternative Options If You Can't Find a US SWE Summer Internship for 2025

If you haven't found a US SWE summer internship this year, you can look into internship opportunities in China. For example, Microsoft China, Optiver, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent WXG, NVIDIA, Google Shanghai, etc. — these have all started recruiting.

  1. Microsoft: Domestic (China) recruiting has already begun. Based on data points from students I've mentored, they tend to prefer candidates with US study-abroad backgrounds or from top Chinese universities (Hua-5 level and above). Students I know who interned at Microsoft Suzhou had backgrounds like: 1) Tsinghua undergrad + GT master's 2) Xi'an Jiaotong undergrad + Duke master's 3) Shanghai Jiaotong undergrad + master's 4) Tongji undergrad + master's, etc. They care a lot about educational credentials. If the first-round interviewer gives a "hire," there are only two rounds total; otherwise, it's three rounds.
  2. GSoC: An open-source program hosted by Google with very high recognition, and it's very competitive. The pay is high — if you want US-level pay, you need to use CPT; the pay is primarily evaluated based on social presence, PRs, and the project proposal. Without CPT, you can only receive China-level pay. It carries a lot of weight on your resume.
  3. Open Source Summer (OSPP): Hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also highly recognized. It's less competitive than GSoC, but you still need to carefully craft your project proposal. The selection of who gets to own a project is primarily based on the proposal.
  4. Alibaba Cloud: Alibaba Cloud typically starts recruiting earlier than almost any other major company (though not this year — this year WXG was first). In previous years, different teams like the Gateway team and Luoshen Networking team start recruiting right after Chinese New Year. They strictly require an undergraduate degree from a 985 or strong 211 university (e.g., BUPT, Xidian). If you don't meet this, it's very hard to get an offer. Students in the US can check Boss Zhipin and Nowcoder after Chinese New Year — they recruit on these platforms. If they think you're a fit, they'll schedule interviews early and send offers early. You can also interview with multiple teams simultaneously and then pick the one you think is the best fit. Alibaba Cloud's summer internship return rate is very high.
  5. WXG (WeChat): The summer internship has many rounds, and the tech stack is C++. The first round is typically four algorithm problems. After passing, every subsequent round will grill you on your projects — you need to know every detail on your resume. Being able to solve the algorithm problems is just the first step; the key is understanding and being clear about the technical details.