Working at Yahoo! is the ultimate experience. The amazing campus, engaging activities and great people definitely made an impression on me during the past two days. Everyone I've come across at Yahoo! is eager to meet new people and get to know them; yes, even the coders are sociable! Unlike other places where my friends intern, Yahoo! interns don't make coffee and send out letters. For one, every building (there are 7 on the Sunnyvale campus) has a Starbucks-type caffeine vendor and the drinks are free! Yahoo! interns are part of a project that makes an impact and people on the internet will get to see their work (with the exception of internal engineers, sorry). Today I found out more about what I'll be doing during my stay and I can't wait to get things rolling... and I bet you're eager for me to send out the link too.
After a long day of orientation on Monday, my hiring manager Havi Hoffman led me to my workspace. To my amazement, I found out that I'm working next to popular bloggers Jeremy Zawodny, Chad Dickerson and flickr co-founder Caterina Fake.
In addition to free caffeine for Yahoos, there are lots of perks such as the great food in the cafeteria dubbed URL's (pronounced Earl's), the foosball, air hockey and pool tables in building C, as well as free access to many Y! services like flickr pro (the gym is nice too!).
I think a large part of the joy that comes from working at Yahoo! stems from the fact that the work isn't really perceived as work. It's challenging, unique and not at all redundant. I can't believe I already sound like a Yahoo! spokesperson. All of my co-workers are accessible through Y! instant messenger - not too many people use the phone around here. I'll do some posts like these every so often to keep you updated but you can see what's going on in real time with constantly updated flickr photoset.