It's a good time to be a nerd in high school.
Silicon Valley entities like Facebook have been hiring interns right after high school graduation and rolling out perks including free housing and transportation as well as salaries of $6,000 a month or more, Bloomberg News reported.
Seventeen-year-old Michael Sayman was recruited for an internship this summer and talked to Bloomberg about the interview process.
"When I got the e-mail saying--oh my god--Mark Zuckerberg wants to meet you, I had to make sure nobody was playing a prank on me," Sayman said. "It was just incredible to be able to meet him."
While Facebook only recently began courting potential interns prior to their first year of college, LinkedIn two years ago began allowing high schoolers to be part of its summer program.
"It's kind of insane that as a 19- or 20-year-old, you can make more than the U.S. average income in a summer," Daniel Tahara, 21, told Bloomberg News. Tahara, who began working at Dropbox this month, interned at big data startup Hadapt Inc. last summer and mobile-security startup Lookout Inc. the year prior.
Facebook and other companies have been recruiting sharp interns right out of high school partly because of the fierce competition for talent in Silicon Valley. Additionally, more young people have been teaching themselves to code and are able to pursue a career in technology based on talent, not age or experience.
On the other hand, Google only takes on interns that are at least freshmen in college and encourages them to complete their degrees.
Sayman isn't certain if he's going to college or not.
"If Facebook were to extend my offer for a full-time position I would definitely take that," he told Bloomberg News. "It's my dream job."
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