TL;DR
• We analyzed 403 LinkedIn profiles of students who landed SWE internships at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and other top tech firms in 2024 to 2026. 77% already had at least one prior internship or research experience at offer time.
• School tier had zero measurable effect. Students from tier 3 schools (outside the top 100) actually had slightly more prior experience (1.85 internships) than tier 1 students (1.65). Big tech drew 21% of interns from tier 3 schools.
• Projects matter. 59% of SWE admits listed at least one project on their profile. This signal barely existed in finance or consulting cohorts.
• The bar tripled in three years. In the class of 2023, only 33% of SWE interns had prior experience at offer time. By the class of 2026, it was 81%.
• University research is the second most common path in. After dev internships (244 people), research labs were the next biggest pipeline (91 people), ahead of IT support (31) and data analyst roles (30).
An externship is a short, remote, mentored project with a real company that gives you resume-ready experience before you apply. Explore tech externships | Explore all externships
Where This Data Comes From
This article is part of our analysis of 2,500+ intern profiles across investment banking, consulting, Big 4, and tech. Here we go deeper on the software engineering cohort.
We collected 403 profiles of students who held SWE internships at major tech companies in 2024, 2025, and 2026. Then we looked at what each person had on their LinkedIn profile at the time they would've received their offer, typically 9 months before the internship started.
Top employers in our dataset: Amazon (33 including AWS), IBM (11), Google (7), Microsoft (6), LinkedIn (5), NVIDIA (4), Tesla (4), Uber (3), Capital One (3), Apple (3).
How Many Internships Did FAANG Interns Have Before Getting Hired?
More than most CS students expect.
77% of SWE admits had at least one prior internship or research experience at offer time. Nearly half (48%) had two or more. The average was 1.73 prior experiences.
But here's the part that should encourage you: 23% had nothing. No internship, no research, no relevant work experience at all when they got the offer. it's not a requirement. But it helps. A lot.
What Kinds of Experience Did They Have?
The breakdown of prior tech experience across the cohort:
• SWE and dev internships: 244 people (the most common path by far)
• University research labs: 91 people (the second biggest pipeline, and one most students overlook)
• IT support and helpdesk roles: 31 people
• Data and analyst roles: 30 people
And when we looked at what their first experience was, the picture got more interesting. Out of 265 people who had any prior experience, 112 started with a dev internship. But 52 started with university research, 52 with something non-tech entirely, and 29 with IT support.
So roughly a third of FAANG interns started their career journey in a university lab or an IT helpdesk. Not at a startup. Not at another tech company. If your first experience isn't a "real" SWE role, you're in good company.
Does Your School Matter for SWE Internships?
No. Not in our data.
This was the clearest finding in the entire 2,500-profile study, and it came from the SWE cohort. School tier had zero measurable effect on prior experience, on employer quality, or on anything else we could measure.
| School tier | % of cohort | Mean prior internships | Prior tech experience | Big-name employer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 (top 20) | 29% | 1.65 | 72% | 39% |
| Tier 2 (top 100) | 48% | 1.72 | 72% | 23% |
| Tier 3 (outside top 100) | 23% | 1.85 | 70% | 26% |
Big-Name Tech Interns vs. Others: What's Different?
Big-name = Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Tesla, Meta, etc. (n=114 vs n=289)
School Tier vs. Prior Experience: No Difference
SWE interns by school tier (n=403). Prior tech experience rate is virtually identical across tiers.
Look at the "prior tech experience" column. It's 72%, 72%, 70%. Identical. Tier 3 students didn't have less experience. They actually had slightly more total internships on average (1.85 vs 1.65), likely because they knew they needed to compensate.
Big tech employers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.) drew 39% of their interns from tier 1, 23% from tier 2, and 21% from tier 3. That's not even close to the target-school dominance you see in investment banking.
The 160 different schools represented in our SWE cohort tell the same story. Northeastern (26 people) and Arizona State (17) sent more interns than any Ivy. Georgia Tech (11), UT Austin (10), and USC (9) were close behind. If you're at a state school with a solid CS program, you're fishing from the same pond as everyone else.
How Much Harder Is It Now vs. Three Years Ago?
A lot harder. The change in SWE was the most dramatic of any industry we studied.
| Class of 2023 | Class of 2024 | Class of 2025 | Class of 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Had 1+ prior internship | 33% | 48% | 72% | 81% |
| Mean prior internships | 0.57 | 0.88 | 1.47 | 1.99 |
SWE Interns with 1+ Prior Internship at Offer Time
Source: Extern analysis of 403 SWE intern LinkedIn profiles
In just three years, the share of SWE interns with prior experience went from a third to four fifths. The average number of prior internships nearly quadrupled.
Some of this reflects LinkedIn profile habits: students in 2026 are more likely to list every research stint and side project. But the trend is too steep to explain away. If you're recruiting for a summer 2028 SWE internship, your competition has more on their resume than the 2025 class did. Waiting to "build skills first" is actually falling behind.
What Separated Big-Tech Interns From the Rest?
We split the cohort into students who landed at big-name employers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Tesla, Meta, etc., 28% of the cohort) and everyone else.
| Big-name (n=114) | Other (n=289) | |
|---|---|---|
| Mean prior internships | 2.16 | 1.56 |
| Prior tech experience | 80% | 68% |
| Prior SWE-titled internship | 57% | 45% |
| School tier 1 | 39% | 25% |
| School tier 3 | 21% | 24% |
The biggest gap wasn't school. It was experience depth. Big-tech interns had 2.16 prior internships versus 1.56 for others. 57% had done a previous SWE-titled role, compared to 45%. They'd simply written more code in more places before showing up.
School tier was a factor (39% vs 25% from tier 1), but notice tier 3 was nearly identical (21% vs 24%). The door to FAANG isn't locked for non-target students. You just need to show more work.
Projects and Certifications: What Shows Up on Winning Profiles?
SWE was the only industry in our study where projects on the profile were a meaningful signal.
• 59% of SWE admits listed at least one project. 34% listed three or more.
• For comparison, projects barely appeared in IB, consulting, or Big 4 cohorts.
42% of the cohort held a master's or PhD, especially in data-adjacent and ML roles. That's much higher than IB (16%) or consulting (under 5% among undergrads).
Certifications were present but not dominant. 57% had at least one. The most common:
• AWS Cloud Practitioner (11 people)
• Azure Fundamentals (6)
• AWS Solutions Architect (6)
• AWS Academy Cloud Foundations (6)
But most admits had zero certs. What mattered more was shipped work: a deployed project, a published research paper, or a prior dev role. If you're choosing between studying for an AWS cert and building something real, build something real.
Your Class Year Changes Everything
Just like in other industries, the class-year effect was huge in SWE.
| Junior summer | Sophomore summer | Freshman summer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Had prior tech experience | 77% | 52% | 31% |
| Mean prior internships | 1.81 | 1.15 | 0.65 |
Junior-summer applicants: over three quarters had prior tech experience. Freshmen: less than a third. That's not because freshmen are less talented. It's just that recruiting timelines mean freshmen simply haven't had time to accumulate internships yet.
So if you're a sophomore reading that "77% of interns had prior experience" and worrying you're behind, stop. Your benchmark is the sophomore column: 52%. Getting one dev internship, one research stint, or one tech externship this summer puts you ahead of half your actual competition.
What You Can Do With This
The data points to three things that separate SWE interns who land top roles from those who don't:
Prior dev experience or research. 71% had at least one. University labs count. Open source counts. A real project counts. The first one doesn't need to be at a big company.
Projects on your profile. 59% listed them. If you've built something, make sure it's visible on LinkedIn and GitHub. This is the one signal SWE hiring has that no other industry uses.
Starting early. The class of 2026 had 2.5x more prior experience than the class of 2023. Each recruiting cycle, the baseline moves up. Getting your first experience as a sophomore gives you a meaningful edge by junior year.
Your school, your GPA, your certifications? They're less predictive than any of the three above. The tier 3 students in our data had just as much experience as tier 1. They got in the same way: by building things and writing code.
If you're looking for that first hands-on tech experience, Extern's remote externships are 4-week, mentored projects with real companies designed to give you something to put on your resume before your first full internship.
FAQ
How many internships do you need to get a FAANG internship?
Among 403 students who landed SWE internships at top tech firms, the average was 1.73 prior internships at offer time. 77% had at least one. But 23% had none, so it's not an absolute requirement. What matters more is having hands-on tech experience of any kind, including research and personal projects.
Does your school matter for software engineering internships?
Not in our data. Students from tier 3 schools (outside the top 100) had the same rate of prior tech experience (70%) as tier 1 students (72%). Big tech employers drew 21% of their interns from tier 3 schools. School prestige had no measurable impact on hiring outcomes in SWE.
What should I have on my resume for a FAANG internship?
Based on 403 profiles of students who got in: at least one prior dev internship or university research stint (71% had one), projects listed on your profile (59%), and ideally a CS or related major (95%). Certifications like AWS Cloud Practitioner appeared in some profiles but weren't dominant. Shipped code and real projects mattered more.
How competitive are SWE internships in 2026 compared to previous years?
Much more competitive. The share of SWE interns with prior experience at offer time jumped from 33% (class of 2023) to 81% (class of 2026). The average number of prior internships went from 0.57 to 1.99 in the same period. The bar is rising faster in tech than in any other industry.
Can you get a FAANG internship with no prior experience?
Yes. 23% of our cohort had zero prior internships at offer time. But that share has dropped from about 67% in the class of 2023 to 19% in 2026. Starting early with any form of tech experience, even IT support or university research, significantly improves your chances.
This article is part of Extern's intern profile analysis series, based on 2,500+ publicly listed LinkedIn profiles of students who completed internships at 28 leading firms in 2024 through 2026. All figures are aggregates; no individual profile data is published.
Bifei Wang has spent 17 years focused on human flow and the growth of young professionals, spanning international education, career training and coaching, and recruitment process outsourcing. Over 7 years at Extern, he has had one-on-one sessions with thousands of students exploring careers in consulting, finance, tech, marketing, and data, giving him a firsthand view of how the job market has shifted for early-career professionals and what it actually takes to break in.
About the Author
Bifei Wang has spent 17 years focused on human flow and the growth of young professionals, spanning international education, career training and coaching, and recruitment process outsourcing. Over 7 years at Extern, he has had one-on-one sessions with thousands of students exploring careers in consulting, finance, tech, marketing, and data, giving him a firsthand view of how the job market has shifted for early-career professionals and what it actually takes to break in.
