Co-op
Companies
At least 300 companies from 58 different cities have hired an SE student.
Students had the opportunity to work in many different types of environments,
including working at a 5 person startup, writing code in Kenya,
researching with professors, and working at a big tech company.
While a majority of students were software engineers during their co-ops,
some explored other areas such as design, product management, finance and consulting.
The benefit of having 6 co-op terms is that students get to explore different
company sizes doing different positions in different cities. This is
invaluable for students because it helps students figure out what they want
upon graduation.
Companies students have co-oped at
Legend:
Less enjoyed, more enjoyed
Fewer students, more students
Locations
91% of students co-oped in at least 2 different countries.
One of the factors behind only 9% of students interning in Canada were
restrictions from work visas which primarily affects non-Canadians.
The majority that co-oped in the US worked in California and specifically in Silicon Valley.
One of the reasons for this is because Silicon Valley is the headquarters for many
large tech companies that hire software engineers such as Google, Facebook,
Apple, etc.
During 5 of the 6 co-op terms, there was at least one student working outside
of North America. This included cities such as Stockholm, Nairobi, Phnom
Penh, Shanghai, Tokyo, etc.
Locations students have worked in
Favourite Locations
31% of students that worked in California preferred working elsewhere.
While California is still preferred by most, this suggests that it is not
for everyone. The infamous ‘Cali or Bust’ mentality could have hindered
some students from exploring opportunities in other cities that may have
been better suited for them.
Location of favourite companies
Salary
By the last co-op term, compensations tripled in comparison to the first.
Average monthly compensation per co-op term were $2898, $4184, $5688, $7657, $8972, $9624 (in CAD, includes housing stipend).
The difference could be explained by the increase in salaries and
stipends to compensate for the difference in living costs between different
locations. For example, San Francisco housing typically costs a student between
$1,500 to $2,500 per month. In comparison, Waterloo housing costs a student
approximately $700 per month.
Monthly compensation per co-op term in CAD
Does X affect job pay?
Salary as a metric
In order to rank jobs appropriately, salary is used as a proxy metric to
measure job opportunities. Due to the subjectiveness of this metric, the following
results should be taken with a grain of salt because higher salary does not
imply higher job satisfaction.
Grades
Grades do not correlate with salary at all.
In other words, having a high cumulative average does not imply that the student
will get a good salary in the upcoming co-op term. This suggests that there
are more important factors than grades when it comes to finding a good job.
Some companies do use grades as a cutoff to filter large amounts of candidates.
However, many companies are aware that grades are not a good indication of how
performant a student can be during co-op.
This suggests that if a student wanted to optimize for getting the best co-op
possible, aiming for a higher grade may not yield the desired results, and
their efforts can be redirected towards other involvements such as side
projects.
Grades compared to monthly salary
Co-op number:
1
2
3
4
5
6
Interactive: Click on a co-op number to view the plot for that co-op.
Gender
Women are paid the same as men on average for co-op terms.
This is great to see because this suggests that women and men have equally good
job opportunities for co-op.
However, this does not suggest that there is no gender bias in the longer term.
fact, according to a
Glassdoor study,
"younger workers face a smaller gender pay gap than older workers." This
finding is not exclusive to the tech industry.
Years of coding experience
Students who started coding earlier were paid similarly compared to students who
started coding later.
In other words, it doesn't matter if a student started at the age of 13 or 18. This suggests
that students that started coding later are not at a disadvantage in terms
of co-op job opportunities.
Coding start age compared to monthly salary
Hackathons
Students who attended at least one hackathon earned 18% more on average than those that
didn't attend any.
In other words, students who show passion for building projects get better job
opportunities than those that don't. Alternatively, this result could be
because students that attended a hackathon cared more about getting a higher
paying job.
Students who attended more than 5 hackathons earned approximately 27% more than
those that only attended between 1 to 5 hackathons. This could suggest that the
former had a lot more relevant work to show which is more appealing to
employers.
Hackathon attendance's influence on monthly salary
Side projects
Students that build side projects earned 13% more on average than those that
don't build side projects.
The more time that a student invests into side projects, the more they are likely
to get paid. Side projects are often seen as the closest thing to software
work experience, making it a great time investment to compensate for any lack
of work experience.
It is important to mention that side projects and hackathons are not the only way to find
a job. There have been many less practiced methods students have used to
find job opportunities such as referrals, networking, etc.
It is just as important to note that students who are not involved in software-related
extracurriculars still find great jobs. In fact,
many SE students and faculty encourage pursuing interests besides software.
Side project commitment compared to monthly salary
Admission average
Admission averages have no significant impact on job pay.
A 90 in one school could be harder to achieve than a 99 in another school.
In other words, admission averages are an inaccurate metric to determine
how successful someone is because high schools do not standardize their grades
with each other.
Admission average compared to monthly salary
