US tech internships pay more than an adult wage

REMEMBER toiling away for free at your internship? All that valuable ‘experience’ you can slap on your resume. Well, these interns earn way more than you do now.

Google interns earn almost $US6000 a month. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn make a lot more

REMEMBER toiling away for free at your internship? All for that valuable ‘experience’ you can slap on your resume. Well, these interns earn more money than you do now.

US jobs website Glassdoor has released a list of companies whose interns probably make more than you do in your full-time job. Ouch.

The company which pays its work experience peeps the most is software company Palantir Technologies, with an average $US7012 a month. For those trying to do the sums in your head, that’s $AU7840 a month which is $AU94,234 a year.

Twitter pays its interns on average $US6791 a month.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in November 2013, an average adult Australian full-time employee made $AU77,896 a year before tax.

Unsurprisingly, deep-pocketed San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech companies featured heavily on this list — and it’s a good thing too with cost of living notoriously high in the region.

Twitter came in third at $US6791 a month, Facebook was fifth at $US6213 while Google was ninth at $US5969.

As if the regular Google perks aren’t enough, the technology giant is also ranked ninth for how much companies pay their interns.

1. Palantir — $US7012

2. VMware — $US6966

3. Twitter — $US6791

4. LinkedIn — $US6230

5. Facebook — $US6213

6. Microsoft — $US6138

7. eBay — $US6126

8. ExxonMobil — $US5972

9. Google — $US5969

10. Apple — $US5723

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pretty nice to his interns, paying them $US6213 a month.

11. Amazon — $US5631

12. Nvidia — $US5446

13. Chevron — $US5424

14. Adobe — $US5409

15. ConocoPhillips — $US5357

16. Salesforce — $US5158

17. Blackrock — $US5049

18. Yahoo — $US5039

19. CapitalOne — $US4850

20. Qualcomm — $US4823

21. Net App — $US4691

22. AutoDesk — $US4684

23. Intel — $US4648

24. Juniper — $US4648

25. Schlumberger — $US4634