How to get an Android Internship

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

This article will cover:

1. Who is this blog for?
2. Must have’s for an Android Internship.
3. Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ’s).
4. What to expect from a summer internship?
5. Where to look for internships?

Let’s start !!

Who is this for?

I would keep this article as general as possible. Still, this will be highly beneficial if you are reading this in your 1st or 2nd year. Getting a good internship in summers after your 2nd year, if you are not from Tier-1 college is quite challenging but as Gary Vaynerchuk says :

Love The Process

Must have’s for an Android Internship

If you want to start Android development and are clueless you can first go through my blog on starting Android Development

How to start Android Development?

If you have some experience and look to deepen your knowledge and want to know how to write a production level code, then Internships are the best way to do so.

While hiring for a summer internship, you are mostly judged on the following:

1. Concepts

You must have good concepts and understanding of the basics of Android. Making an application and understanding it are two different things. One can easily make an android app just by following and copy-pasting from a tutorial. That’s how most of the people start. Questions asked are enlisted later in this article. Starting from the workflow of an Android, which is a must have to develop any level application is one of the things you should have a good grasp of.

Be updated about Android, for example, Kotlin is now the official language of Android, so it's better to start coding your application in Kotlin. You should know why it is so, as well.

Any library, concept, an element of Android you have used in your project, you must know in depth and as to why you have used it(if there was an alternative available)

2. Zeal to learn

When you apply to startups, for a summer internships they usually give you tasks. The aim is to see how you approach to some unseen scenarios, how you research all possible solutions and how eager are you to solve new problems. Interact and act accordingly. You will encounter new features during your brief time in the company, you must be able to solve them.

3. Projects

Projects are the best way to show your skills in Android. If you are in 2nd years, no one usually expects you to have a live project but it adds up a lot to your resume if you have. Try making an android application for your college committee, so that you have some users and you are able to handle some users. many bugs come up as users increases.

If you are not able to manage a live app, it’s totally fine. Maintain the Git repository of all your applications. There should be a proper Readme for your repository because when you share your work, no one will clone your repository, build your app and check. They should be able to see the application in one go. You can look at this repo as a reference :

thakersamveg608/Dispensary-App

4. Git

This is not really expected, but having knowledge of Git is a tremendous plus and will help you a lot during the internship. Working in a team requires great use of git, being familiar with it is obviously good. I had a lot of exposure to git before my internship and it was really helpful.

5. Frequently Asked Questions

I have given 25+ interviews so far, for Android Development internship. So, I have a good exposure and set of questions which are mostly asked. I would be putting the usual order of questions and their weightage but not the answer. If you already know it, it’s great, if not, google it because you will learn a lot while searching for them.

• Introduce yourself.
• Describe one of the projects you mentioned(either they will point out which one or will ask you whichever you think is the best) in detail. What modules you made? What were the problems you faced and how did you tackle them? What were the libraries you used, why them?
• Now, when your project part is over, there may be a round, where you may be asked to solve a few puzzles or some competitive programming. Usually, logics are asked, but in some cases, screens are shared and you are asked to code the complete question and they check with some test cases. Make sure you know how to calculate the complexity of a program. It is usually asked.
• When you get through the above rounds, now the Android specific questions are asked.
• Activity Lifecycle - This is a must question. You must know that pretty well. Fragment Lifecycle - This is rarely asked. But the difference in these life cycles is usually asked.
• Activity v/s Fragment - Always asked.
• Do you have any idea of integrating REST API’s. Use of Volley or Retrofit, whatever you have used. You must know in-detail, if you have used them. How to make a GET, POST, PUT, DELETE requests, adding headers, etc.
• Use of Manifest and Gradle files in Android Project.
• How Intent is used, code and logic. What are flags in Intent?
• Question on Git may be asked. How to push, pull, commit and much more.
• Some advanced questions are rarely asked :
• Use of Dagger and RxJava
• How to use services?
• What is a broadcast receiver?
• How to impement a work manager, Room database, etc.
• Architecture specific questions on MVP, MVC and MVVM.
• How to handle rotation in Android

There are some other scenarios where screen is shared when you are asked to implement a Handler, or a Timer or a button click. This is quite rare but is definetly a possibility. You don’t need to worry, Googling is usually allowed as no one can remeber all of Android code.

What to expect from an Internship?

They are numerous things. The experience you are exposed to, the fast learning process, connection with team, standard coding habits, stipend, certificate cum Letter of Recommendation.

You start the learning process, long before you join internship. Giving interviews prepares you for lots of things and builds confidence inside you. Working among experienced people, increases your productivity, way of thinking(approaching problem) and many more things.

Where to look for an Internship?

If you are looking for an internship after your 1st and 2nd year, prefer a startup. This will help you grow immensely. Usually students go to MNC after 3rd year, where you cannot determine that you will get an Android project.

Internshala and AngelList are two good websites to look for an internship. Don’t fill in 2–3 forms and expect to get a good internship. Fill around 100 applications. You will then be continously involved in doing tasks and giving interviews, which is again a learning process because some tasks might be repeatetive in nature but some will be totally new.

I hope this article helps everyone to bag a nice internship. Feel free to ask any questions in comments.