Eva Xie did it proper. She went to the extremely aggressive Bronx High School of Science in New York City after which MIT, the place she studied math and computer science with a specialization in artificial intelligence. After her first yr, she landed a coveted summer season internship at Facebook and was invited again to Menlo Park the subsequent summer season—historically signal {that a} pupil would later be provided a full-time job.

But in summer season 2022, warning indicators appeared that Xie’s future is perhaps derailed from its well-charted trajectory. Rumors swirled inside the corporate that Meta, because it was now known, would possibly institute a hiring freeze. Xie and her fellow interns weren’t frightened, assuming the established pipeline that noticed the corporate take its decide of scholars from elite schools was a everlasting fixture.

The interns have been unsuitable. In an early morning e-mail final August, Xie and the remainder of her overachieving cohort turned among the many first to be affected by a wave of hiring freezes and layoffs in tech that will go on to say a whole bunch of 1000’s of jobs over the approaching months. Meta was sorry to tell them, the e-mail stated, that in contrast to earlier years, it will not be extending profitable interns assured return gives of full-time jobs earlier than they went again to high school.

That fall, when Meta announced 11,000 layoffs, the corporate didn’t exclude its high-achieving interns. “They laid off everyone who just started, including those who got the highest ratings during their internships,” Xie says. That included MIT grads simply forward of her on the conveyor belt, which has, over the previous decade, commonly introduced new expertise into the business.

In current months, many former interns and up to date grads have discovered themselves among the many 1000’s of individuals laid off on the main tech firms. That has prompted many soon-to-be grads like Xie, who as soon as assumed they’d simply slide into employment at one in all tech’s marquee names, to rethink the worth of those firms, their very own prospects, and in some circumstances, what they need from their careers.

Meta spokesperson Andrea Beasley didn’t reply to WIRED’s questions on its internship program, as an alternative pointing to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s weblog put up announcing layoffs, which stated the corporate overexpanded through the pandemic.

Amazon, which hosted about 18,000 interns in 2022, is contemplating lowering its intern class by greater than half, according to a New York Times report. Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser tells WIRED the corporate is “excited” to host interns in 2023 however remains to be finalizing its plans. Google, which laid off 12,000 people in January, can be internet hosting interns subsequent yr however has slowed hiring and won’t be bringing on as many individuals as in earlier years, based on Google’s director of intern packages Andrea Florence.  

Claire Ralph, director of profession providers at Caltech, the place about 40 p.c of graduates go on to work in tech fields, has discovered herself counseling college students frightened by the current retrenchment. “Caltech students are high achieving, and so they are often anxious. Certainly the news is the focus of their anxiety right now,” says Ralph, who additionally lectures in laptop science.