Instructables has had a number of truly excellent interns including numberandom, fungus amungus, noahw, randofo, Tetranitrate, trebuchet03, reno_dakota, jessiep, and T3h_Muffinator. Our internships are primarily intended as a learning experience, and if I can't convince these awesome people to join Instructables full-time when they're ready, I'm still really happy when they find something better: Noahw and fungus amungus are now both on staff at Instructables, numberandom has joined the Squid Labs spin-out company Potenco, and randofo is a resident at Eyebeam. The rest of the crowd is still in school, but I'm certain they're also going to have impact.

Choosing interns is tough, and we do it in a variety of methods. I've interviewed candidates, encouraged people I've worked with before or known for a long time to considering joining, reviewed peoples' work on the site through their Instructables, or through their resumes and portfolios. For example, I had never met, nor even spoken with, Tetranitrate and trebuchet03 before I sent them messages offering internship positions; I knew from their writing and the way they interacted on the site that they were people I wanted to work with. Conversely, in just half an hour of chatting, both noahw and numberandom impressed me enough that I wanted to work with them too.

Much of what we do here is completely public (as evidenced by T3h_Muffinator's awesome intern journal entries). How someone behaves as a user is a pretty good indicator of how they'll behave as an intern. So, if you're thinking that you'd like to join us, one of the best things to do is to post a couple of great Instructables. If you're local, but aren't quite sure this is the thing for you, Tim is always looking for people to help him document. If you have a portfolio, try documenting a few of your projects on Instructables; if that doesn't work, send your portfolio along and we'll have a look. If you don't have a portfolio, make one (preferably on Instructables!).

I think this is a fun place to work. There's always lots of good food, and, if the season is right, kitesurfing lessons.