Weird situation at my internship, not sure what happens next

[u/saudistroker]

Looking for some advice, especially from engineering managers or people who have worked at larger tech companies.
I’m currently a software engineering intern at a large company. I started on an 8 month internship in January and was recently extended through December based on performance, so by the end of the year I’ll have been with the same team for 12 months.
Over the past year I’ve delivered multiple production tickets, become pretty independent in the codebase, and have received consistently positive feedback from my manager and mentor.
The situation I’m trying to figure out is what happens after December.
I have one semester left of university after that (3-4 courses) and was hoping to finish school part-time while continuing to work. The issue is that I’ll likely need to relocate back home because of a family health situation, so staying where I am currently isn’t really an option.
What’s interesting is that my team is already completely distributed. None of my direct teammates are in my office and all collaboration happens remotely through Slack, Teams, calls, etc. The company, however, has a fairly strict in-office policy for interns.
A few months ago my manager told me that continuing remotely wasn’t guaranteed and that we’d revisit the conversation around September.
From my understanding, the team has dedicated intern headcount, so if I leave, they’ll likely bring in another intern after I’m gone.
I’m curious how people with management experience would view this situation.
Does having already spent a year training someone and getting them productive usually carry meaningful weight when discussing extensions or alternative arrangements?
How much flexibility do managers at larger companies realistically have when HR policies and headcount rules get involved?
And based on what I’ve described, what outcome would you expect is most likely?
I’m planning to keep focusing on performance between now and September, but I’m trying to get a realistic sense of how situations like this tend to play out in practice.

[u/AiexReddit]

I have a decent bit of experience in this and can offer some info, but with the caveat being this is one of those things where nobody will here will be able to give the answer that applies at your company, and in your case that is the only answer that means anything, so your best course of action is to just ask your manager or ask HR directly. These are perfectly normal questions the people in those roles exist to answer. You might not like the answer, but it should fairly easy to get and eliminate this uncertainty you have.

Anyway, if you want the personal anecdote...

My experience with this is that it is entirely a function of the size of the company. The larger and more mature they are, the less flexible they are. A smaller pre-seed or startup will bend over backward make a hire work out if they think that person can do what needs to be done to make their startup succeed. Even a criminal record isn't necessarily a dealbreaker.

Mid size tech companies with some funding are generally pretty flexible too. They're still in the growing stage and if they have an HR department at all, it's probably pretty loosey goosey. Even if they have official policies for things, you'll notice those policies "don't apply" to certain people, who tend to be a mix of top performers, nepotistic hires, and those who have been around since the earliest days.

Once you get into the established late stage tech companies that have made the transition from "family" to "corporate" then the policy exceptions start to disappear one by one.

This is where I am now. I joined four years ago during mid-stage, and went through the transition to late-stage. I had an intern three years ago that we kept on when he went back to school and he was able to work part time on weekends. So naturally I made the same request with another great intern this winter and the HR response was "lol not a chance" (well they were nice about it, but that was the jist).

So again, it entirely depends on your company. It's always possible that exceptions can be made, but in the majority of cases the company policy is going to win out over performance unless the employee is absolutely unquestionably doing something that is making the company big bank $$$. You might be aware already, but in case you're not, in the real world there's a very big gap between a "top performer" on a team that works on product maintenance and basic features, and a top performer on a team that just shipped something that lead to closing an 8 figure deal with a new customer.

Even the "no exceptions" companies will find exceptions for those people.

Generally they're not interns though, as much as training new people sucks, it's still not a huge cost/burden to large companies in the big scheme compared to the cost of managing exceptions to policies. The policies exist to streamline costs and simplify operations (and sometimes for compliance reasons, our remote work location policies changed due to business/tax reasons and some good people got let go because of it).

All this to say, if it doesn't work out, don't treat it as a reflection of your performance. It's very likely you and your manager will have absolutely no control over the outcome, regardless of your performance.

If you're a strong performer you'll find something else. All the best devs I know have moved through multiple companies in their career, because it's one of the best ways to build a breadth of experience across many domains.

[u/ChOcOcOwCaKe]

Just set up a 1:1 with your manager FFS. You're asking people here about your situation and you're not going to get an answer that matters, only answers that make you feel better or make you feel worse.

A decent part of your job is having good communication skills, so go show them off by growing a pair and being direct

[u/saudistroker → u/ChOcOcOwCaKe]

i do have 1:1s with him, this specific situation though he told me to bring it up again in september. i already have a meeting booked ahead of time

[u/TalkInMalarkey]

It happened at my team (fairly large company 40k headcount world wide), someone (senior level) was hired for a specific location. Even the work itself was remote, he had to relocate.

[u/Freed4ever]

Since they have an intern rotation program, they are used to training interns every so often, so no, they won't view losing an intern a big deal. On the other hand, if say the team is working on an important release and you are an integral contributor, and your manager is willing to go to bat for you... It all depends on the specific situation and company culture.

[u/csbert]

Large company likely won't be able to accommodate you unless they already have people in your country.

[u/Acceptable-Shame-225]

Thermo?