Third time's a charm

Let me tell you about the early stages of a Google internship starting with the immigration process!

The Offer

December, 2019, I was invited to join Google for an winter internship. This time, my third time at Google, I had the chance to choose between two incredible teams, Google Data and Google Assistant.

This invitation was kinda of unexpected, I actually applied for another date in the future but, unfortunately, it wansn’t an option for Google, if you are applying for a return of internship, you must apply for a position within the next 12 months. It totally skiped from me.

I am a Brazilian SWE going for an internship overseas at Google California and that is basicaly what happens for people outside the United States to get there after accepting the offer.

What happens after the offer?

After accepting the offer, the whole immigration process kicks off and with that all the bureaucracy. This is actually one of the most frustrating parts, every document must be officially translated, dated within the last 3 months, signed by university officials and the most annoying part, if you don’t want to take your chances re-scheduling your internship start and end date, it must be done as fast as you (and your institution) can.

Brazil is known as one of the slowest countries (bureaucracy-wise) in the world. This time I had one extra issue, I had to prove that my internship is actually in accordance with my university programme (UERJ). How do I do that? With a signed letter! Awesome, done! Done? No… For the company issuing the DS-2019, any university official is enough to get this letter validated, to my university, it is not. As a public institution, everything must be official, and that’s when conversations around who is responsible to sign this letter starts…

Gotta love Sequence Diagrams!

As any engineer, I always appreciate a diagram, so there is one that describes the process I had to go through to get my visa.

Where am I now?

Well, the internship is over now and I am excited to write about what I can only describe as one of the most fulfulling experiences I’ve had so far, but since its going to be a-nother long story, let me know if you would like to hear about it in the comments and I’ll try my best to write about it soon.