Google Intern Salary Reaches $6,000 A Month, Plus Free Food And Gym

This Internship Will Get You $6K A Month -- And Free Massages

A new film about interning at Google (aptly titled "The Internship") may have underperformed at the box office over the weekend, but real-life Google interns are pulling in cash that would make the average American worker green with envy.

The popularized image of internships as grossly underpaid summer endeavors certainly doesn't apply at the search giant, where interns are among the highest paid in the country.

The average intern at Google makes $5,787 monthly, while software engineer interns can see monthly earnings as high as $6,432, according to data on the best companies for internships from job rating company Glassdoor.

That's quite a chunk of change -- enough to put Google in second place for highest intern salaries, according to Glassdoor. Only research interns at Microsoft get better pay, pulling in $7,050 per month.

The lowest wages among these top internships come from Merrill Lynch, which pays $1,554 per month, and Scottrade, which offers $1,715. Glassdoor's data comes from self-submitted intern ratings of their experiences working at the organizations, with no clarification as to whether salary numbers are reported before or after taxes.

Interns at Google typically commit to three months of full-time work, which means the average intern making $6,000 monthly would take home nearly $20,000 after one summer.

And the staggering salary is just the beginning. Google employees enjoy a ton of office perks, and interns get in on the action, too.

Rohan Shah, a 20-year-old Google intern, gushed to Business Insider earlier this month about his time with the technology behemoth. In addition to his $6,100-per-month pay, Shah said he had free access to 24 in-office cafes, a fully-equipped gym and on-site massages.

But an impressive paycheck alone can't make for the perfect internship. Scott Dobroski, a Glassdoor community expert, said that in addition to salary, interns greatly value real-world experience, access to executives and involvement in far-reaching projects.

"At Google, we see themes that interns speak very favorably about working on innovative technology and building products that touch the lives of millions and are changing the world, which also involve collaboration with bright colleagues who are willing to help and teach them," Dobroski wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

Those qualities were important to Shah, who told Business Insider about the "great sense of satisfaction" that came with working on new features for Gmail and Android that would reach millions of users.

In other words, highly paid Google interns really earn their keep.

"While Google interns also talk about a handsome monthly base pay and other benefits, it’s interesting to note they also say they do work long hours and are often given deadlines to complete projects," Dobroski told HuffPost. "Interning at Google is no walk in the park, but a rewarding experience."

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