Tech Internships for High School Students: The Real Programs

High schoolers can work in tech. Some programs pay $33 an hour. Others cover housing, meals, and travel during research internships.

A few are free to attend but fully funded, with MIT, Stanford, and NASA picking up the tab. Here are all the real ones, sorted by pay and accessibility.

Application season runs November through March. If you are reading this in January, you are in the window for most programs below. Each entry lists pay, eligibility, and deadline so you can figure out your best shots this week.

Paid Tech Programs That Hire High Schoolers

Ten US programs currently pay high school students for tech work. Three run nationwide. Seven are regional, tied to specific metro areas or school districts. Paid work, real supervisors, defined roles.

Meta Summer Academy

The biggest brand name on the paid list. Meta Summer Academy replaced Facebook Summer Academy after the company rebranded. It is a 6-week paid program, 30 hours a week, running from June 15 to July 24 in 2026.

Students work on real projects with Meta engineers and designers. Coding, product work, media technology.

The program targets high schoolers from groups historically underrepresented in tech, which in practice means Black, Latino, Native American, first-generation college, and low-income students get priority in selection.

Deadline: late winter. Check the official Meta Summer Academy page for the current year's application window.

Honest take: Meta is the most accessible FAANG company for paid HS tech work. FAANG means Facebook (now Meta), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google.

Of those five, only Meta, Microsoft, and Google run HS-specific paid or free programs. The Meta name on your resume is real. The mentorship is real.

Microsoft Discovery Program

Paid, 4 weeks, Redmond WA or Atlanta GA only. You must live in the specific school districts near either campus. Graduating seniors heading to college in the fall. The work is real engineering and business projects with Microsoft teams.

Geography gates most applicants out. If you qualify, apply. If you do not, do not waste the essay. Full eligibility and application details are in our business internships guide.

Raytheon Technologies High School Internship

Software engineering interns at Raytheon make $33.65 an hour. That is the highest entry on this list by a clear margin. The work is engineering, high-tech manufacturing, and in some cases software development alongside full-time engineers.

Benefits include medical, dental, vision, and paid time off, which is unusual for a high school job. Flexible work schedules available.

Eligibility: HS students near Raytheon office locations. Not all offices run the HS program, so check your local site directly.

Deadline: spring, varies by office.

Honest take: at $33 an hour for a summer, you can make $10,000 to $13,000. That is serious money for a high schooler. If you are anywhere near a Raytheon office (Waltham MA, Tucson AZ, El Segundo CA, McKinney TX, and others), this belongs at the top of your list.

GM Student Corps

GM runs a paid summer internship for high school students in metro-Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac. The program mixes community service, leadership work, and real project exposure inside GM offices. Tech tracks include software development for vehicle systems and data work.

Eligibility: HS students in the three Michigan metro areas listed above. Regional only.

Honest take: If you live in southeast Michigan, apply. The brand value on your resume is real, and GM is genuinely invested in the program as a pipeline into its engineering and business functions.

Navy SEAP

SEAP stands for Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program. The Department of the Navy runs 8-week paid summer internships at Navy research laboratories across the country. The stipend is $4,000 for new interns and $4,500 for returning interns.

Work spans robotics, aerospace, cybersecurity, computer science, and ocean engineering, depending on which Navy lab you match with. Placements are at sites like Naval Research Laboratory (DC), NAVSEA Dahlgren (VA), and NAWCWD China Lake (CA).

Eligibility: US citizens, HS students (typically rising seniors). Application runs through the Navy careers portal.

Deadline: November for the following summer. The Summer 2026 cycle is closed; Summer 2027 applications open November 2026.

Honest take: $4,000 for 8 weeks is solid pay, and the Navy research lab experience reads well on college applications. The early deadline (November) catches a lot of students off guard, so mark your calendar the summer before you plan to apply.

NSA High School Work Study Program

The National Security Agency runs a paid part-time program for HS juniors who live near NSA facilities. It runs during the school year and continues into summer. Roles cover cybersecurity, IT, computer science, and math.

Eligibility: HS juniors, US citizens, must live within commuting distance of an NSA facility (mainly Fort Meade MD, Georgia, Texas, Colorado, or Hawaii).

Honest take: this is one of the few HS programs where the clearance process starts early. If you live near NSA and plan a career in cybersecurity or intelligence, apply. The clearance alone opens doors a decade later.

Sandia National Labs HS Internship

Sandia is a Department of Energy national lab with sites in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.

The HS internship program gives high schoolers paid summer work in cybersecurity, software engineering, secure systems, and research on things like encryption, cyber-physical systems, and network security.

Eligibility: HS students near Albuquerque or Livermore. Regional program.

Honest take: if cybersecurity is the goal, this plus NSA plus CISA form the serious government cyber triad for HS students. Sandia's work is closest to real research.

CISA Cyber Internships

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the federal agency that defends US critical infrastructure from cyber attacks. They hire high schoolers and college students for paid cyber and IT work. Some roles are fully remote, which is rare on this list.

Eligibility: US citizens, currently enrolled students (HS through grad).

Honest take: if geography cuts you out of NSA and Sandia, CISA is your government cyber option. Remote-friendly roles open the door for students in any state.

GTRI Summer Internship (Georgia)

Georgia Tech Research Institute runs a 5-week paid summer program for Georgia high schoolers. The 2026 program runs June 8 to July 17, up to 24 hours a week. Work happens at GTRI Atlanta, the Cobb County Research Facility, or the Warner Robins field office.

Eligibility: Georgia residents, 16+ by March 29 2026, attending a Georgia high school (public, private, charter, or home school), class of 2026, 2027, or 2028.

Deadline: mid-January. The 2026 pre-application closed January 18. The 2027 cycle opens November 2026.

Honest take: GTRI is the single best paid tech option for Georgia high schoolers. The Georgia Tech brand plus real research lab work is a strong combo.

NIH Summer Internship Program

The National Institutes of Health runs a stipend-paying summer research program that now includes high schoolers (the old HS-SIP merged into the main Summer Internship Program).

Work is biomedical research at the main NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and at regional NIH sites.

Not every NIH internship is tech, but many are. Bioinformatics, health data science, medical AI, and computational biology all run through NIH labs. If health tech is the angle, this is the program.

Eligibility: varies by specific institute. Most require 16+, US citizen or permanent resident, enrolled in an accredited high school or college.

Deadline: February 18, 2026 at noon ET (reference letters due February 25). Program runs May 11 to August 31.

Fully Funded Research Programs

These programs do not cut you a paycheck. But they cover housing, meals, travel, or tuition, sometimes all four. Acceptance rates run 3-5%, which is more selective than most paid programs. The signal value on your college application is large.

Research Science Institute (RSI) at MIT

RSI is probably the most prestigious free HS research program in the US. 100 students get selected each year. 6 weeks at MIT.

Students pair with faculty and industry researchers on real projects, often producing publishable science. Everything is covered: tuition, housing, dining, travel.

Eligibility: HS juniors (one year left before graduation), 16+ by July 1, strong math and science background. PSAT math 740+ and verbal 700+ recommended, or ACT math 33+ and verbal 34+.

Deadline: December 10 for the following summer. The 2026 cycle is closed; 2027 apps open September 2026. Apply through the Center for Excellence in Education, which runs RSI.

Simons Summer Research Program (Stony Brook)

Simons matches 11th graders with Stony Brook University researchers for 6 weeks of real lab work in science, math, or engineering.

A stipend is awarded at the closing poster symposium. Tuition is zero. Commuters handle their own transportation; residential participants cover dorm costs (about $2,000-3,000).

Eligibility: 11th graders, 16+ by program start, US citizens or permanent residents.

Deadline: February 5 for the following summer. The 2026 cycle is closed.

MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI)

BWSI is 4 weeks at MIT in July, with courses in AI, autonomous vehicles, cybersecurity, radar, and quantum computing.

The program is project-heavy and workshop-style, not lecture-based. Students build real systems.

Cost: free for families with income under $150,000. $2,350 fee for families above that threshold.

Eligibility: rising seniors (11th grade at time of application). You must register for and complete an online prep course first; summer admission depends on that performance.

Deadline: spring, typically March or April. Check the official BWSI page for this year's date.

NASA SEES (STEM Enhancement in Earth Science)

SEES is a NASA high school internship run through the University of Texas at Austin. Students complete online modules in June, then attend a two-week on-site portion in Austin working on real Earth science research. July 5-18 in 2026.

Pay: the program itself is free, and NASA covers housing, meals, and local transportation (including airport pickup for those selected). Students cover their own flight to Austin.

Eligibility: 16+ by July 5 2026, strong interest in STEM, US citizen.

Deadline: February 22, 2026.

NASA High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS)

HAS is a yearlong free program. It starts in fall with a 5-month online journey through aerospace, Earth science, technology, and aeronautics. Top participants move on to a summer on-site experience at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Eligibility: Texas residents for HAS specifically; other NASA education centers run comparable programs for their states.

Deadline: fall of junior year for the following cycle.

Free Summer Programs at Top Campuses

These are summer programs, not internships. No pay. But they run on major tech campuses, they are free to attend, and they are highly competitive. Real signal value for college applications.

Google Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI)

Google CSSI is a 2-3 week intensive CS program at a Google campus. Graduating HS seniors only, heading to a 4-year college or university in the US or Canada in the fall. Students build a final project, receive mentorship from Google engineers, and attend technical workshops.

Eligibility: graduating HS seniors planning to attend a 4-year college/university, intent to study CS or a related field.

Deadline: March, with an online coding challenge to complete. Decisions by early May. Apply through the Google CSSI page.

Stanford AI4ALL

Stanford AI4ALL is a 2-week free AI program run by Stanford HAI (Human-Centered AI Institute) and SAIL (Stanford AI Lab). It runs June 15-26 in 2026, with online or residential options. No AI or programming background required.

Eligibility: 9th graders only at the time of application. This is the narrowest age filter on the entire list. If you are a rising 10th grader or older, you cannot apply to Stanford AI4ALL.

Deadline: Early February 2026 for priority, mid-February for regular, early March extended. Decisions by May 1. Apply through Stanford AI4ALL.

Honest take: if you are in 9th grade and even slightly interested in tech, apply. The chance to spend two weeks at Stanford on AI work at 14 or 15 is a rare foundational experience.

AI4ALL at other universities (Columbia, Princeton, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Washington, UCSF) runs similar programs with varied grade eligibility, so check each campus if you miss the Stanford cutoff.

Build Your Own Path

If no program above fits your region, age, or profile, you can build real tech experience yourself. These options do not require an application or a selection process. They are harder than applying to a program, but the outcomes can be larger.

Cold email a local tech startup. Specific beats generic. "Hi [founder name], I am a high school junior building [your project]. I would like to spend 10 hours a week for 6 weeks this summer shipping small features or fixing bugs for you, in exchange for working on your product." Send it to 20 startup founders in your city. Two or three will say yes.

Contribute to open source. Open source means code that anyone can read, use, or improve. Most open-source projects live on GitHub. Find a project you use regularly, read its issue tracker for "good first issue" tags, and fix one. Then fix another.

Five merged contributions and a real side project at school mean more to a college admissions reader than three months at a generic internship.

Enter hackathons. HackClub runs hackathons for high schoolers. MLH (Major League Hacking) runs them for older students and adults, but many are open to HS teams. Most are free, some are online. You build a project in 24-48 hours with a small team. Winning teams take home real prizes. More importantly, the best hackathon projects become real products or research.

Teach coding to younger students. Start a coding club at your local middle school or library. Teach Scratch, Python, or basic web development to kids 8-12. Teaching forces you to understand fundamentals deeper than any summer program. Leading a group of students is also a real leadership line for your college application.

For a closer look at pure coding paths (USACO competitive programming, Code in Place, algorithm-focused programs), our coding internships guide covers that specifically.

These Show Up on Lists But Aren't HS Tech Internships

Quick warning. These programs appear on most "best tech internships for high school" lists but do not match the category:

• Apple, Tesla, Intel, AT&T. General career pages with no HS-specific programs. The undergrad and new-grad pipelines exist, but there is no HS internship to apply to.

• Amazon Future Engineer. A curriculum, scholarship, and CS advocacy program. Not an internship.

• Facebook University (FBU). Discontinued as a HS program. Meta Summer Academy replaced it (listed in the paid section above).

• Lockheed Martin High School Internship. Real program, but the Summer 2026 application window closed on December 19, 2025. Fall 2026 applications open for Summer 2027.

• Bank of America Student Leaders. Community service internship at a local nonprofit, not a tech role.

Do not waste application effort on programs that do not exist. For the broader HS internship landscape beyond tech, our business internships guide covers what is out there.

The Silicon Valley Reality

Two numbers every tech-ambitious high schooler should know. FAANG companies (Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) hire high schoolers through exactly three programs on this entire list:

Meta Summer Academy, Microsoft Discovery, and Google CSSI. Everything else is college, graduate, or full-time recruiting.

You are not going to intern as a software engineer at Google at 17. That is not a realistic goal. That is a fantasy some lists sell you so you click on them.

What is realistic: build coding skills now, take AP Computer Science A if your school offers it, ship two or three real projects you can show people, and aim for a strong undergrad CS program. Your FAANG shot comes at 20 or 21, not at 17. What you do between now and then is the real work.

Build Your Stack

Pick one paid program on this list that matches your region and profile. Apply to it. Pick one fully funded research program that fits your grade and interests. Apply to that too. Add one thing you are building on the side, no matter how small.

That is the full tech stack for a high schooler. One program for real exposure. One research application for the long shot. One project of your own that you care enough to keep working on.

That is how tech careers start.