I interned at OpenAI in San Francisco. Here's how landed it, what it was like, and what I thought of Sam Altman.

• While studying in Canada, Hamza Mostafa made it his mission to reach San Francisco to work in tech.
• He went on to land an OpenAI internship in San Francisco.
• Mostafa said that while Canada is cheaper, there are more opportunities in San Francisco.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hamza Mostafa, 21, who lives in San Francisco. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Growing up, I wanted to work in the medical field like most of my family did. But after taking a computer science class in high school, my ambitions changed.

While I studied software engineering at university in Canada, I made it my mission to get to San Francisco, where everyone in the field dreams of landing a job. To me, if you want to make it in tech and learn from the best, you have to be in Silicon Valley.

I eventually landed an internship at OpenAI in San Francisco and moved there full-time in October 2025.

As I'm continuing to explore what my future in tech could look like, San Francisco feels like the place I have to be.

Once I got to San Francisco, my network grew quickly

When I started my degree, I wanted to work at a Big Tech company after graduating. My plans changed after I did co-ops, where you alternate between studying and working at different companies. I did my first internship at a very early-stage startup in Canada, and realized I really liked the startup atmosphere. You have a lot of ownership, learn a lot on small teams, and you're thrown into the work. My ambition now is to work at a startup or start my own.

I did two more internships in Canada. During the latter, I visited the San Francisco office on a few occasions, where I was intentional about going to tech events and meeting engineers from different companies. A connection I made led to my next internship at a company in San Mateo, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. My circle of friends in the city grew very quickly. I strongly recommend going to events in San Francisco to find a job or meet cool people.

I applied to intern at OpenAI, where I learned how to work faster

In late 2024, I was still commuting between university in Canada and San Francisco, when some people I knew in the city told me that OpenAI was running an internship program. Their intel helped me apply early, and I got invited to interview. I think it also helped that I had interned a lot before and got some machine learning experience. I cold emailed recruiters at OpenAI to introduce myself and get their attention, which I think never hurts.

OpenAI's two technical interview rounds were the toughest I'd done, because it seemed they really cared about speed. In one 45-minute block, I had to complete a coding task while talking through my design process.

When OpenAI called to say I was accepted for a three-month internship, I felt euphoric. From May to August 2025, it was incredible to work from their Mission Bay office, and for such a notable brand.

I could tell within one conversation that the people around me were highly intelligent and capable. They were also humble. I learned a lot from the other engineers, like how to supercharge my own use of AI agents for tasks like coding. I move way faster now than I did before the internship.

Though it was the biggest company I had worked for, it felt like a startup. I was thrown into things immediately, which I really liked. New hires are asked to merge or ship something to the code base on their first day, so I was tasked with a small change.

I didn't get to interact much with OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, but I got the sense that he really cared about us interns, because when he spoke to us, he'd ask us questions about how we were finding the internship and whether we felt well-supported.

I want to stay in San Francisco even though it's expensive

I signed a return offer with OpenAI for Fall 2026, but after running into visa issues, I pivoted, and for now, I'm focusing on my own agentic AI projects. There's a great window of opportunity to build because of AI, so I'm open to possibilities, especially since I'm young and don't have responsibilities like kids.

I moved to San Francisco full-time in October. Landing the OpenAI internship made me feel like my decision to be here paid off. It connected me to really smart people at the frontier of AI, and while it's expensive and competitive, the density of talented people and opportunities makes the trade-off worthwhile for me.

Canada has excellent universities, and it's generally more affordable, but staying there would've limited me. There are fewer tech opportunities, particularly in frontier AI.

San Francisco feels like the right place for me to be.

Do you have a story to share about deciding on the right place to grow your career? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com