You’ve heard about doing an internship in Montreal. What does it actually feel like? This isn’t a how-to-find-one guide (we have a separate one of those) — this is a walkthrough of what your day-to-day actually looks like when you land an internship here. The work, the team, the rhythm, the city outside the office, and what tends to come after.
The Kind of Work You’ll Do
Montreal internships are some of the most technically interesting in the country. You might be running ML experiments at a Mila-adjacent team, writing gameplay code at Ubisoft or Behaviour, programming aerospace simulators at CAE, or doing visual-effects pipeline work at one of the city’s many studios. The work tends to be substantial; Montreal’s reputation for fundamental research carries into product work.
- Model training and ML pipeline work at AI labs and applied teams
- Gameplay programming, design, or art at major and indie studios
- Simulation, embedded systems, or test engineering in aerospace
- Pipeline and rendering work at VFX and animation studios
Who You’ll Work With
Montreal teams are bilingual by default — French is the working language for most companies, with English-comfortable pockets in tech, AI, and gaming. Team sizes vary hugely; gaming studios can be enormous (1,000+) while startups are often under 30. Expect a flatter, more conversational culture than Toronto — Montreal is famously informal about hierarchy.
What You’ll Actually Learn
A good internship in Montreal teaches you more than the technical skills on the job description. The students who get the most out of their term consistently come away with:
- How to function in a bilingual technical environment
- Working within a mature production pipeline (especially in gaming/VFX)
- Communicating technical work in two languages or at least one
- Why Montreal’s tech scene punches above its weight globally
A Typical Week
A Montreal intern week is paced more humanely than Toronto’s. Mornings start later than you’d expect; lunches are real (people actually leave the office); afternoons can run later but rarely become death marches. Fridays are often half-days in summer. The cost of living is low enough that a paid Montreal internship goes further than the same paycheque almost anywhere else in Canada.
Outside Work in Montreal
Outside work, Montreal is one of the most enjoyable cities on the planet to be young and broke in. The Plateau and Mile End for cafés and bookshops, Saint-Henri and Verdun for cheaper rent and emerging food, the festival calendar that takes over summer (Jazz Fest, Just for Laughs, Osheaga, Pride), and a winter that is genuinely brutal but compensated for by tunnel cities, indoor markets, and the strongest café culture in Canada.
After the Internship
Montreal internships frequently lead to full-time offers — especially in AI, gaming, and VFX, where the local talent pool is the global talent pool. Even without a return offer, having a Montreal team on your resume opens doors internationally in a way few Canadian cities do. The trick is staying in touch with the people you worked with; the global Montreal-alumni network in tech is unusually active.
Where Inkaer Comes In
Inkaer connects international students with paid internships at Canadian startups, including in Montreal. Record one short video answering the role’s question, get curated into a real shortlist, and let Montreal employers find you. No cost to apply — companies pay only when they hire.
Want the broader picture? See our overview of internships in Canada, or our practical guide to finding a paid internship in Montreal.