Ottawa is sober and competent — the bureaucratic capital of Canada, the home of Shopify, and the centre of Canadian cybersecurity. It’s bilingual, four-season, walkable, and has a tech ecosystem in suburban Kanata that has produced more globally relevant Canadian companies than its size suggests. For an intern, it’s an unusually good mix of stable institutions and real product companies.
Who Studies Here
The University of Ottawa is one of the largest bilingual universities in the world, with major engineering, science, medicine, and law programs. Carleton, on the other side of the city, is known for journalism, public affairs, and engineering. Together they bring about 80,000 students into a metro of around 1.5 million.
Where the Work Is
Ottawa’s job market is unusually diversified for a capital city:
- Federal government — the largest single employer in the country
- Tech, including Shopify (HQ in Ottawa), plus a long tail of B2B SaaS in Kanata
- Cybersecurity and defence, with private companies and major government clients
- Telecom and aerospace, partly legacy and partly active
- Health and life sciences, tied to the hospital network and OHRI
What an Intern Actually Does
Federal internships skew structured and slow; tech internships in Kanata and downtown run more like Toronto or Waterloo equivalents. Cybersecurity internships in Ottawa are some of the most substantive in Canada — both private-sector and clearance-pathway public-sector — and worth seeking out if that’s your lane.
Living There as an Intern
Ottawa is liveable without being cheap:
- Rent is meaningfully lower than Toronto, higher than smaller cities
- The O-Train (light rail) plus buses cover the core well; Kanata requires a plan
- Winters are properly cold — the Rideau Canal famously becomes a skating rink in January
- Summers are warm, walkable, and full of public spaces
A Note for International Students
Ottawa’s international population is substantial and growing, with strong communities from across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Workplaces operate in English or French depending on the role; bilingualism is a real asset for government and some private-sector positions. The cultural pace is calmer than Toronto and quieter than Montreal.
Typical Internship Roles in Ottawa
The intern lane in Ottawa splits between three reliable clusters: government, cybersecurity, and SaaS engineering:
- Cybersecurity at private companies, defence-adjacent firms, and federal employers
- Federal government IT, policy analysis, and program-evaluation internships
- SaaS engineering at Shopify and the long tail of Kanata B2B companies
- Defence engineering with naval, telecom, and aerospace employers
- Bilingual policy, communications, and operations roles
How to Stand Out in Your Application
Three things work in Ottawa as much as anywhere else:
- Show one piece of real work in your application — not just a list of courses
- Be specific about why this company, in this city — not just any internship
- Have at least one local reference point — a class you took, a project you noticed, an event you went to
For government internships specifically, the application process runs through formal programs (FSWEP, Co-op) — deadlines are earlier than you expect, and the calendar matters.
Where Inkaer Comes In
Inkaer connects Canadian startups with international students for paid internships, and Ottawa employers — particularly in tech, cybersecurity, and applied engineering — are active on the platform. Record one short video, get curated into a real shortlist, and let Ottawa find you. Free to apply.
Want the broader picture? See our national guide to paid internships in Canada, or read our companion post on what an internship in Ottawa actually feels like.