Career Paths for Students and Interns

You are a university student in a STEM subject? You want to take charge of your own career as early as possible by working for the world's biggest organization for applied research? Congratulations, you came to the right place!

You will have to be enrolled in a German university for the time you want to work there. The Fraunhofer institutes work in close collaboration with German universities on location to enable students to gain some practical experience from the very start, even before achieving any degree.

For more general info about getting to Germany and working with Fraunhofer, please check out our FAQ!

If you are enrolled in a university in Brazil, you might have the option of doing an internship at a Fraunhofer institute in Germany. Some institutes already have long-standing partnerships with Brazilian universities.

Fraunhofer IPT in Aachen has an internship program exclusively for Brazilians, check it out here.

Please contact your own faculty about this and other opportunities that can be possible with Fraunhofer. For general questions about your road to Germany, consult our FAQ.

If you want to study at a German university while at the same time working for Fraunhofer, you can also apply to a regular job as a student research assistant. For this, you will need a higher starting capital because you will have to prove that you are financially stable in order to get a visa, and you will also have to bear your own travel costs.

The exact procedures can vary, but generally they will be along these lines: Once you have been accepted to a German university, you can enrol either online or in some cases in Germany. If you have succesfully applied for a job at a Fraunhofer institute, the HR department can start preparing your contract there once you have been enrolled. Note that it can take several weeks before the contract is processed and you can start working.

You will be compensated at the end of each month according to a local public salary table. How much this salary will be depends on your level of higher education (i.e. whether you already have a bachelor's degree), how many weekly hours you will work, and the exact institute you will be working for. Generally, the compensation is sufficient to cover the cost of living in Germany.

Get to know all Fraunhofer's opportunities at our job website.