July 30, 2025

Garmin’s internship program is an advantageous opportunity for students and emerging talent to work alongside professionals who help bring Garmin’s innovative, award-winning products to market. This summer, a little over 330 interns spanning 17 U.S. locations joined the Garmin team.

Interns are assigned a mentor and work closely with a variety of Garmin professionals, including engineers and product designers. In addition to participating in team events and on-site activities, interns have a chance to present the projects they worked on at an Intern Expo.  

“I’ve had the opportunity to attend meetings, create a weekly newsletter for the team, and learn from multiple cross-functional teams,” said Ella Fosnough, an automotive OEM marketing intern in Kansas City, Missouri. “My supervisor and mentor have welcomed me into their team culture. I have enjoyed getting to know everyone here and plan to continue exploring, learning and contributing as much as I can.”

Roger Orf, director of software engineering for the aviation segment, has worked with interns since he joined Garmin 24 years ago. Orf said that many software engineering interns have been hired into full-time positions and have played a critical role in bringing projects such as the G3000® PRIME flight deck to the market.

“We look at day 1 with our interns as the first day of their career with Garmin, and that means we plug them into very meaningful work and pair them with a very capable mentor,” Orf said. “Our interns develop their technical and interactive skills on real projects, and they learn what it is like to work in a professional environment.”

The goal at Garmin is for interns to turn their internships into full-time careers. As interns become emerging professionals, it’s not uncommon for them to become highly respected leaders in their respective fields.

“The hands-on experience they gain within their teams enables them to make an immediate impact upon returning full time, reinforcing the intern program as our most effective pipeline for early career talent,” said Jessica Zlab, manager university recruitment.

As part of the internship experience, Garmin hosts a variety of social and learning events that let interns get to know Garmin products, leaders and other interns better.

This year, Garmin associates participated in a business expo to show interns different product displays and demos. Interns also attended a Q&A session with CEO and President Cliff Pemble and competed against other Kansas City area interns during the annual Corporate Challenge, which they won.

In 2024, Garmin’s internship program was recognized by Vault — a career information and exchange platform — for internship program excellence, ranking in the top 20 in the categories of Best Engineering Internships, Best Software Engineering & Development Internships, and Best Tech & Engineering Internships. Garmin also ranked in the top 100 for Vault’s Best Internships Overall.