"We had over 2,000 candidates though, and that's off the back of being cautious in our promotion to students, because we know how disheartening it is to be one out of hundreds of applicants for a role," she said.
The internships pay a living wage, and are not Silicon Valley style ones where unpaid young people fight for recognition while eating pot noodles and sleep under their desks, to prove themselves worthy of a job.
Summer of Tech believes that any team larger than five people should be able to take a graduate or intern on board.
Xero's graduate team lead Kirk Holloway echoed McDavitt and said the industry needs to do more to build talent from the ground up, even if it means a larger investment due to increased training requirements.
Freshness of thought, and keenness are just some of the things juniors bring, along with better diversity; more than four out ten graduate developers hired by Xero last year were female.
Then there are older IT workers. You age fast in the tech biz, and reach grizzled veteran status from 30-35 onwards. Employers would rather swap you out for cheaper young hires at that stage than to retain you.
Tony who no longer works as a full-time programmer wrote in to say that from what he can tell, the skills shortage isn't real. If it was, the industry wouldn't be as ageist as it is.
Whereas just seven years ago, intermediate programmers were paid somewhere in the $100,000 a year region, salaries are now down to $65,000 or so.
Despite this, and workdays swelling from the normal 40 hours to 70 a week, young programmers still seem to be applying for the jobs.
Nevertheless, shrinking money for more work doesn't sound like an amazing career option for young people, and could make the skills shortage worse.
"Maybe, from the viewpoint of the youth, they see no future in an industry where wages are falling and, like in Logan's Run, you get disposed of at 30," he added.
Logan's Run is a dystopian sci-fi tale in which the world population and its resource consumption is kept in check by killing people when they reach adulthood.
It shouldn't have to be like that though, a situation where everybody involved loses out due to a short-sighted, cheapest-is-best approach.
McDavitt and Holloway both said hiring juniors that bring new perspectives and energy is actually a great way to retain seniors - if the company culture is right.
Training up interns and grads is not only a very rewarding two-way process of sharing learning and experiences, but also a great first management role for seniors, McDavitt pointed out.
A culture change among tech companies and further optimisation of government initiatives would drive home that it is possible to have a rewarding tech career in New Zealand.
We can do so much better than the harsh and uncaring Silicon Valley that's produced admittedly successful, yet monstrous, exploitative entities such as Uber and Facebook.
Being part of The Next Big Thing created out of an environment that values and appreciates people is an unbeatable proposition, so let's make it happen.
