Northboro, MA, August 3, 2006 -- The odds look pretty good that when the school year begins and they leave their summer jobs at IntraLearn Software, Anthony W. Xatse, 17, and Egin Tollkuci, 18, will not have seen the last of the Northboro software company.

“I don’t want to see this as a summer event and then they’re gone,” said Jerry F. Goguen, founder and CEO of IntraLearn.

Mr. Xatse, 17, who will soon be a senior at St. John’s High School, Shrewsbury, is considering part-time work at IntraLearn during the school year. Both Mr. Xatse and Mr. Tollkuci, a recent graduate of Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester who will soon begin his freshman year at Northeastern University, could land full-time positions at IntraLearn at some point down the road. After all, Mr. Goguen said, the company has eventually hired about 75 percent of interns to full-time positions.

Mr. Xatse and Mr. Tollkuci, both Worcester residents, are working at IntraLearn for six weeks as part of Worcester’s summer jobs initiative, an effort by the city to procure 1,000 paid jobs this summer for local teenagers. IntraLearn is one of nearly 30 businesses to directly offer positions. Community agencies have offered many of the other jobs.

Mr. Xatse and Mr. Tollkuci are busy eight hours a day testing a new IntraLearn product called LearningServer, attempting to detect glitches and bugs in the program before the company releases it to the market. When they discover glitches, they document the problem in a log and set it on the path to resolution. When LearningServer, a program that will manage online classes for company employees-in-training or college students, hits the market, Mr. Xatse and Mr. Tollkuci will have had a part in seeing that the operation goes off without a hitch.

“They’ve been doing a great job reporting, tracking and logging issues,” said Laura S. De Nadai, their immediate supervisor. “They’ve been a pleasure to work with.”

Mr. Tollkuci, who immigrated to the United States from Albania when he was 8, said he has learned a variety of lessons at IntraLearn. They concern not only the work itself, but critical business skills, including interview and workplace etiquette and networking.

“Getting to know people is the best thing about a summer job,” Mr. Tollkuci said. “It’s really hard to go to a job and not meet people.”

Mr. Tollkuci, who has long been interested in computers, also has come to appreciate the product design and marketing process. He will think the next time before he complains about the delayed release of a video game, he said.

“Now that I see how much work it takes, I have a little more respect for when guys can get their stuff out on time,” the aspiring computer engineer said.

“It’s a long process,” Mr. Xatse noted.

The one downside to the work, Mr. Tollkuci said, is that tenet of office culture known as the cubicle.

“It’s helped me decide I don’t really want to work in a cubicle,” Mr. Tollkuci said of the internship.

“An eight-hour day can get kind of boring if you sit alone in a cubicle.”

Mr. Xatse, who moved to the United States from Ghana at age 9, said the earnings from his internship could be a boon to him and his family. When he worked at the Worcester community agency Friendly House last summer, he said, he earned enough money to buy a car and to help his family make ends meet.

“It helps out,” he said.

The job also could pay off when he applies to colleges in the coming months.

“Colleges can know I’m willing to work hard and get good experience,” Mr. Xatse said.

After college, Mr. Tollkuci said his work at IntraLearn likely will remain on his résumé.

“You can’t have a better reference than someone who’s employed you,” he said.

The man who employs them, Mr. Goguen, said he decided to offer Mr. Xatse and Mr. Tollkuci the summer positions based on his own experience of working his way through college and business school and overcoming a learning disability at the same time. He credits his success in the software business — IntraLearn applications are now in use in 40 countries by 2,500 organizations — to the jobs he held while a student.

“You’ve got to make your own way sometimes,” he said.

It is possible for one to succeed without having the necessary funds to pay tuition, Mr. Goguen said.

“If you work hard, you’ll get recognized,” he said. “There’s always some place to start.”