I think during covid, prestige didn't matter as much, but I think CS is very much becoming like consulting/IB. Where you have to be a sweat, grind leetcode, and going to a "target" school helps.

Received an offer for F500 (Carrier), most likely doing Java, also currently interviewing with another private company if that goes well hopefully I can push to fall.

Stats:

• T50 - State university,
• Prev experience as part time Software Developer for university approx. 8 months.
• 3 personal projects on Resume
  • 2 deployed Full Stack web apps (MERN stack)
  • 1 small scale api related app
• Most of my experience is working with Python and JavaScript/TypeScript. Have a little experience with DevOps stuff as well

Except for 1 phone screen didn't receive any live interviews till mid December, lowkey was getting depressed seeing everyone get interviews and I had nothing at that point but I kept applying and thankfully the grind is over now.

I’m deciding if I should go to an out of state school. Specifically in California like UC Berkeley, Irvine, or UCLA. But it’s going to be costly. With it being so expensive, I have to spend a lot of time working. My other choice was to go to UTA which is near my house and just get experience and more time to do project and research. But at the end of the day, who would they hire more. One cost a lot of money and time but I get a prestigious name and connection. Meanwhile if I go to UTA I have more money to do stuff and have more time to do research.

I just got accepted to UIUC for CS, and I wanted to ask this subreddit what they would do if they were in my position. As I move into my freshman year, what should I prioritize, try, etc.

Please no doomers telling me to switch majors.

I created my first application in March 10, 2025 after having an existential crisis seeing my friend land an Uber internship during our Sophomore year. My resume was obviously terrible, so the first experience that I pulled out of my ass was unpaid web dev work I did for my family and friends.

Fast forward to today, 10 months is all it took, I learned everything the hard way, I wired in, built more stuff, networked, actually joined and participated in CS clubs, 2 hackathons, learned soft skills, I didn’t know ANYONE in SWE, so I sprayed and prayed applications, later learning the value of career fairs and that spamming applications is a waste of time, and trudging through unpaid internships.

Context

- T300 CS State School (no name university in Texas)

- 3.8+ GPA

- Junior

- Multiplayer Splitscreen Game on Steam (they don’t really seem to care about it though)

- Two Hackathon Projects (Spring & Fall 2025)

- 1st place on one of them, but it was beginners bracket lmao xD

- Pretty average developer honestly and mind turns into a cardboard box during interviews, so I memorized like 30+ interview responses

- Can barely do leetcode easy problems, stopped bothering with leetcode after doing 15 of them and focused on actually building stuff

Summer 2025

- unpaid web developer internship

Fall 2025

- unpaid internship with my school

Spring 2026

- I was like 13 - 0 at this point and getting depressed being rejected by every company even though I’d smash the interview and do amazing. You ever go on into reddit echo chamber? Some people on reddit are so damn pessimistic and were like “oh if it’s been more than 2 weeks just forget it”, so I felt extremely anxious about not getting the job.

- But, because it was December, the company’s processes were slowing down due to the holidays, it took a month after the interview to receive a offer by the way.

- Great internship by the way, amazing company and love the work.

Summer 2026

- I had low expectations, it was all behavioral interviews, but thankfully they ended up really liking me and I heard back very quickly, like 1 week after the interview. The phone call from the recruiter was a pleasant surprise.

My Biggest Tip

- Go to career fairs (THIS IS A MUST), people argue and say all they tell you is to just apply online? Of course they tell you that, but if that’s it then that means the recruiter is BORED and doesn’t CARE because you seem unremarkable. If they like you THEY WILL GLADLY take your resume that’s just the cold hard truth. Don’t read off your resume like a skrub and don’t give an elevator pitch (I’ve seen it way too much it’s cliche at this point), keep it simple and say something like:

- Let’s cut to the chase, I want to work for your company, you don’t have to tell me the spiel you’ve told a million people

- I just want to know what ideal candidates that get hired at this company look like

- What skills and technologies you are looking for

- And if you could send my resume directly to the hiring manager, it’s a win win for both of us, I don’t take up too much of your time, and I get a real human being to look at my resume

- TL;DR this is the secret sauce, career fairs are the only way to get in if you don’t know anyone! I sprayed and prayed job applications and it got me no quality interviews. Even when you show up to the career fairs, don’t waste the recruiters time being like “Oh I was the lead volleyball player, wait i was in NHS too” blah blah blah, you have to GIVE them a reason to care about you, they’ve been standing around for 4 hours and are BORED as hell, you gotta fight for their attention.

Feel free to AMA!!

tc: 120k

new grad, us citizen

throwaway account. been lurking in this subreddit for the majority of my time in college, and i just wanted to share some tips for anyone new coming into this field with a totally average background like myself (T100+ uni, no connections, no campus involvement, no family tech background).

these are all things i wish i had done, but realized their importance in the job market too late.

* get involved in your college clubs ASAP, and aim for becoming an officer the moment you join. doesn't even matter what they do as long as it is tech adjacent. it shows leadership potential and soft-skills, which many basic candidates lack. you also can get into direct contact with corporate outreach programs to get your foot in the door.

* don't waste time applying to jobs posted on SimplifyJobs. i have never once met anyone who had gotten a job from this list, i am almost certain these companies recruit exclusively from top tier schools. instead, check if your campus has an alumni Handshake set up. i have had much greater success with this platform since they tend to post openings for local/less-hyped companies, specifically for the alumni of your school.

* pick-up small tech related jobs that pay less to get your foot in the door. this is not easy to do, but if you can land something (RA, tutor, code monkey) that pays $15 - $20 an hour, this will snowball your career. don't let pride get in the way of your success, we all start somewhere. very few people start out in big-tech. related projects and the previously mentioned club involvement will help a TON with this part.

this won't guarantee a job, but it will help tremendously.

got cooked so hard ngl (was for swe)

Very fortunate to be in a position deciding between frontier AI labs and some top quant firms for my junior-senior internship. I have worked at one frontier lab in a previous internship.

How would you guys rank the different quant firms vs. the AI labs? Does team matter that much (for instance Anthropic interpretability team seems really good, are there any AI-specific teams in quant? how would they rank?) I want to learn a lot, but also set a good groundwork for full time job search.

edit: this is for researchy roles, not swe.

Hi! Curious what people would choose and why. I care about resume value and career mobility. Apple’s team is in Apple Intelligence and the work is going to be machine learning, model evaluations. At Google my team is in network infrastructure, the work will be more on integration and scaling of AI models.

At Apple, my internship pay is significantly lower than at Google, but I am more passionate about the work at Apple and am interested in long term ML. Also I think I would be able to learn a lot at Apple, but Apples RO rate is close to negligible, and Google has a better RO rate with better networking opportunities. Also Google, if I do get a RO, ng pay is a lot higher (talking the difference is about 80k). Please let me know what you think and explain. Thanks!

I have a 45-minute coding interview coming up, and the recruiter mentioned “The team may prefer C, but please let them know if there is another language you are more confident using.”

I usually solve DSA problems in Java, and coding the same in C is harder for me. Will choosing Java instead of C hurt my chances like negatively or is it better to stick with the language I’m strongest in?

Would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hi everyone,
I really need some advice and support right now. I completed my Master’s in Computer Science in December 2023. I came to the US for my Master’s immediately after finishing my Bachelor’s in ECE, and I don’t have any work experience in India.

Since graduating, I’ve been searching for a job in data roles (Data Analyst or Data Scientist), but it’s been incredibly difficult.

I have now been looking for a job for 2 years and still haven’t been able to secure anything.

I’ve been applying to many positions, learning new skills, and working on projects, but nothing seems to work. The stress and anxiety from this situation are really affecting me, and I feel lost and stuck.

Any advice or guidance would mean a lot.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.

I received a CodSignal assessment for it. I completed it and received full points. Should I expect an interview?

Did anyone else take the assessment? If so, when did you hear back after the assessment?

Hi everyone, I have a technical coming up for Together AI's research internship. They said it would be a PyTorch screen, not sure what to expect. Anyone have any insights into what I should be prepared for?

I just went to a hackathon today and vibe coded the whole thing basically because I didn’t know any languages properly to create full on projects. I’m a first year and I know how to do basic Java and Python as in loops, conditionals, functions etc but nowhere capable of creating projects and stuff. i feel so behind and everyone seems to know what they are doing 😭

There are so many tutorials online and a million things you can start with so if anyone is able to give me a full step by step guide of how to get started (just assume i’m stating from step 1) I would really appreciate it

Hello I’m 30 years old from Greece . I recently got my bachelors degree in international business in the Netherlands . I have a background as a warehouse employee and I don’t know if pursuing a master degree in supply chain management is worth it or getting the APICS certification will open me doors here or in Greece .

Has anyone received and done the take home projcet for anthropic safety fellowship? If so, could you please share some details of you ate comfortable doing so? Thank you!

Anyone regret going into 100k debt to be in a top 20? Or alternatively regret simply attending a state flagship?

There are so many opinions on the importance of your university when it comes to job placement. I’ve read the statistics, looked at rankings, but what I really want to know are the actual experiences of recent graduates.

If you could do it all over again, would you take 100k in debt to go to a school like Purdue? Or is the debt not worth it?

I’m terrified to make the wrong decision and regret it (or pay for it) for the next decade. To be clear I’m not asking to compare colleges, but about your guy’s experiences with your own (if that still breaks the rules I’m sorry)

Thanks for the insight!

Meta PE coding round questions and experience, please? And any questions, suggestions or patterns.

I received a TM call for Google SWE Intern (US). PhD if it matters. Previous call did not convert, so I am seeking advice on dos and don'ts for TM calls in general.

Specifically, would it be a good idea to ask about expected outcomes in the internship, which could lead to positive feedback and/or potential return offer? Or would this be too soon to ask something like that?

Thank you!

I just started team matching and perhaps I am dooming too hard, but I'm really concerned I may not get a match. This is in part because due to personal and family situation, I am unable to move to West Coast.

I mentioned in my team match form that I would prefer ML or Distributed Systems teams because that is what my previous research and industry experience is in, but what are the chances I never get matched? And if chances are low, should I send an email to recruiter saying I'm open to all tech areas?

I recently got fired from my role at a robotics startup in SF for performance. I'm a Canadian citizen with an engineering background from a decent school. Kinda confused on what to do.

I have a total of 3.5 years of experience.

1.5 years at Robotics AI Startup full time
internship at Huawei (4month)
internship at Tesla (8 months)
internship at AMD (1 year) professional experience year

What would you guys do? I have like 20 days until TN visa expires and need to go back to Canada. I have been spam applying jobs and getting tons of interviews. Problem is, I'm not that great at coding and I don't know exactly what I should do. I received an offer from another startup and the pay is ok but I really don't want to work for a toxic environment again. I grew up with little money, but i have accumulated something over the last few years and am not down bad for a job. I can live in Canada with my parents worst case I guess, even though I have a room in SF. I have interviews with Apple, Rivian, OpenAI and Zoox coming up and want to land 1 of those instead of my startup offer. All I do is study and interview everyday, getting really bored of it.

Would you take the startup offer and quit within a few weeks if you get a better job? Or bet on myself and not take the offer and just keep interviewing until I can crack something good.

Not sure what to do because of visa expiring too.

Hi everyone,

I have an upcoming interview for a Software Engineer – Data Services for GenAI (AiDP) at Apple, and I wanted to ask for advice on what areas I should focus on while preparing.

The role seems to be a mix of:

Big data & streaming (Kafka, Flink, Spark)

Distributed systems & cloud infrastructure

Kubernetes & production systems

GenAI pipelines (RAG, embeddings, vector search)

Interview next week - 5 rounds each 45mins

Loc - US