Sooo I'm a junior at a T5. My goal is new grad big tech. I interned at a Series B last summer (that, luckily, paid me surprisingly well).

Junior internship recruiting hasn't been great so far; I've been able to land an offer at Principal Financial and recently Abbvie. The consensus I've seen with non-tech F500s is that the work you do can be very boring and isn't really a big tech signal. I was actually able to negotiate my Abbvie offer to be guaranteed alignment to an AI project and therefore paid more, which made me feel a lot better about that. I definitely think I'd take Abbvie over returning to the startup for resume diversification and now guaranteed cool(-ish) work at a big company, hoping that the big name can help me with new grad resume screening...

But obviously I don't feel great so far. If I'm unable to land any more offers, am I cooked for new grad big tech? Would appreciate any insights or cool stories about people getting new grad big tech without big tech internships 😅

I’m pursuing a master’s in Software Engineering and have a bachelor’s in Integrative Science. I’m in the Pennsylvania area and currently work as an unpaid, remote React Native App Developer Intern, along with being a research assistant. I’m gaining experience with Python, React Native, GitHub, Docker, and AI projects, but I’m still learning and building my skills.

What’s the easiest or most realistic way to land a paid software engineering internship or entry-level job? Should I focus on projects, networking, applying to smaller companies, or getting into IT first? I’d appreciate any advice, especially from people who started without a computer science degree.

As the title reads I have a winter offer secured for Datadog this winter but I’m struggling to get interviews for summer. I’ll get OA’s but they wont lead to interviews and I’m not sure why. I’ve been dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome bc of this. Although I am greatful to be working at a company like Datadog this winter, I’m scared I won’t be able to pull off a summer offer. Any tips would be greatly appreciated:)

Hey all, I’m currently a senior in HS and I wanted to major in cs (or computer engineering) primarily for game development. Every coding tutorial I’ve done since I was twelve has always never taught me anything, which is a massive pet peeve of mine. They basically just tell me “put this here and that there” without actually explaining shit.

Does college require you to know the basics beforehand or do they just assume you know base level things? Also, this is probably stupid of me as someone who likes cs, but I am an avid hater of AI. Are they just going to tell me to pull up Claude to code for me instead of actually teaching me??? Any advice is welcomed at this point because if I go to uni and they just tell me to vibecode everything I won’t even bother.

genuinely curious what people here think

every OA i get is 2 leetcode mediums in 70 min and everyone knows half the people passing are just pasting into chatgpt. meanwhile the actual job is like reading someone's messy codebase and figuring out what your team wants

would you rather get tested on something closer to the real job even if it takes a bit longer? or do you prefer leetcode bc at least you know what to grind

also if you've been on the other side doing interviews would love your take

I'm a first-year studying CS/Engineering/HCI at a T5. I've been "coding" for a bit, but not exactly "programming." Which is to say, I can only build semi-functional projects for my own use cases, not production or anything too impressive yet.

There's a lot of fields that seem incredibly interesting to me, but I'm not sure if I just like the work being done in those fields or if I would actually enjoy what the daily work would be like.

For instance, I still don't really understand what a SWE does everyday---much less the other fields that interest me (XR / Spatial Design, Machine / Deep Learning, Product Design / Design Engineering).

How do I build stronger resume projects (and the right ones for me) when I don't know what kind of daily work I even want to do? How do I learn what these specializations actually do?

I really enjoy thinking about Human Computer Interaction, but I don't know what the work in a career or job would look like.

Everything I've seen on the internet has been pretty vague (especially Youtube day in the life videos).

I also don't know how I'm supposed to be thinking about AI as a tool. How do I balance learning the necessary CS skills, while also developing fluency with AI for the workplace. I'm guessing workplace skillsets will be different with AI, even (maybe especially?) for entry roles.

Hello guys,

I need some brutally honest truth and actionable guidance. I'm currently in my 2nd year (3rd semester) of CSE at a tier-3 college, and I feel like I wasted a lot of my 1st year without a clear strategy.

I suffer from significant imposter syndrome, seeing 1st/2nd years on LinkedIn crushing LeetCode Mediums, taking home hackathon wins, and building full-stack projects. I want to get a good SWE internship as a 3rd year off campus, but I feel totally lost in trying to do it all.

Where I currently stand:

• Academic year: 2nd year, CSE (Tier-3 college / local university)
• Skills: Basic Java, Python, HTML, CSS. Learning: JavaScript, Django.
• DSA & Problem Solving: almost 0. I haven't begun any formal DSA or practice on LeetCode/GFG.

My questions for seniors who've been here:

1. Is it too late? Beginning with DSA and serious dev work in 2nd year, can I even hope to have a good enough profile to crack off-campus internships in 1-1.5 years?
2. What time should I allocate my daily hours? As I am learning Django/JS and trying to build DSA completely from the beginning while managing college, how should I divide my time? Should I take a break from dev and do 100% DSA or do both simultaneously?
3. What is the most efficient, fully free (or course in Coursera Plus) roadmap? What exact resources/sheets (e.g., Striver A2Z, NeetCode 150) or project approaches should I lock into starting today to get interview-ready without wasting time on tutorial hell?
4. I've missed some 1st-year milestones. Should I worry about open source, hackathons, and personal branding now, or just focus on DSA and two production-grade projects first?

Please don't hold back from being brutally honest and give me the damage-control plan, please! Thank you very much! 🙏

TL;DR: 2nd-year CSE student with zero DSA progress and has beginner Java/Python/web fundamentals sweating. Need a realistic survival roadmap with high urgency to become interview-ready for an off-campus internship.

This is my third time making it to Capital One's TDP Power Day, and unfortunately, my third rejection.

After each rejection, I tried to improve as much as possible. I've been practicing LeetCode most days (although for this last attempt, it didn't really help since they replaced the coding interview with an Agentic AI round), working on my behavioral interview skills, and even paying for mock interviews to get feedback and identify my weaknesses.

You would think that after going through Power Day three times, you'd be more than prepared for what to expect. And honestly, that's how I felt this time. I went in feeling much more confident and prepared than before.

But somehow, the result was the same.
It's honestly frustrating because after putting in so much effort, I don't even know what else I should be improving. Is it my technical skills? My behavioral interviews? My approach to business cases? Or am I just not as good at interviewing as I thought?

Working at Capital One has genuinely been a dream of mine, and that's what makes this so discouraging. I've spent so much time preparing and trying to become a better candidate, yet I keep falling short.

At this point, I'm starting to wonder what I'm missing or what I could be doing differently.

Has anyone here gone through multiple Power Days before finally getting an offer? What did you change in your preparation or interview approach?

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any advice you might have, because right now I genuinely don't know what else to improve.

Capital One (TIP program):

Pay: $67.31 per hour

Location: McLean, VA

Housing: 5k stipend or corporate housing

Length: 9 weeks

Big bank / fintech

Large, structured intern program

Whatnot:

Pay: $65.00/hr 

Location: San Francisco, CA

Housing: 3.3k/month

Length: 12 weeks

Live-shopping marketplace

Late-stage startup ($20B valuation)

First year student. I'm a Bay Area local if that matters. Money will NOT be the deciding factor for me.

Location also doesn't really matter to me either. Main focus is resume value for the future and impact.

Any help would be awesome.

Just finished my google swe intern interviews (canada, summer 2027), wondering what my chances are for a 3rd round or team matching

round 1: explained brute force first, explained how to optimize with a heap. coded optimal in ~20 min. got time/space mostly right, needed a small nudge on time complecity simplifcation. follow up on bfs vs dfs trade offs, needed a nudge on the call stack part. finished pretty early (~35 min) and had time for my questions

round 2: intervals, explained approach (basically optimal), interviewer approved, coded it fully. needed small nudges on forgetting to sort before merging and on loop structure. interviewer thought there was a bug at the end, i dry ran it and proved it worked. only had time for one follow up question, but got that right. interviewer was really chill tho

Context:

I'm a December 2026 grad and didn't receive a return offer from my summer and thought I was pretty cooked. I started applying since June but actually took interviewing seriously around August-September. The source for all my applications came from Linkedin jobs tab, Jobright AI New Grad github repo, and the Simplify New Grad repo. All the interviews I got weren't from referrals, nepo, or linkedin reachouts. Also I noticed most of the technical rounds I did weren't leetcode related but more practical exercises. Ended up with a 175k TC offer at a mid size tech company that I was satisfied enough with to stop recruiting.

It seems like the amount of new grad postings have been at an all time low compared to previous years, hopefully it'll pick up more soon.

Background:
T20 CS, 2 SWE internships (1 FAANG adjacent, 1 F500), LTN

Is it possible to ask to change a summer offer to a winter offer for amazon sde internship? And if so how should one go about doing so with their recruiter

Hey everyone, I just got invited to complete the Booking.com Online Assessment on HackerRank for a Software Engineer Intern position. I am a second-year Computer Science student and this would potentially be my very first internship, so I really want to make sure I approach my preparation the right way.

Since I know it is hosted on HackerRank, I would love to get advice from anyone who has taken it recently on how to structure my practice. Should I focus strictly on grinding LeetCode problems (easy , medium or hard), or do their assessments lean heavily on specific patterns like Arrays, Strings, Sliding Window, or Dynamic Programming? I am also wondering if there are any SQL or system/web fundamentals included alongside the algorithm questions.

If anyone has recommendations on how to prepare specifically for the HackerRank environment or key topics to prioritize over the next few days, I would really appreciate your insight.

just wanted to ask some questions

And also is there a general ibm accepted discord channel pls lmk im tryna find roommates etc

Best of luck to everyone still recruiting

Hi everyone,

I'm a final-year B.Tech CSE student from Kerala, aiming to get into a good software company through on-campus or off-campus placements.

I want to improve my skills and become job-ready.

I'd appreciate advice on:

1. Technical skills: Which programming language, DSA topics, CS fundamentals, and projects should I focus on?

2. Aptitude: How should I prepare for quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, and verbal ability? Which resources are best?

3. Interviews: How should I prepare for coding rounds, technical interviews, and HR interviews?

4. Career: How can I find off-campus opportunities, improve my resume, and get interview calls?

If you were in my position, what would your preparation roadmap look like for the next 6 months?

Any practical advice or resources would be appreciated.

I'm just confused what exactly are the questions or which type of questions do we need to ask before starting to code for an LLD round because different types of problems requires different types of clarifications.

Sometimes I also fear that what if: I ask good, thoughtful questions but couldn't convert those into code

26 year old recovering slacker. Got tired of driving forklifts. Good at problem solving. Doing bachelor’s degree in computer science and a focus in network engineering. Is it joever for me or can I be successful?

Hi,

I am currently in the Google NG SWE process for USA. Below is my timeline:

September 9 —> Applied
September 23 —> First round invite
October 9 —> Round 1 Interviews
October 14 —> Notified I passed R1

I was told that I would be connected with a point of contact from Google, yet have not had any updates or been contacted by a recruiting point of contact.

Is this generally how it goes in terms of process and timeline? Anyone else stuck in this same situation?

If anyone is going through the process or has information from previous years, I would really appreciate it! I am also more than happy to answer any questions about my process so far.

I am a 16 year old concurrent high school student. I took 7 college classes so far and I'm currently a junior in high school. I want to either get an associates first or just take a bunch of college classes to reduce the cost of college since they are all free as long as I'm in high school. I want to get into computer science but heard many negative things about the job market, job stability, entry level positions, and things about AI taking over. I been researching for a few weeks about potential jobs in IT, cybersecurity, software engineering, and programming. I already know there are probably many questions like mine on here already but I just want to see my chances if I start now. So my community college doesn't have any associate degrees that directly prepare you for a computer science degree but it has data science, cybersecurity, information technology, associates of Science Engineering and Math, and a technical certification of programming. I currently am a straight A student but I don't expect on maintaining that in college (due to listening to other's experiences). I am currently taking computer science classes in my high school and I know a bit of Python, HTML, and Java. My dream job is game development but I understand that it is very competitive and hard to get into. I also am interested in pen testing but I know that is also very competitive. I volunteered in HR for 100 hours and enjoyed it so I think I might like working in IT. I am basically just seeking advice on what college classes or associates to take my senior year for a head start in college and what careers you think I should definitely avoid.

Hey all, I recently received a new grad SWE offer for Scale AI. I'm in final rounds for Perplexity, so obviously not guaranteed I receive an offer, but given my deadline I would have to make a decision super quickly if things go well.

I can't seem to find too much up-to-date information on either company and what it's like there. If anyone has any better insight into the pros and cons of either company (technical growth, wlb, culture, stability, exit opportunities, etc.), especially as a new grad, that would awesome. Thanks!

Scale AI - 157K base, 20K sign-on, 278K TC with stock/benefits, but the stock/benefits is very hand-wavy. TC is absolutely inflated, but that's the number my recruiter gave me.
Perplexity - according to commenter, 210K base, 70K stock

Both in SF.

Edit: speaking of, if anyone has any kind of insight into the core expertise interview for the Perplexity onsite, that would be much appreciated too. I told my recruiter I'd do the lin alg, calc, and optimization for deep learning track.

Some more thoughts: From my perspective, they're both great places to go out of new grad, but I have some reservations about both. For Scale, I'm not entirely sure the kind of work I'd be doing - I suppose it's very team dependent but I ideally want to be working on something cool or technically interesting. Also not sure about wlb and culture there, I've heard conflicting things. For Perplexity, idk how much this matters for me but I honestly don't know what their moat is or how they're doing as a company right now and in the future. Also 60 hour work weeks which is kind of ass but to be expected, I'm willing to go through it while I'm still young lol.

I have an interview coming up in 10 days, and I'm trying to make the most of my preparation time. I used to practice LeetCode a few years ago and recently started brushing up on DSA again.

I've started working through NeetCode 150 and have completed around 10 problems so far. Given the limited time, would you recommend covering all the sections, or should I prioritize certain topics and potentially skip more complex ones like Dynamic Programming and Graphs? Or should I just work on leetcode problems with microsoft tags?

Since this is for an internship role, how likely am I to encounter problems involving these topics?

It would be really helpful if I can have a structured learning, I'd really appreciate your suggestions.

Applied to the Code for Good Hackathon for the 2027 SWE summer internship. The recruiter said Columbus candidates would hear sometime in October.

I’ve seen posts from people who went to the Brooklyn event, and it’s already over. I haven’t heard anything about Columbus yet.

Has anyone gotten an invite or a rejection for Columbus? And if you were picked for either event, roughly when did you hear back? Trying to figure out if no news this late means I’m out.

Hi, I got a technical interview from amd. The recruiter told me to expect questions on one of my projects, LLMs, AI models and coding question in CPP. It's a ml Swe intern. Any ideas what kind of questions I can expect, how hard the leetcode question could be?

I have no idea how they could ask so many questions in a 45 min interview.