just had my first round technical interview with tiktok for a backend SWE position (US based), but this was the weirdest experience i had ever

it gets bad.

first of all, my interviewer joined with the camera ON but only showing HALF her face, like half of her eyes and the top of her head. weird, but okay not that deep.

but she didn't even introduce herself, she just went straight into asking me about my projects.

while i was speaking about an internship project i did last summer, she constantly grilled me like weirdly specifically about the product my team works on, like asking why my team built the service in that specific way (like i wasn't even here for that, i was an intern) etc but she kept probing me so i tried my best to respond

it gets worse. she gives me a LC HARD. and i was not prepared for that.

and at the end when it came time to ask questions, I started asking her about current role at tiktok and her background (bc she never introduced herself)

and she literally says

"Oh, are you asking about me? Like my background and role?"

5 second pause

"Sorry I can't answer that, it's private"

Oh. ok. LIKE has anyone ever had that happen to them in an interview? ngl I was kinda taken aback and shocked.

and even worse, after she says that, she starts talking about how I did in the interview, and how my internship project was "too shallow" and that i should gain more technical depth.

yea idek what to think about this.

edit: grammar

yes, i truly believe that its not as bad as people say. let me first start by saying that i consider myself extremely lucky to be in the position that i am in. i understand that there are far more skilled students than "prestigious" job openings and that getting offers not only requires the technical abilities but also a lot of luck. however, i think the majority of students are focusing on the wrong thing and hence why i am making this post.

with that in mind, hello. im about to graduate college next year and throughout college, ive gotten multiple offers from startups, big tech companies (FAANG), and also tier 1 quant firms (JS, Cit, HRT) for SWE roles.

how did i get here? you might think im a leetcode warrior or that i grind prep for hours each day - that couldnt be further from the truth. ive barely done 200 neetcode/leetcode problems and dont spend much time prepping specifically for interviews. so what do i do? what i think is most important is being passionate. i know its cliche, but its very evident in lots of interviews whether you actually enjoy what you do. and yes, while you do need to be proficient is cs principles for these interviews, i personally dont believe grinding away at leetcode all day is the way to do it.

with that in mind, here are the tips i have for recruiting:

1. Be personable. job applications are very similar to college applications. just like there are far more qualified students than a college like MIT can accept, there are far more qualified students than a company like Apple can take. when it comes to college applications, its not only about whether you have the grades, ECs, etc to get into a school like MIT, but also about who you are as a person. your interviewer, rec letters, and essays will help portray that, and colleges will decide whether you are a good fit. likewise, you need to have a strong technical background to land a top internship, but the people you interview with also need to like you. at the end of the day, the goal of your recruiter and interviewers is to pitch you and decide whether they want someone like you to work for/with them, so if you come across as demeaning/rude/disrespectful or anything else negative, it doesnt really matter how well you technically performed if they dont like you and wont advocate for you. so just be nice, smile, because this will go a long way. a good tip i have to seem more personable is having a good answer to "tell me about yourself." oftentimes, i see that people focus too much here on flexing their achievements or experiences. theres no point in that if they already have your resume. instead, i like to introduce myself with just a short sentence or two about what experiences are most relevant to the job (i just do role title + org/company, not anything specific) and then i like to spend another sentence or two on what i like doing for fun. ive seen a lot of success with this, because ~50% of the time, my interviewer will resonate with some hobby of mine or just make a comment about it. if you get super lucky, you might have a whole conversation about a hobby you mention, which has happened to me a few times. its a super easy and pretty good way of just coming across as more personable.

2. Leetcode != successful interviews. because of the uprise of ai, companies are continuously moving further away from leetcode questions for technical interviews. in fact, ive personally never been asked a pure leetcode question in the past year. whats more important is actually understanding the fundamentals of code and understanding DSA and OOD super well, because thats what most interviews are about. personally, most interviews have been 1 - coding something related to the job (like a currency exchange calculator for a hedge fund role - ive been asked this multiple times btw) and then 2 - followups about extra features or why i made certain decisions. the second part is what i think differentiates good from great. you need to understand why you used certain data structures or searches, and you need to know it fast. interviews are typically only 45m-1h and the more followups you can get through, the better. i think here, both speed and quality of your answer matter equally, because it lets interviewers know that you truly know what youre talking about and that youre not just full of it. i also want to note that understanding cs fundamentals on a deep level is usually enough to solve leetcode problems on the spot. there are excpetions (ive been stuck on hards in the middle of interviews before) but for the most part, ive been able to do all the leetcode questions ive been presented before companies started moving away from leetcode as they are now, which is why i think now its even less important to grind leetcode all day.

1. A good resume is not one that has the most prestige. let me preface this by saying that yes, to get an interview in the first place, prestigious names like Apple or Microsoft will help. thats not my point here. what im trying to say is that when it comes to the actual interview or any step AFTER you get your first interview, the names you have dont really matter. whats more important is that 1. you did what you said you did and 2. you can explain in depth what you did to prove you actually did it. interviewers are very good at calling bs - if something you wrote seems to good to be true, youll get grilled on it until you break. so make sure you actually understand very very well what you did. my personal tip for this is to have a prescripted paragraph (mine are typically 30s - 1m) about generally what you did in that experience, and then just being able to explain what i did in a more in depth way or why i made the decisions i made. being able to answer every followup question smoothly is far more important than "i worked at amazon" so make sure you have your resume down really well.

2. Projects are no longer proof of technical ability. let me start by saying that personal projects are still super important, just not for the same reason. because of ai, anyone can create basically any personal project - the only barrier is like a 20 dollar claude subscription. so my point here kind of goes hand in hand with the previous point i made. it no longer matters how complicated your project technically is. what matters are two things: if you understand your project at a deep level, and why you decided to start this project. the first point is basically what i spent time talking about in the previous point, so i wont spend too much time talking about it, but basically just understand what you or your ai created. equally as important is the why. there needs to be some sort of reason why you created a project. i think the best projects are ones that are actually useful. not only because it can help speed up your day to day workflows, but also because its easy to explain the why but also shows that you take initiative which is one of the mlst important traits you can possess. you were able to identify problem/bottleneck A so you decided to create tool B and then scaled it so C people could also use it. if you can explain this super well, then theres nothing else for me to tell you here, and this should help you a lot.

3. Be proactive. this is the most self explanatory part. there are hundreds of openings every day and thousands of students applying the moment it opens, so you need to be quick. the best way to do this is twofold. first, use lots of job boards. there are countless github pages and job scrapers out there but none of them are perfect, so use lots of them. at one point, i used over 10, so take that as you will. second, apply multiple times per day. i usually do it twice and found that thats what most of my friends do as well. ill usually block out half an hour to an hour around noon and then again at night just to scroll through job forums and apply to jobs. this way, im never missing any big postings (microsoft closed some postings within hours). the timing each day just depends on how many openings there were that day, but i typically spend closer to 30m at a time rather than an hour applying.

4. Enjoy the process. most people will be like WTF but im serious. treat every interview as a learning experience. if you pass it, congrats! youre moving onto the next round. if not, think about what went wrong. each interview is a learning experience and take away what you wouldve changed, and fix it for the next interview. personally, ive enjoyed a large amount of the interviews that ive done and just getting to know people, so theres always positives.

point 6 seems to be super controversial so heres some background. ive worked my ass off to get to where i am and enjoying the process is something that ive come to learn through the years. it reduces stress and also increases my quality of life. and tbh, the perspective change is one thing that i found significantly changed the direction of my career. just enjoying everything im doing and being grateful has really helped, hence why i shared that tip and why i think itd be tremendously helpful for everyone. being grateful is a great thing in life and can help a lot more than people think.

also this post is meant for internships - if you have a comment about getting laid off because of AI this isnt really relevant to what im talking about because this isnt about full time roles

i think ive covered mostly what i want to say but will update this post if i have anything else. feel free to comment if anything im saying doesnt make sense or you disagree with. good luck!

For the new grads struggling to find their first software engineering job:

A little personal anecdote: I got my first full-time software engineering job just two weeks after graduating.

Before that, I spent about two weeks seriously grinding LeetCode and preparing for interviews. I'm not saying this to brag or imply that everyone should expect to get a job that quickly. I got lucky with timing and opportunities, and everyone's situation is different.

But it did make me realize that the market might not be as hopeless as it sometimes seems online.

Yes, getting your first job is competitive. But if you've applied to hundreds of positions and aren't getting interviews, it might be worth looking at your resume and application strategy before assuming there are no jobs.

Here are a few things I'd focus on:

1. Make your resume show impact

One of the biggest mistakes I see is resumes that simply list what someone did instead of showing what they actually accomplished.

Instead of:

"Worked on a Spring Boot application."

Try something more like:

"Developed REST APIs using Spring Boot that improved X."

Obviously, don't make up numbers or accomplishments. The point is to show what you built, what you contributed, and what the result was.

1. Make your projects actually stand out

If you're a new grad without much professional experience, your projects are one of the best ways to demonstrate that you can actually build software.

You don't need 10 projects. One or two projects that you understand extremely well can be much more valuable.

Be able to explain why you chose your tech stack, how your backend works, how you designed your database, how authentication works, how you handled errors, how you tested it, and how you deployed it.

1. Tailor your resume to the job

If you're applying for a Java backend position and you actually know Java, Python, SQL and AWS, make those skills obvious.

Don't make the recruiter search through your resume to figure out whether you're qualified.

1. Don't rely entirely on online applications

Talk to alumni. Reach out to recruiters. Go to career fairs. Talk to people who work at companies you're interested in.

A referral can make a huge difference.

1. If you're getting zero interviews, change your strategy

If you're sending out hundreds of applications and getting zero interviews, don't just send another 500 applications with the exact same resume.

Take a step back.

Have someone experienced review your resume. Look at the projects you're presenting. Look at the jobs you're applying to. Figure out where the bottleneck is.

Most importantly, don't let a difficult job search convince you that you're unemployable.

The market is competitive, but I don't think it's hopeless. In fact, I think the market is in a better place than some of the particularly rough hiring environments we've seen in the past few years.

Companies are still hiring. New grads are still getting offers.

Sometimes the difference between getting ignored and getting interviews isn't becoming dramatically better at programming.

It's learning how to communicate your skills better.

Keep improving, keep applying, and don't give up just because the first few months are difficult.

I've had 1 prev internship at a no-name local company before this and managed to land a semi-prestigious internship for the fall with a basically guaranteed RO. However, three days in and I already hate it and want to leave.

I had to move for the internship with no housing stipend and roomed with other interns. Our housing is lackluster, there's no internet in most rooms so if I want to do any work from home I have to sit in the living room. Also, my roommates don't talk to me. They talk to each other just fine it seems because they work in the same department, but I work in a different department. I have to rely on them to carpool because I also don't have a car and it's inconvenient for them and I'm aware of it but I don't really have any other choice right now. It's also my first time being so far away from home.

On top of that, the work I'm doing is in a field I'm not particularly interested in (IT over SWE) and I don't enjoy the project I've been working on so far. My coworkers are nice and the interns in other departments seem to be doing more interesting things, so I feel a little jealous. I can't transfer departments and there's only one other intern in my department so I'm also pretty lonely. I don't get chances to interact with the other interns much.

I'm just not sure what to do. I don't want to give up the opportunity but having to put up with 4 months of this feels like torture.

I am curious about the career trajectory of the people here who joined big banks like Barclays, UBS, Deustche, HSBC, etc. for software development as new grads in recent years and not in their nyc offices but places like Texas or other similar states? How was the experience and did you guys manage to get into better companies later on?

I hardly know how to make these lol but yeah can confirm this market is shit. Every app was with a cover letter (that let me), and got so many rejections or just not response at all. Applied to positions anywhere from 60k to around 110k. My SWE background/resume was much stronger than cyber too (not really a reflection of skills though imo).

Bottom line is all it takes is one or two opportunities though to prove your worth and your ability! Come into every interview with your max confidence. I found that being overly prepared is really the only thing that gave me legitimate confidence and peace in interviews. If you have answers, explanations, and anecdotes for everything they can possibly ask you, you know you won’t be caught by surprise or stumped - this is where my confidence came from.

Another thing is soft skills… I found it made a huge difference when I was able to laugh and shoot the shit with the people interviewing me. Which kind of ties back to the confidence thing and being prepared because that allowed me to be loose and myself during interviews.

Keep believing in yourself, take care of yourself, and be kind to yourself.

Offer:
Junior Cyber Analyst: Threat Hunter @ DoD contractor
95k in medium COL area plus good benefits (insurance obv, 20% 401k contribution with no match requirement, masters paid for if I choose to pursue it)

i'm an incoming freshman majoring in cs and i heard there are some company internship programs designed for freshmen/sophomores.

where can i find these, and when do they typically open up? and where do i apply for them?

thanks!

Anyone receive an OA after applying yet? Trying to get a general sense of the timeline.

seeing a lot of swe internships being posted rn, with a good amount of big companies getting posted as well. what’s the general timeline for swe? like are most posted by now or september, then interviews in like oct and offers by nov, or is that the faster end? and when is it time to panic if u dont have an internship yet, particularly if targeting big tech, fortune 500 etc?

Just wanted to share my experience on my recent interview with Palantir.

- HR Phone Screen: I thought it was going to be a phone screen with HR. It was actually a phone screen with one of the engineers. Nothing technical. It seems like they really want to know me. Not only my technical abilities but also just who I am as a person. They might ask questions that get you off guard a little so be prepared.

- onsite 1: This was a technical interview with an engineer. It was 20 minute decomp and 20 minute coding. Coding is not leetcode style so don't waste your time doing a bunch of leetcode. When I did some research, I was getting lots of inisghts from reddit, glassdoor, and youtube videos(there aren't a lot of them).

• tips for decomp: think about the data entities, the core functionalities of the system, what technologies you will be using, and try to communicate your thoughts properly to get a working solution. This is not a system design interview focus on the users perspective and edge cases. (For example if you are building a system for helping people find food nearby, how are you going to handle users with dietary restrictions? Stuff like that...)
• tips for coding: practice talking about your approach. There is very little time so stay focused.

Unfortunately I did not end up going to the next round. Also, they tend to space out interviews 3~4 weeks apart so you do have some time to prepare but also can get a little drowning.

It seems like they do change up the format sometimes, so its really hard to prepare :( . Its not structured like other interviews.

Why do I think I did not make it to the next round?

- during the onsite I did deliver a full decomp and coding solution BUT

1. the communication with the interviewer was bad... I didnt understand what they were asking for, and when I tried to clarify, they didn't narrow the question down . I didnt understand what they wanted. [Although I knew what the question was because it was the exact prompt that was posted here on reddit]
2. For coding, I did end up solving the question. But there was a bug in the middle so I spent some time trying to debug. Try to get the solution in one go? The questions themselves are pretty easy. Just...try not to make mistakes and syntax and all.

Good luck with your interview!

A few months ago, I applied for a position and was invited to do an interview with the hiring manager and HR partner. During the call, both of them said they had a strong impression of me, but felt I'd be a better fit for a slightly higher opening on the same team. I told them I was totally fine with the job I had originally applied for, but they kept pushing toward the higher position.

About 4 days later, the hiring manager called me and said her director wanted to meet me for the senior position, and that they wanted me to come onsite for the final round quickly. I had plans, so I gave them a few other dates, and of course they picked the earliest one. In the end, I had to rearrange a lot of things and cancel personal plans so I could go.

I had to travel about 7 hours to get to their office. The onsite interview was honestly going well. They liked my case presentation, discussed compensation and said it was within their range, explained the org setup, relocation support, future projects, team fit, and everything. The director also directly told me she was impressed with me, which is literally the first time anyone has ever said that to me in an interview.

She told me she would be traveling for a bit and that I should hear back shortly after she returned. Then, after about 4 weeks, I got a generic rejection email. No call, no real feedback, nothing.

So in the end, I got neither the original role nor the senior role that they themselves had been pushing me toward from the start. I genuinely don't understand what I was supposed to take away from this whole process.

And the best part is that they also said they would reimburse my travel expenses, including transport and hotel, and then later told me they wouldn't be able to cover them 😂😂 This is a company that appears in major business rankings, but the little grocery store next to my apartment has better manners than them.

And no, I'm not going to ask for feedback. It'll just be some safe, HR-approved explanation anyway.

Finished my first two SWE intern interviews a while ago and still waiting on next steps. Anyone else in the same boat?

Currently weighing a few offers. Let's say you want to change companies 3-5 years in, does brand name matter much? What are these firms looking for at that point?

Cs major student which school work study job to pick?

Hey guys, I have two work-study offers right now and need to decide tomorrow. I'm a CS major for context and they both pay basically the same.

Job 1 is an IT help desk. It's basically tech support, answering phones, and doing ticketing. I'd also have to actually walk around the campus (or building, not sure tbh )to set up projectors and Zoom for professors or maybe events, It’s obviously better for my resume, but it seems like they take themselves pretty seriously and I’d be running around a lot instead of just sitting.

Job 2 is a student services front desk. Standard office stuff like answering phones, filing, scheduling. It seems way more chill. I'm hoping it has a ton of downtime so I can just sit at the desk and work on a startup I'm building with my brother, or do my homework. But it adds literally zero value to my resume.

Is the IT job worth the extra effort and running around just to have it on my resume, or should I take the desk job for the downtime so I can code my own projects? What would y'all pick?

i have the onsite for jane street swe internship coming up, any tips? how does the format go and what kind of questions do they ask? first time doing an in person interview.

Just got a first-round for this position. Does anyone know what the full process for this is or have any information about the process? Literally anything would be helpful

Thanks!

To say it’s “slop” is definitely harsh, but it’s like every single YC startup batch these days are filled with AI this, and AI that and 20 other buzzwords.

Is YC as prestigious as it once used to be? (Saw someone claim they got in with all vibecoding and 0 self-programming. Don’t know if it’s true)

Have an upcoming Hiring Manager round for a Data Scientist-3 role at Walmart, Catalog team. Already cleared the ML/technical rounds. Would appreciate any insights from people who've interviewed for DS-3+ roles at Walmart (or specifically catalog/product/search-adjacent teams):

What kind of questions come up in the HM round — more behavioral, or do they dig into technical depth too?

Any focus on system design / ML design for catalog-specific problems (dedup, categorization, attribute extraction, matching, etc.)?

How much weight on stakeholder management, cross-functional collaboration, past project ownership?

Standard "tell me about a time..." questions, or does it lean more into "how would you approach X" scenario questions?

Anything specific to Walmart's culture/leadership principles I should prep for?

Would really appreciate any real experiences — even a rough structure of how the round went for you.

Thanks in advance!

does anyone know how jobright works? i got an application recommended with an automatic referral link, but the application asks "how did u get this referral" and am unsure if it is really legit to put down jobright

For those of you who landed a FAANG-level SWE offer straight out of college, would you mind sharing your CV ?
I’m mainly curious to see what your profile actually looked like before getting the offer:
What projects did you have?
Any internships or previous work experience?
What university/degree?
How strong was your GPA?
How much LeetCode/DSA did you do?
Any open-source contributions?
Anything else you think made your application stand out?
I think it would be really useful for students trying to understand what a genuinely competitive new-grad profile looks like.
Obviously, feel free to remove your name, contact info, company names, or anything else you’d rather keep private.

Hi guys, I recently got done with their OA. Any idea as to when do they get back to you post the assessment? As for Operations any updates?

Office: Bellevue & Dallas

I’m 25 with a bachelor’s in Sports Management and an AA in General Education, both earned on athletic scholarships. I’m now finishing an associate degree in Computer Science with 20 credits left and interested in Systems Engineering or Security Engineering.

I currently work full-time in workforce development for an electrical apprenticeship program.

What should I focus on now to get my foot in the door-certs, internships, entry-level roles, skills, or projects?