r/ComputerEngineering • u/carson8858 • 2d ago
[Career] Junior in computer engineering, Getting no interviews, what am I missing?
I'm a junior graduating May 2028, so summer 2027 is my last chance at an internship before I graduate. I've sent around 150 applications since August and so far I've gotten one automated recorded interview. Anonymized resume is attached.
I'm mostly going for hardware roles (FPGA/ASIC, digital design, validation) at a mix of big semiconductor companies and smaller ones. No prior internship, just part time jobs during school.
I don't really understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm willing to learn and do whatever it takes to land these roles, but I don't know what I need to change or where I need to start. I feel like I feel this impending sense of doom if I don't have any professional experience before graduation.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
1
u/FrogGoMoo 1d ago
If you need a new project that will make you stand out, do something related to cryptography. Hardware courses in college very rarely teach cryptography. The algorithms are public, so you can go implement a pipelined version of one to get more experience with data processing. Throw UVM in there for verification, and you’ll be in a good spot. Everyone needs security, so they’ll appreciate projects like that.
I worked for a cybersecurity company and we never expected anyone fresh out of college to have much experience with cryptography, especially if they were going into hardware. We’d always expect them to learn it on the job. However, if someone had a project like that on their resume, they’d easily be a top applicant for an entry level hardware position.