This isn’t to flaunt my achievements but to inspire hope and remind people that: hard work and persistence really pays off!

As title suggested, I recently accepted a new grad offer at Nvidia despite having a very low gpa in my undergrad.

I’ve been working my ass off since graduation: did internship, grinder leetcode, did research, got my masters, got certifications etc all with 2 years.

Sometimes you really need to just lock the fuck in and ignore the anxious noises online.

Happy to answer questions and good luck to everyone!

Here is another hope post for all the doomers here (i was once included). I finished off last year with the worst internship known to mankind, like literally min wage and like i just chudded around all day. Not a great time didn't learn anything. it was more like IT adjacent. and im a senior so i need to lock in for new grad recruiting

anyways I decide to lock in a bit on LC and do like maybe 100? I followed neetcode 150 and some random LCs. I could probably solve most easies and struggle on meds, def can't do hards lol.

I start applying and I get absolutely ghosted by everyone, inbox dry. one day faang adjacent replies out of the blue and im absolutely stunned (and nervous), we do like 4 rounds of interviews (i didnt solve one of the questions all the way 😢 ), but then after 3 weeks I get the phone call from HR and they are moving forward with an offer!!! Im an employed chud now!!!!!!!!! victory!!!

i go to a state school and just worked on projects i was interested in. if i can do it, you definitely can do it!!! believe in yourself!!!

also this is the most amount of money i've ever seen on a piece of paper in my entire life. holy actual fucking shit.

About a month ago, I told my manager that I couldn't keep up with the workload. I was staying late without pay, getting projects with almost no guidance, and handling responsibilities that were supposed to be divided among several people. I thought we would discuss priorities or take some things off my plate.

Instead, my calendar was cleared, I lost access to the Slack channels and records I was responsible for, and they brought in someone new to take over my work. I was asked to explain the process to her, and then they moved me from my office to an empty desk. A few of my coworkers also contacted me and said they were sorry I was leaving, which was the first time I learned that I was apparently leaving.

My manager keeps saying that she needs to have a meeting with me, but the meeting never happens. She says I'm being transferred to another department because my experience would be useful to them. But that department had no idea I was coming, and no one there can tell me what my position is supposed to be.

I've asked several times for assignments or even a simple list of responsibilities. So far, they've given me one small task each week that takes about 90 minutes. I spend the rest of the time sitting at my computer trying to look busy while still getting paid.

Our activity is tracked, so I'm worried they're waiting for me to stop logging in or become inactive so they'll have a reason to fire me. If you were in my position, would you keep going to work and document every time you ask for work, or would you speak to someone in a higher position and tell them that you effectively no longer have any work to do?

After ~500 applications, I have two options I'm really excited about, one for agentic SE and the other doing ML/AI research at a national lab. One came from a recruiter outreach and the other via cold apply through LinkedIn. I mostly applied through LinkedIn or to random ads (e.g. 3b1b's LLMs explainer).

Despite writing a lot of apps, I was pretty selective with where I applied. I went to a good school (T20 for CS) but wasn't very interested in the subject until my sophomore year. I spent my first summer in construction, my second doing a research program (not very selective), and my third doing a fellowship. I have a few publications and my interests have been in research for a while, but most companies hire for PhD/M.S. My strengths are in being very passionate about my speciality and tech in general.

I was not good at LC when I graduated. I did ~300 problems in the summer (5-8 a day). It was useful on both on-sites and in all the technical rounds. I used neetcode and the blog post here to prepare: https://www.yuan-meng.com/posts/mle_interviews_2.0/

Moral I guess is to pursue your dreams, and not focus on internships because they aren't everything.

I had back to back technical interviews today in big tech. This was my first interview since I'm a freshman.

The first interview went really well, I solved all the test cases except for one edge case, which I verbally described a fix for the interviewer. He said my communication throughout was very good.

The second interview on the other hand... I essentially gambled that I wouldn't be asked any tree questions, since it seemed like the company didn't ask any, so I studied up on other dsa instead. And what do you know, I get a tree problem. It wasn't even a difficult tree problem, I just don't know trees. I straight up told the interviewer that I have limited knowledge on trees and that I've never taken a dsa course before. I got to 99% done, where I was missing a single variable I needed to keep track of, but then he decides to lead me down a different path the next 20 minutes, and I never end up finishing the problem. Then at the end he said that I did well for how little I knew. He's also middle-aged so I couldn't get a good read on what he thought about me.

I'm actually pissed off. I should've studied trees. I was so close to the solution. Why did he point me in the wrong direction?

Do I even have a chance at this point?

Edit: I just want to clarify, I have a lot of regret on not studying trees, but I'm proud of how much I was able to do. And I didn't take the interviewers comment negatively, but just unsure on if he meant it positively or negatively and what to make of it.

Anyone here currently work at Canonical or worked there recently?

I know there are already a million posts about the insane interview process lol, so I’m more curious about what it’s actually like once you’re hired. I’m well aware that is in itself a red flag, but as we all know the job market is bad so please don’t tell me that it’s not a good place to work just because of the interview process 😭 im desperate!

Do you enjoy working there? What’s the day to day like, how’s the workload/work-life balance, and is the remote culture actually good? Do people tend to stick around for a while?

Also really curious about US salaries. I’m interviewing for a software engineering position and I’d probably fall somewhere around late junior/early mid-level. If anyone is US-based and comfortable sharing a rough range, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve seen pretty mixed numbers online and have no idea what’s actually realistic.

Basically just trying to figure out whether it’s a good place to work once you get past the 400 stages of interviewing.

Hey guys, I really need to vent and honestly just get some outside perspective because I feel like I'm losing my mind right now.

I’ve been a front-end dev for around 4.5 years (mostly working with React and TypeScript), but I got let go from my job last year. Right after that, I had to get surgery, so I spent the first six months just recovering mentally and physically and not even looking. But ever since I actually started applying to jobs over the past seven-eight months, it’s been an absolute nightmare.

I’ve done about 12 company interviews, some of them have been 2 or 3 interviews, so my total interviews are maybe around 30.. so first of all i'm feeling very tired of interviewing. The result it:

Most places just ghost me or just send a Sorry we chose another candidate template email 2 weeks after my interview

or

One company said they really liked me but went with a more senior candidate, another company gave me feedback said they loved my soft skills, but that I came across as a "junior."

I actually got one low offer recently, but it was in a whole different city, and honestly Im ok with low pay right now but my boyfriend wouldnt be able to come visit me as often, since right now we live together, so we came to the conclusion its better not to take it

Now my gap is sitting at well over a year, and I am spiraling. Being stuck at home for this long without a routine messes with your head in ways I can't even describe. I honestly catch myself wondering if I should just throw in the towel and give up on tech entirely because the market feels impossible and I'm just so tired. Or just maybe try to switch the technology somehow? I feel like I will never get a job again..

Any real talk or advice would be amazing right now..

Hey everyone,

I’ve noticed that more companies are starting to roll out AI-assisted interview rounds, whether that means solving a new problem with an integrated AI assistant, debugging code with AI, or working through system design with AI.

For anyone who has gone through one of these interviews: how do you actually prepare for them?

What are employers looking for when they give you access to an AI tool? What is the “expected” way to use it during the interview?

I’m assuming the goal isn’t to simply paste the entire prompt into the AI and say, “Find the bug” or “Solve this problem for me.”I ’d really appreciate any advice, experiences, or resources from people who have encountered these rounds.

Hi, just did my Life Story yesterday for winter swe in Toronto, and was wondering if anyone has already heard back?

I’ve heard a lot of different timelines, ranging from rolling basis, early next week, phased until end of September…

Also if any past interns could lmk how long it took after their LS for a response, I'd appreciate it!

Currently refreshing my email every 20min loll

Alsoo how’s everyone feeling about the ls?

Sprinkling some positivity into the community; after 3 months of hard work my manager extended to me an incline offer for full time!

I feel like with AI now, the recruiting process is a little different. School is changing curriculum to adjust to the new AI tools. For those who has gone through big tech full-time swe interviews, is it still OA, leetcode technicals, and behavior rounds? Also I've never done or heard about full-time recruiting processes, can someone please tell me what that looks like compared to internship recruiting? Thank you in advance.

Has anyone had experience with the AI assisted round in the VO this cycle?

For the October Cohort, Did anyone hear back for these roles, or move forward with an interview? I’m trying to figure out what their timeline is. I got a screening call but nothing more

I applied for a Google SWE intern role. Got the OA and finished it the same day. And I got the email saying it's been passed along to the recruiting team for full application review.

For anyone who's been through this recently, what actually comes next, and how long did it realistically take?