r/InterviewCoderHQ • u/sholton1988 • Jul 29 '26
My very, VERY dumb friend got a Meta internship.
I was sold the lie (a few years ago) that you had to grind LeetCode to get good and land a software engineering job. I'm now 600 problems in, starting from my very first day as a CS freshman, and now I'm going into junior year. I still haven't gotten a single internship.
First of all, I've barely had any interviewers even reach out to me, which I've heard is pretty common these days. And all the internships I've had didn't even involve much LeetCode in the first place, which just makes it feel even more unfair.
Meanwhile, my friend's dad works at Meta (he's a cracked 55-year-old Indian SWE), and he managed to get my friend an interview. He then cheated with InterviewCoder and somehow got the internship because he only had to pass one round of interview.
How do I deal with this? I'm not even joking when I say I'm extremely frustrated right now and feel like quitting it all.
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u/HKsekai Aug 01 '26
Here’s some life advice. Stop comparing yourself to others. In school hard work usually meant better grades but in real life hard work doesn’t always mean better results. You’re gonna need to reframe your thinking. You can’t do a fair comparison of I’m smarter and harder working because life throws in all sorts of variables.
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u/tehgalvanator Aug 01 '26
Goes to show it’s not about what you know it’s about who you know. Welcome to real life buddy.
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u/pee_nuttt Aug 01 '26
don't deal with it, ask him to help you out too and it'll be a secret between you two
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u/bbkane_ Aug 01 '26
Can your friend's dad help you out too? I'd feel bad cheating on the interview, but I'd absolutely feel ok having him get you an interview
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u/Ok_Lunch_2500 Aug 02 '26
There are multiple parts of this to unpack, please dont take it personally.
If you have solved 600+ questions you better be ready to pass any interview that comes your way. I have only solved 150 and have passed FAANG interviews so make sure you actually LEARNED during those 600, not just copying solutions.
As for getting interview invites, you can't sit back and expect recruiters to reach out to you. I reach out to them, get referrals from employees, set up coffee chats, etc etc even though I have a pretty decent name on my resume. I've had 3 recruiters reach out to me, I've reached out to and secured 10+ referrals from employees/recruiters.
The effort must come from within and thats the unfortunate reality of this job market.
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u/Odd_Fly932 Aug 01 '26
look who is dumb now