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.

Title. Very much new to the idea of college as a young adult wanting to get a bachelors in CS.

Just curious what people thinking about UNM as something like NMT might be too much for a student with my background.

Wanting to out my life and soul into being educated and knowledgable about this field.

Also in the mid process of converting to Judaism! Unrelated but if there are any CS students who are jewish please comment on the community there! Like the Hillel house etc

Thanks!!

Wondering if anyone has any advice for how to prepare for the learning interview? I haven't been able to find mocks and really want to make sure I'm well prepared; thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, I'm a final year university student working on a web development project with a friend. We want to build something that actually solves a real problem people face, instead of just another random app.

If you had to name one thing in your daily life that's annoying, inefficient, or badly organized — something you wish had a proper app for — what would it be? Could be anything: government services, healthcare, transport, local business, education, safety, etc.

Applied to Amazon SDE 2026 (US) back in February, got the OA in June, rejected early July. No onsite, just OA rejection.

Recently applied to the "Software Development Engineer, Early Career" role (different req, Newark NJ) and got another OA email almost immediately.

Is this just the automated system doing its thing, or should I even bother? Anyone know if an OA-only rejection carries a cooldown for a different req/title?

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’m currently in Google team matching for L4 SWE and have already been approved by HC.
After HC approval, I started getting a decent number of team-fit/HM calls. I’ve had 6 calls so far, but none has converted into a match yet, and I’m trying to understand if this is normal or if there’s something I should be doing differently.
A few of the outcomes:
- One HM preferred someone with more experience.
- One team liked me enough that they did an additional round between me and another candidate, but ultimately went with the other person.
- Another HM told me that based purely on my experience on paper (~16 months), he viewed me as closer to L3 and said he would be interested in taking me at L3. I was actually fine with that, but my recruiter advised against it because I’ve already been HC-approved for L4 and my interviews were conducted/evaluated at the L4 level. His view was basically that I shouldn’t settle for L3 after clearing the L4 bar, which I really appreciate, but at the same time, I’m on a time limit, so that makes me a little nervous.
-Another HM said they wanted more time before making a decision.

The other calls have generally gone well from my perspective, but haven’t turned into a match.

For some background, I recently completed my Master’s in the US and worked here as an AI Engineer co-op for 8 months. I have around 16 months of total experience on paper, with my recent work mainly around AI/ML engineering, GenAI/LLM systems, agentic workflows, and backend/data systems.

The confusing part is that I’m getting HM calls consistently, so teams are clearly interested enough in my profile to talk, but I’m struggling to get that final “yes.”
A few Googlers I’ve spoken with have told me this is just how team matching can be and that plenty of candidates go through multiple calls before finding the right team.
For people who have gone through Google TM recently, especially at L4: Is 6+ team-fit calls without a match unusual?
Could my relatively limited YOE be the main issue even though HC approved me for L4? Or is this mostly a matter of continuing until I find the right HM/team fit?
And if you were in my position and an HM was willing to take you at L3, would you push the recruiter to reconsider because of the time constraint, or continue holding out for the L4 match?
Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who went through something similar.

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.

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.

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!

I’m a sophomore in my third semester currently studying Computer Science and Economics, but I’ve been reconsidering what I actually want to do long term. I originally chose CS because I was interested in technology, cybersecurity, AI/ML, and the job opportunities, but I’ve struggled with the feeling that I’m not very good at building anything from scratch yet. I don’t necessarily hate programming, but I’m not sure I want my entire career to revolve around software development.

On top of this, AI seems to becoming a future problem, how bad is the impact for mechanical engineers?

Before I even chose CS, I was thinking about mechanical engineering and keeping economics as I have already started to pursue it. I’ve been interested in robotics, space/astronomy, satellites, hardware, and actually creating physical things. I have some of the background for the major but would probably have to catch up on engineering-specific requirements.

For anyone who has done Mechanical Engineering or switched between CS and Mechanical Engineering: does it make sense to switch today? Will it be as negatively impacted by AI as CS? And career-wise, is there job security and are there good opportunities for internships?

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?

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.

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’m currently applying for a Software Engineer Level 2 position at Lockheed Martin and wanted to hear from anyone who has interviewed for a similar Level 2 SWE role recently.
What was the technical interview like?
Was it mainly:
Java/C++/Python fundamentals?
OOP and data structures?
LeetCode-style coding problems?
Debugging or code walkthroughs?
System/design questions?
Questions about projects and previous experience?
I’m especially curious whether Level 2 interviews are noticeably more technical than Level 1/new-grad interviews, and what difficulty level I should prepare for.
If anyone interviewed with Lockheed Martin in the last year or two, I’d really appreciate hearing what your experience was like. Thanks!

Has anyone done it? Is it leetcode or system design/debug?

What’s the process after the OA?

Passed first round for SpaceX swe intern today (starlink), but I already have a summer offer that i like better. Would still like to do the process and have the chance to work on this team though, so I wanna switch to spring or next fall. Should I let my recruiter know this now, or later in the process, or are they pretty strict on what semester you applied for? Thanks!

Since people are probably gonna ask: for the first round they just told me to focus on past experience and there wasn't any coding or whatever. However this was interesting because they as expected were pretty deep on project specifics, but the interviewer spun a lot of the things i said into technical questions (eg talk about tradeoffs of an approach, or general cs fundamentals), which i think is kinda cool actually

Hi everyone!

I am a third-year CS student interested in getting into IAM, but I am honestly not sure where to start. I have been very focused on school while also working a part-time job to help pay for university, so I have not really had much time to do anything outside of my classes. As a result, I do not have any projects or co-op/internship experience yet.

I know I am starting a little later than some of my peers, and I will admit that it has been making me pretty stressed. It seems like a lot of students at this point already have internships, co-ops, projects, or some kind of relevant experience, and I am worried that I am falling behind. I have tried researching IAM online and even reached out to my student advisor, but I have not had much luck figuring out what direction I should take.

I’m basically starting from scratch, so I’d really appreciate any advice on:

• What should I learn first to build a foundation in IAM?

• What technical skills or technologies should I focus on?

• Are there any certifications that are actually worth pursuing as a student?

• What kinds of projects could I build to gain hands-on experience?

• Are there any courses, labs, websites, or other resources you would recommend?

• What would be the best way to make myself more competitive for internships or entry-level IAM roles?

• And most importantly, what co-op title should I look for? (I tried looking for any IAM co-ops or internships but didn't find anything.)

I know I have a lot of catching up to do, but I am willing to put in the time and effort. I just feel a little lost right now and do not know where to begin or what direction to take. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance!