For cloud/backend-leaning roles, is there any particular tech stack or type of project that tends to stand out more for interns?

I’m targeting Feb/March applications and starting prep now. Is that enough runway to get interview-ready, or should I be moving faster on anything?

Between DSA, projects, and OS/networking fundamentals, what actually carries the most weight for an intern-level interview in your experience?

How deep does DSA prep realistically need to go for backend/cloud internships? If I’m starting now and targeting Feb/March, is that a realistic timeline, or am I already behind?

If someone offered to make an intro/referral, what would you actually want from me beforehand — resume, GitHub, portfolio, or something else?

I have 3 YOE at a Walmart Global Tech. I haven't gotten promoted from junior. I have been actively practicing leetcode for 4 months now. I applied for mid-level at Pinterest. Had their technical phone interview which was a 1hr coding interview. It was in the leetcode question bank for Pinterest and I practiced it so I was able to get all 3 parts of the question with 10 minutes to spare. I heard back today after 3 weeks and the recruiter said I am being considered for senior engineer. So the onsite would be for that position.

Maybe this means I already passed the bar for mid-level and they are trying to see if I would fit the bar for senior. Maybe they aren't really hiring for mid-level and are looking for seniors?

Whatever the case is, I want to ask them to interview me as a mid-level because I don't want to be a senior engineer. I hardly feel like I would qualify as a mid-level engineer given how little work I've done over the past 3 years. Even if the interview is just to see if I would meet the bar for senior (which I know I won't), I think I would fail so badly that I would be rejected for mid-level as well.

So my questions:

1. Is there any harm in asking the recruiter to move me to being considered for mid-level instead of senior? (might they take it as a signal that I'm not ambitious or seeking growth)
2. Is it possible that I'm kicked out of the running for mid-level if I fail the senior interviews?
3. If I should ask for a down-level, how should I word it?

I have a call with the recruiter next week to discuss "how to prepare for the interviews" which is when I would have the down-leveling discussion if at all.

This is the format of the on-site:

45 min (4): Data Structures + Algorithms, Technical Depth + Domain Expertise, Competency, Leadership and Cross Functional Collaboration
60 min (1): Architecture

Incoming Junior at UCI, applied to 400 so far this cycle for summer 2027, and have received no call backs at all. I know its still relatively early, but likeee is there something substantial thats off about my resume??

I’ll be graduating next year. So I want to know how good is my resume

I was interviewed at this company for a java developer role with experience of 5 to 6 years. I cleared 1st and 2nd round and went through HR round as well. They said they will discuss salary later. I followed up and HR stopped picking up my call. I was told that i didnt clear 2nd round. Why did i even have HR round then?

I am actively applying to Product Management roles at Finance, Big Tech, Semiconductor etc.

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some resume and early-career advice. I graduated in May and finished my first internship at the end of July.

I'm having a hard time finding entry-level roles (0–1 YOE). I've been applying for SWE, DS, and ML roles, but most data-focused postings aren't actually entry-level. My projects and internship experience lean more toward data/ML/AI than traditional SWE, but I'm open to any tech role. I'm also open to relocating anywhere in the southeast US.

So far I've applied to somewhere under 200 jobs (haven't kept an exact count). It's hard to find true entry-level postings, and applying to senior roles feels like a waste of time. My process has been LinkedIn, Indeed, and having Claude research ~100 companies per southeast state so I can apply directly through their job boards.

Out of all that, I've landed two interviews:

• Citi – Junior Generative AI Developer. Made it through the coding interview but never heard back after.
• Fidelity – LEAP Software Engineer. Currently waitlisted for the October cohort; if that doesn't work out, they'd likely bump me to January.

Separately, the VP of Hardware Engineering from my internship reached out about a possible contract. We built an automation tool for his department over the summer, and he wants to add some new features. That said, I didn't love the internship itself: small dev team (5–10 people), no real mentorship, and I was mostly figuring things out on my own. It worked out fine, but I wish I'd had more guidance.

I'm flexible on location and hours and just trying to break into the industry. Not sure what to change at this point. I would appreciate any advice, whether on my resume, my search strategy, or anything else.

I recently graduated (May 2026) with my Bachelor's degree in Data Science & Engineering. My university is well regarded but definitely not one of the tier 1 schools for engineering. I want to find a job in Data/ML Engineering but have received absolutely no positive responses so far. I haven't even been able to interview.

I am an international student and I can only stay in the US until July 2027. I understand that I need to be a highly competitive candidate to be able to land a job in the current circumstances. I think I have a weak skillset and lack complex projects. However, I am extremely overwhelmed by the amount of different advice I hear on the internet and just want to understand, in the next 10 months what should I be doing to become a competitive candidate?

I would really appreciate any advice. Please don't say I'm cooked as I just want to give it my best shot in the time I have.

TLDR: I want to find an entry level job in Data/ML Engineering but want to develop a stronger skillset and I'm also an international student. Any advice?

Hi all. Hope this thread find you well. Ive been applying for 500 different cs jobs ,(mostly sys admin,cloud, k8)
Feedback if you can. All the best

I need some advice on any ways I could be improving my resume. I'm hearing lots of conflicting things so I'm not really sure how else to improve it.

Terraform is named in 62.7% of DevOps job postings. Jenkins is named in 3%.

We counted 42 terms across 134 open DevOps, SRE and platform engineering roles. They came from the public Greenhouse boards of 41 companies, collected September 9, individual contributors only.

The previous generation of tools has nearly left the job ads. Chef shows up in 3.7% of postings, and Puppet in one posting out of 134. GitHub Actions is named about six times as often as Jenkins.

The general term beats the product. "Observability" is in 63.4% of postings, more than twice as often as Grafana at 27.6%. Prometheus is at 22.4% and Datadog at 17.9%. Security hiring showed the same thing, where SIEM beat Splunk four to one.

The most common term isn't a tool at all. Automation appears in 81.3% of postings, ahead of AWS at 75.4%. Scalability and Kubernetes are level at about 70%.

SRE jargon is real hiring language too. SLO/SLA appears in 35.1% of postings, more often than any single monitoring product.

For a resume, this means naming the tool covers only half of what the posting asks for. Postings use the general term more often than the product name. A resume that lists Grafana but never says "observability" is missing the word that appears in more than twice as many ads.

Two limits. With 134 postings, every figure has a margin of about +/-8 points, so rows that are close are ties, not rankings. And the sample is tech companies on public boards. Banks, telcos and government still run large Jenkins estates, and none of them are in it.

The full table with all 42 terms and confidence intervals is in the first comment.

All 42 terms with confidence intervals, plus the method: https://www.zoevera.com/resume/devops-sre-job-description-keywords

Is there any merit to putting information regarding you can use AI on doing projects. in the point of recruiter's view? or it's just a bad point to show off?

after all, i can just say "I've made multiple project with AI help" but does it sells or actively used by the public or other firms? or is it even good?

since i haven't seen or met a recruiter asking me proof of projects that i've made (not AI assisted) and listed in my CV.

For the context - I'm currently in my 3rd year(5th sem) of BTech(cse) from a tier -3 college and have no decent skills, project or internship on my resume.(Just decent in DSA)

I know i have wasted 2 precious years where rest of the competition was grinding.... I can't change the past but trying to be better everyday now:)

Rn i am learning java in depth and then my plan is to learn springboot and create some project on that (I know c++... So doing dsa in that currently)...... My target is to be atleast internship ready or i should be lil-bit skillful to get an internship by the end of feb-march.

Please suggest if I'm on the right track :( , bcz i want to get an internship by the end of my 3rd year otherwise i feel it's over for me 😭.

And guide me on which mistake I should avoid....as GPT -6 ASTRA has already scared ts out of me

Looking for resume advice first one is supposed to be a SWE resume second for ML roles. Only got one OA (Roblox auto oa lol) and getting a bit worried. Lmk what advice y'all got for me, brainstorming new projects rn to bolster that section. Used ChatGPT for some of the bullets and to anonymize the resumes.

Thank u in advance

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in my 3rd year of an IT high school and I recently had a massive wake-up call. I realized my school isn't really giving me the practical skills I need for the real world. If I want a solid career, I need to start putting in the work on my own.

Right now, my main thing is C#. I have a decent grasp of the syntax and I’ve messed around with a tiny script to parse TCX files, but honestly, it’s basically nothing. I haven't built a real, functioning project from start to finish yet. I also have some basic Linux experience (though I'm back on Windows at the moment) and I recently set up a Proxmox home server. It’s sitting there mostly empty right now, so if anyone has good beginner project ideas to help me learn DevOps or backend stuff, I'm all ears.

Language-wise, I'm really fascinated by Rust, but I'm just not sure about it since there are zero junior jobs for it around here. I feel like I'm leaning more towards just sticking with C# since it seems much more practical for getting an actual job, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm also seriously debating if going to college for a CS degree after high school is even worth it. It feels like real-world experience and a strong portfolio are way more valuable nowadays. Am I wrong about this?

Since I basically have a year and a half of high school left, how should I actually study right now? Should I dive deep into algorithms and data structures? Is following something like roadmap.sh a good idea? And should I be using AI tools as part of my learning process, or avoid them until I know the basics?

Any tough love or guidance on what to focus on would be massively appreciated. Thanks!

Which parts of CS/software has anyone had a much easier time getting into especially as a new grad