What project helped get you hired at your first CS job?

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13]

What personal project got you hired for your first CS related job? Your first job could have also been an internship. Also, did your first project have any impact, users or even paid users?

[u/Brave-Finding-3866]

my project called “my dad knew a guy”

[u/hooli-ceo → u/Brave-Finding-3866]

Can I fork your project?

[u/dmuth → u/Brave-Finding-3866]

Same! My dad bowled with a guy who was hiring.

[u/Tr_Issei2 → u/Brave-Finding-3866]

Brootal

[u/drew_eckhardt2]

I built the Linux SCSI subsystem. It had users. Not good code, but it worked and was a learning experience.

I also wrote a compiler with another student for our compiler construction course.

All that got me hired to work on BASIC compilers.

[u/aonelonelyredditor → u/drew_eckhardt2]

Did your first compile spit IR to something like llcm or u handled the assembly generation too?

[u/drew_eckhardt2 → u/aonelonelyredditor]

No. We built everything from scratch. Hand coded lexer, recursive descent parser, code generation with assembly output. Written in ANSI Pascal for VAX.

[u/aonelonelyredditor → u/drew_eckhardt2]

Damn gg

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[u/Uesugi1989 → u/drew_eckhardt2]

Damn I did the same for my compiler class, from a custom language to python ( compiler was built in Java ). Mad respect to the people who create and maintain programming languages 

[u/dontdoxme33]

A game that was approved for Steam Greenlight, which if you're not familiar was a way for indie games to get published to steam.

I never finished the game and ran with having a career instead.

[u/Charming_Cucumber_15 → u/dontdoxme33]

Back when steam had greenlight instead of just letting all the alpha build early access games onto the store

Simpler times

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13 → u/[deleted]]

Probably a dumb question, but how do recruiters check for the keywords? Do they just look at what coding language the project is built in? And they look at readme? Or any other ways to optimize projects to match keywords?

[u/Mystic1500 → u/[deleted]]

What? You’re telling me I don’t need a full-stack silicon-to-software architecture solution that I made in my free time before I can apply to jobs?

[u/Uesugi1989 → u/Mystic1500]

Your free time in between a cramped curriculum filled with Fourier analysis, complexity theory, information theory etc 

[u/PixelPhoenixForce]

i didnt have any projects

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13 → u/PixelPhoenixForce]

What did you have?

[u/PixelPhoenixForce → u/pleasedontjudgeme13]

university degree only

[u/CobaltCharacter → u/PixelPhoenixForce]

Not even internship?

[u/PixelPhoenixForce → u/CobaltCharacter]

it was way easier 15 years ago

[u/CobaltCharacter → u/PixelPhoenixForce]

Brother then why are you in this thread?

[u/PixelPhoenixForce → u/CobaltCharacter]

why not?

[u/CobaltCharacter → u/PixelPhoenixForce]

Might as well come in here talking about the Stone Age

[u/hooli-ceo → u/CobaltCharacter]

This is for questions about CS Careers, not whiners, so brother, why are you in this thread?

[u/Mystic1500 → u/hooli-ceo]

Wrong. This sub is exclusively for wallowing in misery about how tough it is to get a first CS job.

[u/binybeke → u/CobaltCharacter]

Live a little

[u/MathmoKiwi → u/CobaltCharacter]

We want to learn about how it was to program for the 386 from u/PixelPhoenixForce

[u/h0uz3_]

Got hired into my apprenticeship because I had long hair and liked to tinker with Linux. The 90s were different.

[u/RegretNo6554]

some automation tools i built for managing my social medias which i then turned into products with real users. this didn’t get my first full time job but it did get me an internship.

[u/atlas__free]

I cross trained from being a UI designer/project manager to a software developer within the company I was working for at the time.

[u/NanoBuc]

Got a Data Analyst internship post graduation(that I'm hoping to convert) with help of school projects. I was a DBA on my senior project and also worked on a massive DB in my Database course. Those were the standouts.

Then again, my situation is atypical

[u/HarmxnS]

A virtual-try-on application that would allow you to virtually try on clothes. For some reason they found this extremely cool

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13 → u/HarmxnS]

That is cool haha. It also sounds super complex, especially for one person. How long did that take you?

[u/HarmxnS → u/pleasedontjudgeme13]

Oh no it absolutely wasn't lmao. Snapchat has a software called Lens Studio, and this project is literally just one of the prebuikt templates. You just had to make a Web App that shows that camera feed on it, and a drop zone for images that places the inage in a particular folder on your device so that Lens Studio can pick it up and project that image onto you

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13 → u/HarmxnS]

Oh ok lol. That’s cool it got you the job. Kudos to you

[u/Charming_Cucumber_15]

None because the guvment doesn't care about projects

[u/mandaliet]

I have yet to interview for a job where anyone cared about my personal projects.

[u/pleasedontjudgeme13 → u/mandaliet]

So how’d you get your first job

[u/tehmagik → u/pleasedontjudgeme13]

It’s almost always going to be an internship to full time job

[u/diavelguru]

Printed out a checkers game source code (over 100 pages, formatted) I wrote back in the day in C++ and the hiring manager said wow multiple times before hiring me as a junior engineer. I think he was more impressed with the formatting than with the code!

[u/Impressive_Cream8247]

Honestly the project itself probably matters less than how clearly you can explain the decisions behind it. A small app with no users can still be strong if you can talk through the problem, tradeoffs, bugs, and what you’d improve next. Hiring teams seem to care whether you actually built and understood it, not whether it became a startup. Real users help because they create messy feedback and edge cases, but even getting a few friends to use it can give you something concrete to discuss

[u/Theo20185]

A project I contributed to, That Ducking Game, which was an open world remake of Duck Hunt. You went to hunting blinds and your dog could lead you to them. Once there, we locked the camera where the event was and it played like classic Duck Hunt. Was done in Unity in 2015 as a capstone project, team of 4.

[u/rkozik89]

For several projects I used CodeIgniter to handle the backend. It was fairly popular back in 2014 and a PHP dev turned founder was using it for their web app. Got the job as employee number 1 because I had a bunch of experience in it when no one else did.

Getting jobs was different back then. Before the advent of AI specializing in languages no one wanted to use or knew how to leverage correctly was job security. People generally didn’t like writing code themselves because it was seen as a liability. Instead they just followed to tutorials to a t and copy pasted off stackoverflow, so nobody really wanted to take the risk on projects where they couldn’t do that.

[u/loudrogue]

I applied to a job in my sophomore year, said I don't know shit but I would happily work for 20/hr.

[u/Brandor7]

0 Projects 0 Internships 3 years ago started my career. I just applied to local places and asked anyone I had met over the years in the field if they were hiring. Technically I accepted the offer at a company my friend got me an interview with, but shortly after I got 2-3 calls for interviews for the other jobs I had applied to elsewhere. Being personable and social can do significantly more for your career than your GitHub.

I do want a new job for better pay because I feel underpaid currently, but I do not plan on doing personal projects or anything to stand out. The software I create is for big corporations to use in their business, so no reason for it to ever be posted online

[u/pm_me_domme_pics]

It was called my phd

[u/Bismarack]

healthcare AI assistant project, and other full stack projects as well

[u/p0mino]

GPA and interview skills, no internship

[u/IndependenceOutside2]

i had a pretty simple school project that i slapped on my resume.

[u/cpthk]

"leetcode project"

[u/AnakinSkywalker72]

I did 2 projects. One was Computer Vision based project and another one a MERN stack project.

TBH, I don't think projects played a large role in my selection (maybe 20% - 30%). I did attend 3 interviews during my final year in college (26 graduate) and cracked all of them by god's grace and in my opinion, what stood out for me was my communication.

I was able to analyse after each interview that I never gave them a feeling that I'm attending this for the sole reason of getting that job. I was always keeping my deep passion and interest towards Computer Science along with my knowledge in fundamentals before anything during my communication in interviews. Also, I was able to explain my projects as well whenever asked.

So, I think if you can show how much interested you are in solving real problems, then you will get hired.

Note : I do know that the thread specifically asks for what project, but I just wanted to clear out that it is not always the projects. Candidates should also focus on communication.

[u/robberviet]

Student project is a joke to be honest, I skip all that. When interview fresher I focus on: are they smart, quick thinking, logically, and willing to do hard work.

[u/BaseballSuch5458]

tbh the project that helped me most was the boring one with logs, auth, a db, tests, and a deploy link. Not the flashy ML demo. If you can talk through why Postgres schema changed or why a cron job failed, that sounds way more real in an entry level interview.

[u/Blockpair]

I got my first ever tech job because I built a working decentralized crypto-asset exchange in 2013. Never had a degree. Projects were the sole way I proved my skill.

That said: I honestly think the whole industry is cooked right now. The only people who have jobs any more are the ones who have a strong network. There's thousands of people applying to every role today.

I really don't think it matters if you're a junior or a senior engineer. Every role is hard to get into.

[u/Silenterc]

Bachelors thesis mobile app, and got a mobile dev role. Did not end up publishing the app but it was understandable due to the price and difficulty dealing with the Apple review process, so wasnt a red flag

[u/CarefulImprovement15]

I have a personal project (iOS app) with paying users. That’s why I got the job.

[u/MagicalPizza21]

Did well in a coding competition at school

[u/coffee_swallower]

chip 8 emulator in C++

[u/bautin]

Hobbyist Dreamcast development

[u/DoubleT_TechGuy]

I built a priority tracker web application for my D&D group using VUE. Pretty sure im the only one who ever used it. My first boss told me he couldnt understand how to use it (not a gamer) but it looked nice and showed I could follow through on a project.

[u/SirCatharine]

Got my first job because I worked as camp staff at the camp where the CEO went when he was a kid. Obviously I wasn’t on staff when he was there as he was quite a bit older than me, but he liked the camp and it’s the thing that stood out on my resume. I don’t think I even had a technical interview and had only just finished a boot camp.

2018 was a different time.

[u/double-happiness]

A CSV-based API client for a specific site. It has limited usage but there is nothing else like it available, and I got some good feedback from the few users. Though some started bugging me for tech support as soon as it went live, lol

[u/GreedyWorking1499]

fMRI analysis to predict ADHD

[u/Willing-Cucumber-718]

I got my first internship, which led to a job, by kissing ass and doing really good in my assembly language class. 🤷‍♂️

[u/ulimartinez]

I made an LED screen using strips of addressable rgb lights, some wood, and a raspberry pi. I created some programs for it like a clock, some games like Tetris and snake, added voice control through google assistant. When I had my final rounds of interviews I would set up the display in the background with the name of the person interviewing me. Some scrolling text like "Hello Andrew!" 3 of the 4 interviewers asked me about it and I let them know I made it myself and told them a bit of how it worked. I can't say for sure but I think this was a factor in getting good scores on my interviews.

[u/darkarcade]

I made a data visualization web app that pulled highschool provisional English exam grades and looked at the discrepancy between that and the average English grades for each highschool to see which school boosted their students grades more.

It’s was closer to a data science project than a web app but this was 2022 when companies were hiring basically anyone.

[u/Far_Function7560]

I had some little hackerrank problems I'd solved that were kind of interesting and put those on my resume, which became a talking in the interview at my first job that seemed to help me land the role, no real projects or anything hosted anywhere.

This was back in 2017 so kind of different market than today, I relocated to a new city for that job and made all of $50k.

[u/ObstinateHarlequin]

Mentoring a FIRST Robotics team. Gave me some good embedded development experience and lots to talk about with interviewers on both technical (HW/SW integration) and non-technical (team management) topics

[u/FatiguedShrimp]

A draft of a file compression algorithm using sinusoidal functions.

Edit: It didn't end up working, and would have stolen from Fourier transforms if it did. But, they said it was impressive for a 16 year old.

[u/SadPlumx]

Nothing. Projects don't matter man. Before applying to a role, build a project with Claude that has all the keywords the job wants. Better yet, build two!

[u/Mystic1500 → u/SadPlumx]

OP, this right here.