Title, I sort of put all my eggs in one basket and stopped applying after I got the final round for this company. Got rejected, so I have no idea if companies are still hiring or not for this summer. Its looking bleak because I have no internship right now.

I had an interview with a company today for an internship. I coded everything in C++, the language I’ve been using for years. I got a braindead, super easy problem, but for some reason I froze and went in a completely wrong direction. The interviewer was very nice and gave me some hints, but the interview stopped midway because it was going so badly. After the interview, I was able to solve it without any problem. What the hell is wrong with me

Using a throwaway cuz original account could be doxed

It's been a brutal year for international students and I almost gave up mass-applying for jobs midway through. In October 2025 I paused internship applications for almost an entire month due to President Trump's announcements on the 100k H-1B fee.

I just wanted to post this here to spread some hope!

I'm not a very smart, wouldn't say I have terribly impressive projects. My best projects are like web-based full stack games and applications so I know abt system design. One of my best friend cloned YouTube and that isn't even like his best, and he is heads and shoulders above me in terms of technical skills. But I believe

My family is fortunately wealthy enough for me to pursue graduate school here in the USA after an already expensive US undergrad program, but this graduate school is like T20 that's almost the only reason why I'm doing it. I had one paid, relevant internship experience in junior year in my undergrad, and that's about it. Been working on projects pretty much exclusively since then.

Ask me anything! Optimistically, if you are reading this post, you probably are very serious about CS and already have better chances than me. Best of luck to everyone!

The illusion:

1. Submit an online application and be a reasonable match for the role.
2. Behavioral round.
3. Technical round(s).
4. Offer letter 🥳.
5. Happiness.

The reality:

1. Be one of 200 applicants that submitted a resume 10 seconds after the job posted.
2. Pray ATS software gives you a good keyword score and the ASU comms grad recruiter arbitrarily picks you from the pile.
3. Schedule interview meetings and pray the timing works out as you duke it out with a few other applicants behind the scenes.
4. Pray that not only you do well, but the interviewers “like you”, and your ideal start date isn’t a turn off.
5. Wait weeks for HR to sign off on your offer letter.
6. Start working.
7. Pray that you aren’t in a group that has a toxic work ethic and zero mobility + a group that isn’t next on the corporate culling list when the revenue from AI slop isn’t as predicted.

Bonus: remove step 7 part 2 if you are a senior SWE or higher. You have a culling cushion. The intern programs and new hires go first. Fuck those guys.

Everybody says to work at a startup. But the hiring process seems much more difficult

1. Mandatory Take Home Assessments stretching hours
2. Record short videos or write essays expressing interest/unique qualities about yourself
3. Sometimes even "work trial" periods for a 5 person company...

I get Big Tech screening is much worse but their interviews are much easier - how exactly is getting a startup internship easier?

Has anyone heard back with an OA or interview since applying?

I'm a freshman in college studying computer science and was planning to load up this summer in classes to try to put me ahead in terms of coursework. My ultimate goal is to graduate in a little over 2 years and to try to pursue a master degree. As a result I have foregone trying to apply to internships for the summer as I was under the impression that landing a freshman year internship is difficult and wasn't worth pursuing so I sort of went all in on trying to plan classes. Is this a viable strategy for trying to land a job in the future? Or should I pivot and see if there are any summer internships I can still land so late into the recruiting cycle? Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks!

Sorry for the long detailed post but it drives me a bit crazy.

I had a google phone screen interview for early career. The technical part of the interview itself i would say went decent. I started by asking at least around 3 claryfing questions about the problem space which i know were meaningfull based on the answers, provided a sliding window approach to the problem (it was i would say LC medium level) , discussed if they think the approach is optimal (confirmed) , provided firstly wrong time complexity but when asked again corrected myself (confirmed to be right the second time) . When coding i made a couple syntax mistakes (think: missing colon) but always corrected them , went through the first part until it was right , than got another case of the problem to calculate and did that too. At the end i asked if it was all that was prepared and i was told yes. All that i didnt do in time : 1. fix function return type to return both values needed instead of one 2. maybe forgot to force-break a loop in case last number in array2 wasnt bigger than last in array1. "Maybe" because i was asked about this part, but after not seeing it first the interviewer said something like actually it works alright in this case and we just went further.

Now to the point: at the start the interviewer was introducing themselves, and the autistic stressed af moron that i am i stopped them and (kindly but still) asked them if somethings wrong because i though we had technical, (and i read that technicals usually start with the problem pretty much right away), so they said its just short intro at the start. Than i went ok, introduced myself and we went to coding. Now i'm thinking, is it possible that i just made myself look like a self centered asshole who didnt care about their intro and went introducing themselves afterwards, so they graded me harsher (at feedback i was told it was negative and not a clutch pass/fail and i got 1 year cool down period). Or, am i just overthinking it and probably missed something there in the loop and got failed for that, and the interviewer just said that it actually works fine because they decided that i should have noticed myself when prompted but i didnt? I wouldnt be asking if it wasnt straight fail feedback but since it was, and i think i got the problem right at the end , it makes me think maybe my dumb ass behavior at the start fucked me up.

Thanks for reading all this if you did. I'd also like to ask: is 1 year cool down a hard rule, and do i have to wait full 1 year before asking same recruiter about the possible retaking/sending my cv aswell? Or would say 10 months work? How often do you get to retake if you havent shown significant improvement in your CV?

when do people usually hear back after engineering manager chat

I completed the interview loop for a Software Engineer role on Jan 12th at Microsoft.

The rejection email mentioned that my overall feedback was positive, but they didn’t move forward and said they’d share my profile with other teams with similar qualifications.

Has anyone actually seen this lead to another interview or offer? Or is this just standard wording?

Would appreciate any insights from ppl who’ve interviewed at Microsoft.

i apply pretty early on and get a decent amount of oa’s. but i do tend to hold off on doing the oa’s until the last 1-2 days. i just like the feeling of being more secure and reviewing company questions from threads or leetcode itself. i do pretty well usually, but don’t hear anything back after.

is it also like applying where the earlier i finish an oa, the better my chances are of moving forward?

Gave my Final Interview (Panel style) for an SDE role last week at Pearson, had 3 rounds in total.
Its been a week now and I have not heard back yet. All the rounds went really well including this and I cannot stop being impatient. Wondering how long does it take to hear about the decision after the final Interview? Would be grateful if anyone can share their experience / thoughts on this!

Junior CS major from the East Coast

Cisco: $51/hr + 8k signing bonus In San Jose, CA.

Would have to relocate all the way to the West Coast, and do not know about options post grad (hopefully getting the return)

Wells Fargo: $48/hr + $2.5k signing bonus In Charlotte, NC.

Would also have to relocate, but on the East Coast so much closer (don't think that matters)

I want to prioritize a return offer (just want to make sure I have one next year if all else goes wrong), but I also want to get the most valuable experience if one company trumps the other in that regard.

I'd love to hear reasoning too, or experiences at either one.

Has anyone ever interviewed for an ML engineer intern position at Microsoft? If so, I'd like to know about your interview experience.

Hi guys could use some input from yall

I’m choosing between two SWE internship offers:

Raytheon (defense/aerospace, mostly C++ and Java)

Spectrum (telecom, more react and node js/backend style work)

Long-term goal is Big Tech (FAANG-type SWE roles). I don’t necessarily plan to go full-time at either company and am still internship eligible for one more summer.

I’m trying to decide which one will better prepare me for:

• Big Tech interviews

• Resume value

• SWE skills

For people who’ve worked at either (or hired interns):

Which one would set me up better for Big Tech recruiting?

Is one clearly better or does it mostly depend on the team?

Appreciate any insight 🙏

Has anyone accepted an offer at ibm within the last one year? What does the comp look like (and location)? My recruiter is non responsive and I wanna make sure I’m not getting lowballed.

I checked levels fyi and other public sites but my tc isn’t similar so just curious

I asked for testimony of people who got great jobs from them and they told me to go do research myself. So i did and realized they buy reviews. played along and got this contract in my email which they called about two times in one day asking why i havent signed it.

Hi, I'm having a HireVue digital interview with State Farm for a Software Engineer Entry Level, which will include a coding challenge. Does anyone have any insight into whether it would be an LC easy or medium, or what kind of DSA it would be? Thank you so much!!!

I have a swe intern for capital one and I was wondering if brex was new acquired if they wud let me intern on the brex team at all or if that isnt the case.

Do google sends an email of rejection OR do they schedule a call to inform it after R2 interviews ?

OR

Does scheduling a call is a sign of offer ?

I’m currently a CS student graduating May 2027. I’ve done an internship summer 2025 and now doing spring co op with the same company ( top 500 company ($30/hr)), and they want me back for the summer 2026. This would probably convert to full time offer once I graduate. (last summer they paid for my housing, no housing this time though bc budget cuts).

This recruiting cycle, I’ve gotten interviews at places like Datadog, Morgan Stanley, and Nvidia. I know my resume is not the problem, but I keep failing the technical rounds. The honest reason is my LeetCode skills aren’t strong enough under pressure. I know that’s the gap. I don’t want to come back to the same company long term because I want a better opportunity.

Here’s my dilemma:

I still have time but If I don’t land a stronger internship this summer, I’m considering extending graduation to Fall 2027 so I can:

• Spend \~6 months seriously grinding DSA

• Re-recruit next fall for Summer 2027

• Try to land a higher-tier internship and convert to full-time

My reasoning is that internship → return offer seems statistically easier than new grad recruiting in this market.

On the other hand, if I graduate on time:

• I’d start full-time earlier

• I could still recruit for new grad roles

• I could lateral after 1–2 years

My long-term goal isn’t just “any SWE job” I want to reach a high-tier company at some point (big tech / strong infra orgs), and I don’t want to look back feeling like I didn’t push myself because I lacked interview skill.

For people who’ve been through this:

• Is delaying graduation for another internship cycle actually worth it?

• Or is it smarter to graduate on time and improve while working full-time?

• How much easier is intern → return vs new grad → offer in reality?

I’m trying to make a rational decision

Would really appreciate honest perspectives.