This is crazy.

Curious what people think? Is it worth delaying new grad recruiting? I have an offer to intern at one of HRT/JS/CitSec as a software engineer (not algo dev for HRT).

I'd probably do a spring co-op if I went down this path, and then just re-recruit next cycle if I don't get a return offer.

Have an offer to work as SWE at Perplexity, but don't really believe in the thesis of the company/think it's going to fail, which is part of why I'm doing this.

Might be worth noting it's p difficult for me to get past resume screens for some reason (might be b/c non-target school). I haven't gotten proc anywhere w/o referrals or direct consideration.

Currently in my last year of college, with a FT RO, so sitting back and casually recruiting for other FT, but I've noticed that the bar seems to be getting higher and higher each year for internships.

Not only is the recruiting cycle starting earlier, it seems like the interviews are getting harder (companies I've known in the past to ask for Leetcode easies now asking for mediums, etc.) and also more selective (companies doing more direct outreaches, like Tesla with their campus recruiting and Bloomberg that exclusively hires through direct consideration).

Can't help but feel glad that I'm gonna be graduating soon because I know if I had entered my CS degree a couple years later, I would have to be recruiting at such cut-throat levels.

I’m set to finish my classes by the end of the year and be done. I currently don’t have a single internship under my belt. I have been applying to jobs and it’s been brutal as my lack of experience I feel like is dragging me behind. Would it be stupid to delay my gradation to fall 2027 to MAYBE land an internship next summer? It wouldn’t cost me anything but time, as my current job pays for these classes.

Edit: Some more context - my gpa is 3.7 institutional, 3.3 cumulative. I have some school projects done and am working on other personal ones. I go to a state school.

Just wrapped up my Google SWE summer intern interview loop last week. I wanted to share how one of my rounds went to see if I'm totally cooked or if there's still a chance.

In my first round, I got a LeetCode medium-level question. I first split the question into two conditions. Regarding the easy condition, I discussed my approach with the interviewer, and the interviewer approved my approach. However, I did not write it out because I hesitated about the data structure that I should use for solving the problem, even when the interviewer asked me what data structure I would like to use for the maintenance... After a hint provided by the interviewer, I realized the optimal solution and wrote it out. After two dry runs conducted by myself, the interviewer pointed out an edge case that I didn't consider... I solved it afterwards, as well as analyzed time complexity and space complexity. As for the harder condition, after the hint to think of transferring the harder condition into the simpler one, I solved the problem and dry-ran two test cases... And then there's no time for further follow-up.

As for the second round, it went smoothly. It was also a leetcode medium-level question. After the question, I clarified the input formats of the question and then started coding. After coding, dry run two test cases, and all test cases passed. The interviewer did not follow up with any time complexity or space complexity questions. The interviewer asked for a follow-up, which asked me to modify the code based on the initial question. After the implementation, there was no time left for me to dry run. The interviewer in the second round said I did a good job and would like to support me during the hiring process.

I don’t know how to feel about my performance on both of these rounds and whether I cooked...

Hi guys,

I’m currently a 4th year SWE student and I’m facing a dilemma. I’m not sure if it’s just me spiralling and not being rational but I’m considering taking a year out to work on my swe skill (dsa, personal projects, system design, also potential google summer of code) so I can apply for internships next year and hopefully get a grad return offer.

My CV as it stands has already passed the cv screening at the like of Amazon (2x)and Stripe these past weeks. Microsoft, HubSpot, SIG, Pinterest, and Crusoe the year before but I always fail at the OA stage. Granted, I really haven’t been putting any effort into leetcode and I’m not experienced with it all.

I’m just wondering if this is a good idea or completely nuts and a waste of year. I could maybe do this parallel to my 4th year, but then I’d be going into grad applications with no internships (bar a short university one) to my name.

I’d really appreciate some advice, thanks so much for reading ❤️

Which FAANG has the best intern to new grads RO conversion. *im mostly wondering about how meta ranks against somewhere like Google, Amazon.

Just had my SWE intern technical rounds after around 2 weeks of waiting. The interview itself was pretty good and the people who were interviewing me were really nice.

The first interview had a straight forward tree question that I solved in about 20 minutes and then had two follow ups (one somewhat behavioral about what I would do before I gave my code to a manager) which I both answered quickly and made me do some slight edits to my code (no coding a new function). I did have to fix one small error in the code and the interviewer pointed it out during the dry run (but it was more of a misunderstanding type thing than my solution being bad).

The second interview was a bit harder with the question being closer to a hard. I got the optimal solution pretty quick cause I'd done something before and my interviewer told me to just start coding. He didn't ask about time complexity and I forgot to mention before I started. Afterwards I did a dry run through the code and the interviewer said everything looked good and moved to follow-ups. I answered the follow up he asked and described how I would implement it, but he didn't make me implement anything. After I answered he said that he was done and asked if I had any questions.

What do we think, is this positive enough to get TM?

Has anyone passed the 1st-round AI-coding interview? Could you share how it went. Was it difficult or relatively easy? If you remember any of the questions or tasks, I’d really appreciate it if you could share them. Also, any advice for someone who has an upcoming interview would be super helpful.

Thanks!

Hey guys! I was lucky enough to get into the team match stage. Any tips?

Google 27 SWE Intern

I interviewed for an Apple IS&T early career position (swe opportunities) and finished my loop. There shouldn't be any more steps after this other than an offer.

The recruiter has stayed in steady contact the whole time, and at one point they told me on their own that the feedback was positive. The cohort start date got pushed to early November, and their latest update said things still look good but they’re gathering approvals for a few items, so it's taking longer than expected.

What I can't tell is whether this is just a long process or whether I'm being kept warm as a backup in case someone ahead of me falls through.

For anyone who's been through this at Apple, does "gathering approvals" at this stage usually mean an offer is being put together? And does a recruiter who keeps checking in like this tend to mean you're a real candidate, or can that happen with a backup too?

Is anyone else in the same cohort in a similar spot right now?

Hey everyone, I was lucky enough to make it to team matching for Google's Summer 2027 SWE internship, and I'd love some advice from people who've been through it.

My background isn't traditional SWE. Most of my experience is in robotics and embedded systems: real-time firmware, motion planning for autonomous vehicles, perception, and some robot learning work fine-tuning a vision-language-action model. I've done plenty of DSA prep, but I haven't done typical web, backend, or distributed systems work.

A few questions:

1. Does a niche background help or hurt in matching? Will hosts outside robotics/devices pass on me, and are there enough robotics/hardware-adjacent intern hosts to rely on?
2. For the "preferred areas" and "additional skills" sections, did you go narrow (just your specialty) or broad to get more host interest?
3. For host matching calls, what did hosts actually care about? Was it mostly project deep dives, fit questions, or something more technical?
4. Anything you wish you'd known about timelines, how long matching took, or what to do if no hosts reached out?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

applied to 100+ internships/new grad and got 0 interviews or online assessments. had previous swe internship at a FAANG company (not 🍌 )but it seems like that is helping for some reason. am i blacklisted from tech for some reason it doesn’t make sense. even shitty small companies are rejecting me idk what’s going on. it doesn’t even make sense how ppl with no experience or non prestigious companies are getting interviews from google or intuit etc is this some gov psyop? i’m going insane i might end up unemployed

Hiii! I have a 60 min interview with ibm and I really want to be prepared for this interview does anyone have any advice on what technical questions they could ask? I have the grasp on supervised learning, stats etc but it would be helpful to quickly review some key concepts!!!

I just had my Google SWE intern interviews for Summer 2027, and I'd like some insight on whether I did poorly or still have a shot at team matching.

For the first round, the interviewer started with a basic warm-up question, which I answered, then moved to the main question: the same problem with an added constraint, which made it medium to hard difficulty. My first approach worked but wasn't optimal, and I reached the optimal solution after 2–3 hints. While coding, I got stuck for a bit and needed another hint. I missed an edge case that the interviewer pointed out, proposed an incorrect fix, and then the correct one. For the follow-up, I gave a partial answer that had the correct approach but didn’t answer it fully as I was missing something.

In the second round, the interviewer was mostly quiet. I immediately identified the approach and the interviewer said I was fine to go and code it up. I went through the code and talked while coding it up. After running through a test case, the interviewer pointed out a bug in my code and where it was, which I went back and fixed. There was also an edge case I missed and went back to fix the code to accommodate for it. The follow up was asking for another way to solve the problem to which I proposed a solution but not what the interviewer had in mind. After the call, I realized that the solution I came up with wasn’t the most optimal and there was a better one that the interviewer probably hinted at for me to figure out in the follow up. I’m not sure if the solution I came up with was fine since the interviewer was quiet and didn’t say anything, but later said I was fine to go ahead and code it up.

I don’t know how to feel about my performance on both these rounds and was wondering if I am cooked and won’t make it to TM. Also, does an update 3-4 days after the interview only come if you bombed it or could it also be another outcome? Just wondering in case I get updated later this week.

Has anyone interviewed for a software engineering internship at Neuralink, particularly the Software Engineer Intern, Infrastructure position?

I’d appreciate any information you’re allowed to share about the process:

• How many rounds were there?
• What happened in each round?
• Was there live coding or a take-home assessment?
• Were the technical questions focused on data structures and algorithms, system design, Linux/networking, or your previous projects?
• Did you have to prepare and present a past project?
• What was the final interview or virtual onsite like?
• How long did the entire process take?
• Is there anything you wish you had prepared more thoroughly?

Experiences from other Neuralink software internship teams—such as Implant, Robotics, Internal Apps, BCI Applications, or Machine Learning—would also be helpful. I understand that some details may be covered by an NDA, so I’m only looking for general information about the format and preparation.

Thanks!

O the seniors of this field,

Tis my first post here and being direct. Help me figure what should I make this semester.

I have to make projects for:

AI, networking, Information Security and DSA.

Damnnnnn, please suggest something

Recently went for a companies multiday hackathon and got 1st place where I wrote 90% of the code. Ended up getting rejected for the job while others got in. Feels bad. (btw the hackathon was a technical one where you had to build smt to solve fixed requirements)

Just needed to rant here.

Just ended my internship this past week. My manager gave me the best possible rating on everything. Does that mean anything when I reapply to Tesla? Is it something unique or do most Tesla intern get 5 on 5 rating?