Software Engineering Intern Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

I know you guys on this platform push learn by doing heavily. I want to learn more on docker and kubernetes but i don't have a project idea right now that needs me to use those tools. How would you suggest me learn? I'm just trying to get off learning everything from a tutorial. Also I found this platform from twitter and wanted to know what you guys thought of it? since it has labs and technically you're doing... lol

In the resume course, Alex mentioned doing great work is a prerequisite to having a great resume. I would like to see some examples of great work. Let's say my domain is frontend web development. What would be considered "great" work -

a) in side projects
b) in my internship/job

One obvious one is a high number of users using the product. What are some other examples?

Would also appreciate if you could include some low effort, high ROI examples as well (if they exist).

Thanks!

It’s been 5 weeks since I’ve started my internship and it’s been pretty overwhelming trying to juggle many responsibilities. I tried balancing school research, my startup and interview prep along with my internship, but I’ve underestimated how much time my internship has been taking. I’ll start off with the good news first. I’ve been doing well in my internship and my manager is happy with my progress. I managed to implement a pretty critical part of their system that they’ll need in the future. I’ve also set up infrastructure for them to scale their codebase. I need to integrate my work into prod and implement some basic logging. The bad news is that my internship has been taking much more out of me than I expected. I find myself spending 9-11 hours working daily and as a result, I haven’t been able to do leetcode, research or my startup. As a result here are the consequences: Leetcode: I’ve started applying for full-time jobs and I bombed my first OA. Having looked at the questions, I feel that I might as well have not applied at all as I can’t even get through them Research: My advisor hasn’t said too much about my research progress but my gut feel is that he thinks it’s slow. I’m in conversation with a big tech company about doing research with them in the fall with the potential for a FT return offer, and my advisor has a say in whether I can do the collaboration/internship. So I definitely need to do well in research. Startup: My cofounders and I have been working hard on sales but feature implementation has been slow. The feature requests are pretty critical in getting paying clients, so one day of waiting may mean a customer can churn. The worst part is that every time I come back, my body feels so drained and I don’t want to do work any more, but I also kinda have to. I still have another 4 weeks to go for my internship and I’m wondering how to allocate my time.

Hey everyone! I’m finishing up my CS degree at a top university this December and honestly, I'm feeling a bit behind. My GPA isn't great (under 80) and I realize I haven’t focused enough on improving my tech skills over the years. I'm doing an internship at a cool startup this summer, mostly doing frontend web development, which is what all my internships have been in. But as I look towards graduating, I’m really not confident in my skills. I want to buckle down in the next 7 months and build a solid skill base. Could you guys suggest a plan for the next 3-6 months that would really help me level up my skills? Should I just focus on churning out as many projects as I can? I'm already putting in the effort at my internship, but I feel like I need to do more. Also, should I stick to what I know and double down on frontend skills, or should I try to learn some backend too to keep my job options open post-graduation? Thanks a lot for any advice or tips you can share!

Bonus questions:

1. How much ChatGPT should I use when building my projects? I feel like if I use it too much, I won't develop coding skills as much and also non-technical skills like reading documentation. Opinions?

2. Should I also do Leetcode (I am weak at it too)? Or is it just better to focus on one thing at a time? Or something like - 3 months Frontend, 3 months Leetcode?

Thanks :)

At the startup I’m currently interning at, there are no automated tests. Miraculously the entire system works. The codebase is small - my guess is around 50K LOC (they manually test everything). Since the engineering culture is pretty free flow, I’ve been able to set up unit and integration tests for code that I write from scratch (eg I can unit test classes I write, etc). I’d say I’ve written about 2000 - 2500 lines since starting in early June with a 60-40 split between code and unit tests. My company doesn’t do diff stacking, but I’d imagine I’d have 3-4 diffs based on the coding velocity course. However, I’m having a bunch of trouble when I’m starting to integrate my code into production. I get a bunch of nasty linker errors (I work in C++) that require some workarounds and a lot of digging. As a result I’ve had to spend 2-3 days with these errors. My gut feel is that these errors will continue to pop up as I continue coding, so should I just stop setting up automated tests and just manually verify, or is setting up tests worth the long term payoff? Since I’m interning every second matters.

I’ve received offers from a prestigious scholarship (on par with Gates/Marshall) and a unicorn AI company in hypergrowth (Scale AI, Nuro, Glean). I need to choose one or the other. The scholarship is renowned in finance and consulting. Many have launched and scaled startups (some ex-YC), were part of Forbes 30 under 30 and won national/international level awards (grammy award, NCAA all Americans, etc.), but less known in tech. Having met some of them, I get the feeling that they’ll become a future leader in some capacity. It’s a rare opportunity I’m unlikely to get again, and past recipients call it life-changing. The unicorn role is in AI, offering strong career growth, a competitive team (new grads all have big tech/quant/unicorn experience), and immediate impact, but the peer group is less diverse. My main concern is the risk of not finding a comparable job after the scholarship. The market is competitive and I consider myself lucky that I managed to get this offer. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to replicate the same level of success again. My fallback would be interning and getting an RO at an AI biotech startup, which isn’t great for career growth. Key considerations: Scholarship: Long-term value, network, and a unique experience I may regret missing. Unicorn: Immediate career momentum and tangible skill-building in AI. Neither party allows deferrals. What additional factors should I weigh in making this decision?

I recently came across this post and wanted the feed back from the community.

I worked in a tech company as an SWE intern summer last year, and have returned to the same workplace in the capacity of a full-time engineer now. My intern-time project was on a completely different line (included ML based libraries and skills such as time-series forecasting that I picked up) while my present work is totally Python-based tooling development. Should I list these two experiences separately in my resume, given the time-periods are different as well?

Hello everyone, I'm preparing for a potential career transition as I join the MS CS program at Georgia Tech this fall, while also working full-time. Given the uncertain job security at my current company, I am proactively looking to strengthen my position in the job market in the United States. Here is a brief overview of my background: Current Role: 2 years in a distributed systems role utilizing TypeScript and Rust. Education: Joining Georgia Tech for an MS in Computer Science; previous non-CS engineering degree in a tier 1 university in India. Internships: Completed two internships with local town US companies ( didn't learn much there). Publications: Co-authored an Android Dev (Kotlin) + AI/ML-based paper published in an ACM journal and presented at a conference. Research: Collaborated with professors on projects related to security, networking, and HCI. Side Projects:

• Pet Marketplace and Grocery eCommerce Android App - Java
• Multi-threaded mathematical solver and Sudoku helper in C/C++
• DDQN-based AI game for an RL course project - Python Programming Proficiency: TypeScript (Node.js), Rust (p2p Networking), C/C++ (Operating Systems & DSA), Java (Android Development) I had earlier applied to lots of companies in 2022 & 2023 when I was looking for jobs in the States. I had applied to around 300 companies each for internships and jobs. Only 10 reached out, I could only convert one then which is my current job. I had a really poor profile then with a non-CS degree outside of the United States. I had cold applied then. I do not want to end up in that same situation again. I have tried my best to improve my profile since then.
  
  I'm seeking advice on how best to approach internship applications now with an improved profile. Specifically, I am wondering: Is it more effective to reach out directly to hiring managers rather than recruiters, especially for internships? What strategies can I employ to increase my visibility and chances of getting hired, beyond cold-applying and asking for referrals on LinkedIn? What can I do beyond brushing up my DSA skills and Dev skills in the tech stack I am proficient in? [ My degree will also help me catch up on my basic CS foundation. ] Any insights or advice beyond the scope of the questions would be greatly appreciated too!

I got offers from 2 companies. Company A is a unicorn while company B is a well-funded series B startup. I need to go back to my country to serve in the army for a year. Company A doesn’t have an internship program and has essentially asked me to either pick the army or the company (also in-person). On the other hand, company B has an internship program and can do remote work. My goal is to be able to return to the US and work full-time after serving in the army. I might be able to get a 1-year deferral from my home country, though that would take a lot of effort and chances of success are low. I’m a dual citizen with Canada so managing TN visa is easier compared to H1-B. My military duties start in late Aug 2025. I have several options I’ve come up with: Give up entirely on company A. Intern at company B for summer ‘25 and hope for an RO for ‘26 new grad while going to the army. Work at company A for 3 months. Work remotely at company B while I’m in the military and use company B to get back into the US. The workload would be extremely high and I doubt that it’d be sustainable. Hopefully crush it at company A such that they’ll want me back (not sure how likely this’ll be). Worst case at least company A would be a brand name on my resume and my work experience at A would be more like an internship (would this be a viable argument?). Defer my military duties to Aug ‘26, work at company A from Jun ‘25 - Aug ‘26. When I come back, hope that I do well enough to return to company A. Defer military duties to Aug ‘26. Intern at company B for the summer ‘25, then work for company A from Aug 2025 - Aug 2026 (so barely hitting the 1-year vest). Start military duties in Sep 2026. By then I (hopefully) would’ve gotten an RO from company B, and I can start working remotely for company B. The workload would be extremely high and I doubt that it’d be sustainable. My main concern is that the job market is so hard right now that it’s not like I can wake up and get a job when I want one. Company A is also my top choices during this job search. My fear is that going to the army will close the US door for good. Would like some advice on ranking these options.

tldr; friend is working a caretaker job whose employer is a tech lead and is interested in giving her work in 2-3 months. Other option is to take her return offer (RO) from her startup immediately (even though the startup is failing and has ~1 year of runway left). Should she take the caretaker job for 3 months or take the startup job? I was talking to a friend who’s in a strange situation right now and I’d like some advice. The story is basically She got an RO from her startup but no other job offers. While she likes her coworkers, she doesn’t like the startup itself as it’s doing poorly. She expects the startup to have 1 year’s worth of runway. The return offer is flexible - if she asks HR that she wants to come back then she can show up the following week to work. There is no deadline for this RO Besides the RO, she got this job as a caretaker and her employer is a tech lead at a stabler company. She’s already signed the contract for this job. The tech lead said that they’re actively hiring and that they have some data analysis work that needs to be done that matches her skillset well, but the data needs to go through some compliance that lasts for a couple of months. She has several plans right now: Plan A: Work the caretaking job + take her return offer as a remote position (need to negotiate for lower pay since startup doesn’t really like remote work), apply to jobs on the side Plan B (Assume that she can’t negotiate remote work) Work the caretaking job + apply to jobs + do side projects + interview prep aggressively If her caretaker employer doesn’t have an opening by 3 months, she goes back to her full time job. At least from my analysis, here’s the worst and best case analysis: Worst case: She doesn’t find a new job in 3 months, her caretaker employer doesn’t have a job for her - she returns back to her startup Best case: She finds a new job or her caretaker employer gives her the job - goes to that job instead So the worst case doesn't seem that bad, whereas the best case can get really good. So would skipping out on 3 months (5 month gap since graduating) of professional experience really hurt her candidacy for future jobs? Wondering if this is a viable strategy, or if there are better ways to approach this?

Hi, I recently completed a product management interview with a company. I believe I can articulate some of my answers more succinctly via email. (this was not a strict coding style interview and thus I think more open-ended in nature). Do you think I should followup? The company's feedback timeline seems to be a couple of weeks. While I respect their process, I assumed the evaluations were on a rolling basis, prompting me to expedite my interview, potentially at the expense of some polished responses. When probed about potential hesitations regarding my fit for the role, I received a neutral response, leaving me uncertain about my standing. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for your guidance!

I did a postmortem on my job search for a new grad 2025 role. As part of this effort, I compiled statistics on my job search. Specifically, how many resume screens I passed (call it the pass rate). More details can be found in the comment section. My pass rate is around 7%, but a large part of it is from quant, and I think the fact that I interned at a small quant firm this summer skewed it. Putting all quant interviews, my rate is more like 5.8% on average. I ended up with 2 offers from high-growth unicorns. My first question is: Is a 5.8% pass rate good for a new grad? I’m wary of posting my resume online, but I’m happy to share it with Alex and Rahul and a few others privately if it makes things easier. The only things really noteworthy are T5 MS and T10 BS. Rahul and Alex both mention that jobs aren’t one-way doors, but I feel that these stats reveal how difficult mobility is, thus jobs are becoming more like one-way doors with little to no exits, especially if you don’t have brands. From this experience, I worry that in the future, it’ll take months of prep and applying to only get a minuscule chance at moving to a better opportunity. I’m excited to be working at a unicorn, but I’m also worried about when I leave, it’ll be hard for me to find something better down the line. It’s unfortunate that I graduated in a tough market, but I’m grateful that I got a decent job. How do position myself to have as many options as possible when I inevitably leave my first job?

For high level decisions such as designing a database schema, system design, deciding tech stack, etc., I have a tendency to spend a lot of time figuring out what the "best" design is. For example, today I spent hours figuring out what the best data schema would be for some structs I plan to store in a database. Another time, I spent hours figuring out what websocket library to use. For these high level tasks, I spend most of my time browsing online figuring out the tradeoffs between different libraries are. For example with the websocket libraries, the language I work in has 3 well-known websocket libraries. I spent hours through Reddit and Hackernews to see what people's experiences were with latency/throughput of each websocket, what the developer experience is like and how easily integratable the library is into existing systems. I think the issue is that switching libraries midway through development costs a lot of time when you discover the library isn't what you wanted. So I spend a lot of time trying to get it right the first time. This is unlike code where I write a lot of code, get it working, then refactor as necessary. I wonder how people get over analysis paralysis for these high level decisions, and what are some strategies to mitigate risks when you make a mistake (choose wrong architecture, wrong database, etc.)?

What's up everyone, thanks for taking the time to read this. Over the next year and a half, I’m aiming to take my skills as both a developer and an interviewee to the next level. I’m currently a senior majoring in computer science and statistics, and I'll be graduating this semester to pursue a one-year master's in CS. My goal is to work at a FAANG or FAANG-adjacent company, gain new skills, and make connections in a major city (a bit cliché, I know). Background: I’ve spent approximately 1.5 years interning at a Fortune 500 company, working on Cloud/SWE projects, and this summer, I'm a Machine Learning Engineering intern at a mid-sized company. I'm trying to figure out how to most optimally put in my time for success this interview season. Outside of work and lifting, I try to spend. ~10 hours per week on LeetCode, ~7 hours on system design and ~7 on building projects. I'm mostly looking for tips someone at my stage may not realize in software. For example, there are really ~15 patterns that once you have the hang of coding interviews become a lot easier than doing 50 array and sliding window questions. Here are my main challenges: Securing Interviews: Last summer, I managed to get quite a few interviews but none from FAANG or similar companies. I also applied to data science and engineering roles, which increased my interview count but weren’t exactly what I’m aiming for. I’m keen on MLE, cloud engineering, or backend roles. Although I had referrals to a handful of tech companies, most were not software engineers. What strategies have worked to get interviews for you, or what would prompt you to give an intern an interview? Understanding Concepts/Designs: What resources (books, lectures, etc) have been invaluable for your interview prep, becoming a better developer, or learning fundamentals? There's a pretty long post, thanks for any advice you can offer.

I just received a team matching survey for my upcoming Meta internship and had a few questions. What is the main difference between "Product Infra" and "Infra Platform"? Both seem to relate to backend API development, but is there anything specific I should be aware of? Is "Web Product" mainly frontend development, or is there also some backend work with APIs? Are there any specific orgs you would recommend I indicate preference (or avoid) as an intern? I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

I was wondering if it is common for an E6 engineer at Meta to be an intern manager. From what I've read, I think most IMs at Meta are E4 and soon to be promoted to E5. More precisely, is there any incentive for an E6 engineer to mentor an intern?

Hi Taro Community, I was really inspired by a recent discussion post on Taro regarding the key behaviors of a 'Greatly Exceeds' (GE) intern. I found Alex's detailed explanations and guidance very helpful, and I gained a much better understanding of the internship expectations. Following up on that post, I would love to learn more about the key differences between expectations at the various levels for internship(MA, EE, GE). In particular, I was wondering about the main areas in which the expectations for Meets All (MA) and Exceeds Expectations (EE) differ? The reason why I am asking is that I will be joining Meta this summer as an intern and would like to do my best to grow as much as possible during my time there.

I'll be joining a startup that has a bimodal distribution of new grads and seniors. The senior SWE's are pretty decent - 46% have some form of FAANG/Quant/Unicorn experience. The executive leadership team have been in senior leadership in Big Tech and pre-IPO startups. Meanwhile the interns/new grads are pretty good - almost all of them come from a T5 CS school with FAANG/Big Tech experience. Past advice on Taro suggests that a company is pretty good if there are SWEs who are ex-FAANG. Since interns haven't worked a full time job, would schools be a good proxy? How about past companies these students intern at?

Hello everyone! I've been building my career in software development, but I'm now looking to pivot into product management. I'm curious about the best strategies to make this transition and would love to hear your insights or experiences. Here are a couple of options I'm considering: Internal Transfer: I could ask my current employer (where I'm interning) about the possibility of moving into a PM role. However, I've only been with the company for a month, and I'm concerned that it might be too soon to request such a shift. Should I wait a few more months to build more credibility before making the ask? External Opportunities: Alternatively, I could start applying to PM positions, highlighting my relevant skills and experiences on my resume. Another path might be pursuing an MBA to strengthen my credentials for a product management role. Which approach do you think would be more effective, or is there another route I should consider? Thanks in advance for your advice!

Bonus question - is there a "Taro" for Product Managers? Where people give advice on career growth, etc.

I'm an intern and I have around 3 weeks left in my internship. I'm not too sure what to do with this because I'm aware that maybe I didn't leave the project at the optimal pace and he said he would "take it from here" but there is still time. I've tried to ask my mentor if I should do anything and they said I should coffee chat with people but I don't think this is going to look good when I'm presenting to VPs next week. Any feedback would be appreciated. My manager & skip is on vacation this week as well.