I'm about halfway through a software engineering degree and seeing a lot of the posts on here has become disheartening. I want to finish this degree, but I'm worried I'll finish and not be able to break into a developer role given the current market (hopefully it will improve by the time I graduate). So the question is will an internship, a degree and a portfolio of personal projects be enough to be competitive and considered for a junior dev role?

Context: I'm based in a country where minimum wage is USD 300 / month

Offer #1: not actually an offer but it's to keep my job. USD 23k/yr, job security (lots of it), full time employee with all benefits. 30 PTOs to take whenever I want. I'm being trained to become a manager within the company, everyone likes me and everything is great generally speaking. My project as a fullstack dev is quite boring though. 100% remote. Little to no chance to ask for more money within the next 1.5 years.

Offer #2: USD 41k/yr, contractor with almost no benefits, 10 PTOs in a year, frontend only working with a CMS. 100% remote. Company has a reputation of having crappy projects though.

I feel like choosing #2, but the uncertainty can be scary especially when having a huge debt.

Note: both are nearshore companies for US clients and such.

I've seen some people saying that in the end, the attributes of a programmer is innate - either you have it or you don't? What exactly are these attributes? Further question, how much do you think Leetcode is a good test for this?

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So i recently went through power day for a Principal Associate System integrator role at Capital One . I thought I did very well and get an offer but my recruiter called me saying I passed for a Senior Associate role but not for a Principal Associate. They told me they couldn't offer me the position I interviewed for but if I found a Senior Associate System integrator role I can job match for it without a Power Day for 1 year. Has this happened to anyone else????

Hi,

I just posted in another subrebbit before finding this one, and I think it really belongs here... I'll do a quick summary:

I am an American currently living in China teaching English, hoping to come back in 3 or 4 years. During this time I am studying programming hoping to land in that field when I return.

Questions are:

1) Is a Masters degree in CS necessary/helpful and to what degree, in comparison with say, certifications in languages and finished products to display abilities such as websites or apps?

2) If I get one from a University in China, is that frowned upon in any way? if frowned_upon = True, are there certain Universities that are respected that are in China? (This question is more for someone with some real direct experience in the hiring market)

Thank you in advance for your help, I am blind in the field and these are big decisions that I would love to make in an informed state!

The original post is here, this forum would not allow a "crosspost":
https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/1h3vdxw/credibility_of_degrees_from_outside_the_us/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Sincerely,

Don

I’m a high school senior currently in the process of applying for college. I’ve always wanted to do something with computer since I was a child, and though I am by no means a programming expert, I would like a programming heavy job.

I’m currently torn between two degrees. Computer Science (CS) and Computer and Information Technology (CIT). I know that CS is the more “advanced” degree, and the bare minimum requirement for most software engineering, but I’m terrible at math and don’t know how I’d handle the calculus classes required to earn the degree.

That’s why I’m looking at CIT as an alternative. The classes my local university offers seem specifically tailored to different areas, including web design, video game development, and mobile app development. It seems like a good alternative, but I’m also not entirely sure what programming jobs I can get with it. IT looks temping but I know i wouldn’t be doing a lot of actual programming.

Should I just bite the bullet and major in CS and hope the math classes don’t turn me off, or is CIT still a viable option for someone looking for a programming centric job? Any and all advice will be appreciated.

Title

No clue what the data says, but I'm seeing more "which offer should I take" and "how do I advance in my career" posts, as opposed to the nonstop doomer posts of a year ago.

I am graduating in June 2025 and have been fortunate enough to receive 3 New Grad offers this season. Currently I am trying to decide between Disney vs. Capital One before my Disney offer deadline on Monday. Last summer, I interned at Disney's Entertainment and ESPN division and received a return offer to the same team. I greatly enjoyed my experience there but I am wondering whether Capital One might give me better opportunities down the line.

Disney details: SWE 1 in Glendale, CA (in the LA area); 110k base, 50k one-time new hire stock grant, 25k yearly stock grant, 16k sign-on bonus, 7k yearly performance bonus, 5k relocation bonus, free entry to Disney theme parks (and 9 free guest tickets yearly for friends and family), 35% employee discount on Disney merch, free Disney+ subscription, 21 days PTO

Capital One details: TDP (Technical Development Program) in Richmond, VA; 119k base, 25k sign-on bonus, 5k relocation bonus, 6k yearly performance bonus, 10 days PTO (though according to ppl who work there, PTO isn’t actually tracked so more than 10 days in practice?)

Disney pros:

• My internship was wonderful and my team was a great fit. The work-life balance was perfect. There was no micromanaging; no one cared about how many hours I worked as long as I got my tickets done. I was able to perform quite well and efficiently and became comfortable with the team's tech stack, as I had taken a rigorous class covering parts of the tech stack at my school before the internship. I got great impact and metrics to put on my resume from my time there, and I feel I could definitely excel as a FTE if I return.
• Potentially faster career growth
• Better location
• Move from LA to Glendale would be relatively easy

Disney cons:

• The main one I can think of is that due to the solid relationships I built with my recruiter and team, I would feel awful reneging if I got a better offer. That is definitely not guaranteed in this market but could realistically happen, as last year I got 6 internship offers after my Disney offer. Also, the timeline for New Grad is a bit different so there will probably be even more opportunities after the New Year. Since my resume and Leetcode skills are the best they've ever been, there is a not guaranteed but reasonable chance I could get something better. I don't want to burn this bridge.

• Higher COL

• Disney is not as much of a big tech feeder compared to Capital One

Capital One pros:

• TDP is a solid program for new grads, with a lot of networking and professional development opportunities

• C1 is a feeder for big tech

• C1 salary is higher when adjusted to COL

• I can try out different teams since it's a rotational program (and after 1 year TDP participants can switch locations)

• Wouldn't feel bad reneging if I get something better

Capital One cons:

• No stock options

• PIP culture

• Low PTO

• Would kind of have to uproot my life to move to Richmond from the west coast

I'd greatly appreciate any insights or advice about which offer to choose!

ETA: might it be worth it to try to negotiate Disney to match C1 base?

Hi everyone

I applied to Amazon a few days ago and was sent a OA which I have to submit by the end of the next week. But I will most likely have to complete it this weekend because I would not have time over the week. I was just wondering if I am in a position that I will be able to clear the OA right now.

Just for context. I am a fullstack dev with my time split between frontend (60%) and backend (40%) tasks. With 7 years of experience. I am interviewing for is backend only. I did not ask the level for which I am interviewing but I am assuming the OA is for a equivalent level. I started working on interview prep 2 months ago and have been only solving hard problems on and off throughout that period. I never had problems with understanding the problems and coming with solution but I still not gotten used to working without auto complete. I also want to add that I usually take about an hour to solve the hard problem

I've been working in a help desk/sysadmin role for the past few months since I graduated with a degree in CS last May. I've mostly committed to spending the next year in this role, unless I can find a SWE position in my surrounding area. Assuming that I am unable to do that, what can I do over the next year to increase my chances of finding an entry-level SWE position?

I've started doing LeetCode daily to keep those skills sharp for when I get an interview in the future. Should I just be working on more personal projects in my free time? My concern is that any new projects that I take on will push other relevant projects off my resume, But, this might be more of a problem with how my resume is formatted (currently contains education, 3 work positions, 2 projects, and relevant skills).

I know that it's impossible to know what the job market looks like in a year, but I'm hoping that this less applicable experience will help out some. I'd really appreciate any advice on what I can do to set myself up nicely once I start job hunting again.

I am not currently interviewing - helped out a friend with a mock interview & that kind of discussion really excites me.

Day to day my scope of work is quite specific, so I don’t get to exercise these skills.

What are good resources to keep learning and practice system design thinking in general?

I’m probably around the L5 level, hoping to keep improving get to L6 eventually.

Does anyone pay for bytebytego newsletter subscription, is that worth it?

Hi! I am a first year considering applying to this program. I have a few questions.

-On the website it looks like there is no application deadline but the website says interviews start in december. Can I still apply now? Is it too late?

-I only took math through precalc in HS, and am taking Calc 1 and Intro to CS in the spring (the registrar picks first years' first semester classes so it can be hard to take the classes you want.) Is that bad?

-I go to a non-target, is that also going to set me back?

-I do not have any CS ec's, (granted I have only been in college for a few months now) is it okay for me to just have the required courses done by the time of the program and have very strong involvement in volunteering and college leadership and advocacy?

Thank you for your help.

It seems that the “building ml models” part is going to ml engineers, while data scientists especially at big tech companies are just analysts that do ab testing (at least from reading job descriptions).

Is DS still a good path if i like to analyze data and build ml models or should i switch to ml engineer? I am currently studying MS is data science, i can switch to CS but it would cost me one year, if it is worth it i will do it no problem

Hello, I'm a sophomore in college, and when I graduate I would like some software engineer/web dev role in the specific city of Chicago. I know the market is bad for jobs in general, but I liked the environment of Chicago and wondered if it is unrealistic to target my job search there, or just take whatever offers I get.

Hey guys, this might be completely in the wrong sub, but I didn't really know where else to post this. I have already reached out to Revolut's support, but since it might take a while, I would like to know if someone has gone through something similar.

I'm trying to apply for a Graduate position in Portugal at Revolut. However, on the Education page, they ask for the GPA. This leaves me with 2 questions:

1. Portugal (and most of Europe afaik) doesn't use the GPA system, we use the ECTS system on top of a per-country grading system (For Portugal is 0 to 20). According to most guidelines I found, I would have a GPA of 4.0 (19/20, "A" in ECTS), however, there doesn't seem to be an official guideline, only the most commonly used ones. Does anyone know if Revolut has specific guidelines for this? I couldn't find any on their website.
2. I want to know if the system that is going to see my application (for a Portugal-based job) is expecting a GPA value as indicated, or if that is just a visual error, and is, in fact expecting a 0-20 grade. If that is the case, if I insert a GPA of 4.0 it would be a horrible grade from 0-20 (even though it is the maximum GPA possible), which could get me automatically removed from the candidate's list. On the other hand, if it is indeed expecting a GPA value and I input a 19, it might just simply throw away the application or something, which wouldn't be necessarily bad if they first contacted me, but if they just simply throw it away without me having a chance to explain, I would just simply lose the position.

Context: I am a currently employed SWE (5 YOE, USA,) making 108k fully WFH. My department has had a hiring freeze, layoffs, 3 day RTO, and is not renewing our contractors contracts next year. My wife is also having to quit her job due to health reasons which is making me look for a bit more money to compensate. Combined, this is making me look for new jobs. It sucks, because I highly enjoy my work currently and have a great team.

I have two offers I am trying to choose from:

Offer 1:

Salary: 125k, No bonuses

Commute: Hybrid, 1 day per week (45 minutes)

Benefits: Unlimited PTO, 8 sick days, 20 vacation days (!)

Work: SWE on Integration team, integrating internal services with IoT / third party APIs. Dealing with lots of data coming in + formatting / parsing and sending to internal services. Typescript, Node.js, AWS (Lambdas, SQS, EventBridge, DynamoDB).

Stability: High growth / profitable company that is well known in Europe, attempting to enter the market in the USA (not profitable here yet, still new), and department I'm joining is heavily focused on integrating with Electric vehicles (which might be effected by policy changes in the USA next year).

Offer 2:

Salary: 135k, 5% bonus

Commute: Fully WFH

Benefits: Unlimited PTO, 6 sick days

Work: SWE on Platform team for an event driven microservice application, Typescript, Node.js, AWS (Lambdas, SQS/SNS, EC2 / ECS), Kubernetes, SQL.

Stability: Very profitable / well known company, but company was acquired by an extremely large company at the beginning of this year (!!!)

Offer 2 is much better on paper and involves event driven distributed systems / SQL (which is more what I'm looking for), but I'm a little concerned about the acquisition resulting in layoffs down the road and putting me in a similar situation that I'm in now. The recruiter and team said the larger company is very hands off and wants to keep the company operating as it was, and nothing has changed so far, but I'm taking that with a heavy grain of salt.

I'm a junior CS student and I'm finally admitting to myself that I really don't love Computer Science. I've spent the past two years trying to prove something to myself by going for a STEM degree that sounds better on paper than my previous major, Political Science. Luckily, I love math and have done well in my courses so far, but the idea of careers/internships in software engineering doesn't inspire me at all and kind of fills me with dread. I don't like the culture of CS/SWE, I'm not passionate about it whatsoever, but it's way too late to switch since I only have three semesters left until I graduate. All of my high school/early college academics were geared toward a career in political science/international business/law until I talked myself out of it, and I'm realizing now that I can still go that path with a CS degree.

Does anyone have experience in the BS CS -> JD pipeline? I'm interested in interning at a patent law firm this summer since it somewhat marries the CS + Business + Law background, but I'm not 100% sure that patent law is what I would go for. I'm not exploring law on a whim - it was my #1 choice for most of my life, but I backed down once I was convinced to go the STEM route, which I regret.

Like title says, got laid off a bit ago. Wasn’t my fault, big company things. Shit happens, I’m over it. Now I have questions on what I should do next

My official job title was solutions/systems engineer. 2YOE. I’ve already been applying with my updated resume. Sometimes I edit it to cater to specific jobs. Have gotten a couple interview but no offers. I guess my questions boil down like this.

A lot of job descriptions I’ve seen mention experience in aws, azure, google cloud platforms. I didn’t really work in those technologies. Would getting certifications help in getting interviews? I’m thinking of starting with an aws cert, then azure.

If certs don’t really help, is there anything else I can do to buff up my resume right now?

I know the job market is tough rn. I’m ok with working an IT desk job, but I know it can be difficult to get a job in that market as well. Hopefully being based in Austin helps but I’m not sure

Let me know if you have any advice or questions

Edit: I have a degree in computer science and engineering (cse)

Hello! I received an email that I made it to the technical interview round for JPMorganChases summer 2025 software engineer internship. The technical interview has a 60 minute limit and is through HackerRank. Has anyone has a technical interview with them? This is my first coding interview so I’m equal parts excited and nervous! What are these like??

Basically what it says on the tin, but I’m curious how doable this might be.

My work history: I’ve been working consistently since Spring of 2020 and am honestly overdue for a senior-level promotion in my current role. I’m a back end web engineer, and I’ve mostly worked with things like Ruby on Rails, Python, and Django but have full stack experience with Typescript and React. I also have experience with or exposure to Docker, AWS, Kubernetes, various CI/CD solutions, E2E testing, and data monitoring with DataDog and Metabase.

My goal is to transition to a part time freelance schedule, aiming to work ~20hrs a week, at a minimum of $75/hr (or $60K annually) since that should sufficiently cover my expenses, if my estimates are correct. The rest of my time would be spent working towards a CS Masters degree remotely.

I’m thinking I would check out various freelance job boards and resources along with looking into contracting agencies that can put me forward to companies looking for engineers for temporary work or specific projects.

If anyone has experience doing something similar or thinks this is a fucking terrible idea or just straight up impossible, let me know lol

John Ousterhout (author of Philosophy of Software Design) runs a course at Stanford that focuses on incremental software design through repeated bouts of design, critique, and revision. More info here: https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cs190-winter23/

It's also somewhat reminiscent of Richard P. Gabriel's musings on a Masters of Fine Arts in Software: https://dreamsongs.com/MFASoftware.html

Im a freshman CS major and I’ve been thinking about how different CS is than other engineering majors. There are so many resources online that almost anyone can become a proper software engineer or gain good practical and theoretical knowledge without internship experience. So I am wondering what really divides the hirable CS students and those who aren’t, is it just projects or is there something more? Like is the key to just be grinding all the time on learning in and outside the classroom? Also what is your stance on programming and cs becoming increasingly accessible?

I’m in a senior at University of Toronto, and I’m double majoring in Stats and Econ, minor in Math and CS. Ngl, i was heavily considering switching to CS major but looking at the job market I was so hesitant 😭

I have a strong foundation in Math, don’t have any cs-related industry experience but some novice research experience in ML. I’ve found that I’m much more interested in tech than econ, and looking to pivot in a CS role (SWE, DS). What should I be doing?

Does anyone here have a good experience taking a Head of product offer for AI startup Series A (11-50 Emp) ? What should one look for or negotiate for ?

YoE : 15+ in tech (from a big company in tech, not MAG7), 6+ YoE in AI Product

Most of the threads I have read here on reddit say dont typically do these transitions.

Specially for landing remote working

Specially for landing remote working

I'm a fresh graduate in AI and have been struggling to find a job since finishing my degree. Recently, I was offered a paid 12-month internship at a private company. The position is hybrid (in-office and online), and I can choose to specialize in one of the following fields:

Frontend – ReactJS

Backend – .NET

Backend – Java

UI/UX

Quality Assurance

Data and AI

I have two main questions:

1. Do you think 12 months is a reasonable period for an internship? It feels like a long time to me.
2. Which specialization would you recommend for future job opportunities? I’m looking for advice based on market demand and career growth, not personal preferences.

Thanks for your help!