Entry-level CS is facing high unemployment and massive saturation, while traditional degrees like EE, Mechanical Engineering, or Accounting offer far better job security for similar starting pay.

​Given how brutal the tech entry-level grind is right now, why are people still choosing CS over these safer options? Is it just residual hype from the 2020 boom, or is there still a real advantage when even people from Ivy League school are atruggling?

​If you chose CS recently despite these market trends, what was your reasoning, and would you make the same choice today?

I want to gather a clear and straightforward overview of the job opportunities and hiring trends at Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google (MAANG) as we look ahead to late 2026 and 2027.

If anyone else is preparing in a similar way, please help me out.

IDK if they think me not negotiating == I'm not interested but I had 15k extra in the written offer over the verbal one. This happened over multiple calls where I just kept saying yes and thanks for more money.

Is this the new strat? Playing so easy to get so they assume you're not interested cause there's no way you're that easy to get?

I wasn't even being that desperate or anything, like you're offering me a quarter million dollars a year ofc I'm just gonna say yes??? I'm not risking all that by negotiating.

Also: They know I'm an international student; all this shit about foreigners only being hired because they're cheaper is nonsense like why would they add more money if they wanted a cheap worker.

Anyone did interview on 9th October and heard back yet?

how much of actual hands-on is asked in AI/RAG interviews? is it mostly theory and scenario knowledge based? if any hands-on, what kind of questions are asked? what exactly are you asked to code?
Im talking about entry level fresher jobs.

I’m a 3rd year right now, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s been kinda rough for me. I haven’t been consistent with the languages I’ve learned in my classes so far, but I do know what I want to make. But for some reason I don’t have as much drive as I used to.

I do want to get into software development and game development on the side, but I don’t know what’s holding me back from just learning the languages. I feel like it’s mainly just consistency and that I’m being too hard on myself. Cause I look at some of my classmates and I haven’t even got a clue what they’re getting into yet, and I feel like they’re doing much better than I am.

For you guys, what did you guys do to get out of this stump? It’s hard but I still want to keep going with this major deep down…

I never really posted before on this platform, so sorry if this sounds weird or stupid

hey all

about to do the OA for roblox’s product management internship. i’m a finance major with a minor in cs, wanted to see if the engineers had any advice on practicing for the OA. i’ve been doing the cats game a little bit, but haven’t started with coding cookies (lowk scared)

any tips appreciated <3

Anyone know what to expect for this round? How to prepare? What to expect after? Thanks!

i got an "interview" from a company. they said theyll schedule one, but never did and its been 3 days. do i lose hope...
i rly want this job

I read a lot of these posts while preparing, so here's mine.
Background: 3rd year CSE PhD student working in distributed systems, interviewing for the SWE PhD Intern role for Summer 2027. I applied using a fellow alum’s referral.

Timeline: The recruiter invited me to the technical rounds on a Tuesday, and the interviews were the following Monday, so I had about 6 days to prepare.

Format:
Two 45-minute coding rounds, back to back with a 15-minute break, on the same Google Meet link
Coding in a Google Doc: no running code, no autocomplete, no syntax highlighting
Language was my choice; I picked Python
Round 1: a dynamic programming problem that involved an m x n grid. I was able to come up with the brute force approach instantly and proceeded to code it out. I was then asked to do it in O(1) for which I came up with a dynamic programming approach. I couldn’t however complete the working code but still the interviewer was completely satisfied and said that I know you would’ve been able to code it out had you a few more minutes but since we’re out of time it’s okay I got the complete idea.
Round 2: A non-LeetCode question but still I had to use recursive DFS to solve it so it was a tree problem but not like the usual leetcode questions you’d see online. For this round, I was able to come up with workable, bug-free code for both brute force and follow-up questions.
What helped / what I'd do differently:
I stopped using an IDE completely a week before my interviews were scheduled. Instead of using claude, I worked on my research prototype and testbed all by myself which helped immensely and grinded LeetCode hard questions. Asked Claude to make me a detailed playbook focusing on google’s past questions which again did wonders.
Result: Still waiting because it’s only been 2 days. Once I hear back, will update this post.

Happy to answer any questions

​

Is Deep Backend Knowledge Still Worth It in the AI Era?

I'm a 3rd-year CS student exploring AI/ML deeply. I've built backend projects before, but honestly, I mostly focused on making things work without deeply understanding how backend systems work under the hood.

Since AI/ML is booming right now, am I wasting my time going deep into backend along focusing on AI/ML projects? How valuable is strong backend knowledge for internships and placements in today's AI-driven industry??

Rn I'm following Sriniously's Backend from First Principles playlist to strengthen my fundamentals. So thought to take some povs.

A bit of context: I'm 3rd year PhD in CS. I had a few years training for competitive programming but I never made it. The problems seem to be unintuitive to me and I was never able to solve hard problems in either training period or Leetcode.

Always thought Leetcode is just a way for them to gatekeep a well-paid job.

But now I understand.

My Phd requires me to try to solve problems by synthesizing knowledge from academic papers. And I also had a hard time trying to solve it :) (like solving hard problems in Leetcode).

Recently, I've tried to get back into Leetcode to get internships for PhDs.

And the realization comes to that solving Leetcode problems is a really good proxy to see how a person tries to solve hard problems in life. And the results to come with it requires certain skillsets that can be trained to solve harder problems.

Things I've learned to make progress in Leetcode

1. Problem solving mindset: Leetcode are just problems. Try to solve it in many ways you can. It doesn't have to be intuitive. If I read something that can be able to solve the problem, then try it!

2. One problem at a time: Focus on reading solutions and techniques that can help you solve the one I'm doing. If I can't solve it today. I try it again tomorrow. Deep focus on solving one type of problem makes me memorize the pattern and the solution better. Finish what I started is important.

3. Solve in progression: Each hard problem requires a series of small problems that require thoughts and problem solving tweaks to solve it. Leetcode these days breakdown hard problems into easier ones. For example: This easy one is a good stepping stone to help I know the basis nature of the problem. Then when I solve this one, just one or two more ideas or tweaks to make it work for the Medium level. Slowly my skill can start breaking a hard problem down to easier ones and solve each of them.

Just some of my thoughts on my journey through recruiting hell. It's both suffering and joyful. So I try to make the bright side of it more enjoyable.

I'd like to know your guys' thoughts on my recent Google interview I just had. Software Developer Engineer Intern Summer 2027 US.

Round 1:
Graph DFS question:

• went pretty well
• optimal time and space
  • came up with solution pretty quickly
• asked clarifying questions
• explained solution before coding
• did dry runs
• they liked my solution
• talked about shared interests for like 20 mins

Round 2:

Tree question:

• optimal time, bad space
  • i had O(N) --> but they said it could be O(1)
  • came up with solution pretty quickly
• asked clarifying questions
• explained less optimal solution before coding
• did dry runs
• could not come up with the optimal solution in time

As title said - I was lucky enough to pass the interviews, but seems like the real work begins now.

What could be tactics to increase my chance of receiving a match? I've got a good resume, and an offer from a different company I could leverage. Can anyone recommend from their experience regarding filling the questionnaire and what to do next?

First ever Reddit post, I just felt like writing a little rant.

I just completed an OA for a non-FAANG, non-MANGO company and was given the most difficult OA I have ever received. I got two LeetCode Hard problems, one being similar to Put Marbles in Bags, and the other being a math problem. This is for an entry level SWE role, why am I being asked two LeetCode Hard questions in an OA? Are they trying to screen for people cheating, or do they genuinely expect entry level candidates to be able to solve that in 75 minutes? I graduated last December and have yet to find a job, and this OA just makes me feel like why even try. I've done a decent amount of LeetCode problems (about 300), and was able to pass 5/15 test cases on the first and 9/15 test cases on the second, but with this job market I know I'm not moving on to the next round.

havent seen a single rejection after interview for SWE Intern 2027 role and everyone's saying its survival bias. did anyone get rejected by google after interview for SWE intern 2027? ik it'd be depressing so no need to share ur story just tell it you have.

my resume passed for stripe and other top companies is there a reason why databricks swe internship autorejects me (i appleid for winter and summer and the day after got an email saying rejected)

Being judged on vague standards where there's multiple "correct" way to do things on an open ended problem and not getting any feedback out of it is a horrible system. This new interview style is basically a blackbox where you put stuff in and virtually do not know if anything good comes out unlike leetcode where you at least know if you did things right because you'd pass the test cases and were judged based on whether you can coherently explain stuff like runtime.

got amts swe ft offer, but was wondering how exactly is the company growth opportunities for exit to a unicorn or better big tech company and how easy are the promotions within the company (along with the pay increment for each promotion)?

Hey I got an interview for full stack SWE intern like 2 days after finishing the oa and I want to know if anyone else has taken it yet. Its a 90 minute interview with 2 30 minute coding rounds, one normal leetcode and one ai assisted one. If anyone has heard anything about it or has resources to prepare, I would be very grateful. Thanks!

Hi, has anyone done the Jane Street phone interview this year or in the past? If anyone has any advice, please let me know, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks

Context: Finished stripe team screen with 3/3 and 20 mins remaining. Then now I’m getting a recruiter screen? Is this normal?

Has anyone heard back for Lenovo’s Global Future Leader Program, after doing the OA?

Hi all, I recently gave my Google SWE Intern Interview for US as an MS Student.

R1 -> Craziest interview question of my life it was a design (OOPs) problem, of some internal tool they use at Google. The interviewer told me that no one has able to solve this problem completely so lets see how much can we finish given the time. I had not studied OOPs, required a lot of hints and was somehow able to solve some part of the problem. And was able to answer all the remaining questions regarding the problem, and surprisingly all were correct and he seemed happy. We ended up talking for over an hour, including on why he doesn't like LeetCode style questions and why he likes Data Structures more. Although i was able to answer his questions but the code part was really bad, no idea of what to think of this round.

R2 -> Much easier question, was just complicated in terms of wording but ended to be a simple DFS, solved in 10 mins, and then follow ups multiple questions, including other ways, problems with the approach and complexity questions. Overall went well. Ended up talking with the interviewer for the last 10 mins.

Not sure what to think of this, do I have any chance of TM or R3?

is anyone else trying to join and not able to? it keeps saying i don't have access to the event even tho i've been registered for days