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As a Computer Science student, what should I be focusing on in order to get a job in this market?

by jamesy0ung 2y ago

dfedbeef 2y ago
Edit: paid internships
- burgos_thrw 2y ago
  This. I mentored five interns across two companies (an faang and a pre IPO) all of them are on the great path and in great companies now. They didn’t know much but they had an appetite that you don’t see often in the people with 10+ years of experience.
_blk 2y ago
Actual projects to showcase. Open source/Github helps but is not a strict must.
ahartmetz 2y ago
IMO: Writing, extending and fixing bugs in nontrivial programs, collaborating with others, reading a lot of documentation of the things you use, discussing programming with other interested people. The scientific part is usually not at the fore in practice and your courses will be plenty for that. Working on some large FOSS project will teach you most of the skills, though maybe don't specialize too much. Some people seem to mostly fix bugs, others design and half-finish stuff before switching to something else, etc. It's best to know the full lifecycle in order to have relevant experience for all situations.
memorydial 2y ago
Focus on building real projects, contributing to open source, and gaining practical experience. Strong problem-solving skills, knowing system design basics, and some cloud familiarity (AWS/Azure/GCP) help. Networking and referrals matter a lot—try to connect with industry folks on LinkedIn or attend meetups. Most importantly, don’t just grind LeetCode—show you can build and ship things.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Very much agree with this. When I am looking at recently graduated candidates, I look for things they have actually built. When they have Open source projects on GitHub, that is incredible. Just throwing any crap up. There isn't sufficient though. Just throwing your school assignments up. There doesn't count either. My best advice is start writing code to solve problems in your own life. Basically write apps to solve your own problem. A great example currently on hn is an expense tracker. That sort of stuff is great because you can showcase your front end and back-end skills, along with design and refinement. Then maintain that project for a while to show a history, which demonstrates your skill of maintenance. That sort of thing Will get you hired by me as a junior in a heartbeat.
dclowd9901 2y ago
Biggest thing I can advise is stay away from AI. Learn what you're doing, learn how code works, is structured, is written and why. The most successful engineers are the ones who learn the "language" of software engineering. They have some sense of how a program is structured even before looking at a line of code.

As a Computer Science student, what should I be focusing on in order to get a job in this market?

dfedbeef 2y ago

Edit: paid internships

burgos_thrw 2y ago
This. I mentored five interns across two companies (an faang and a pre IPO) all of them are on the great path and in great companies now. They didn’t know much but they had an appetite that you don’t see often in the people with 10+ years of experience.

_blk 2y ago

Actual projects to showcase. Open source/Github helps but is not a strict must.

ahartmetz 2y ago

IMO: Writing, extending and fixing bugs in nontrivial programs, collaborating with others, reading a lot of documentation of the things you use, discussing programming with other interested people. The scientific part is usually not at the fore in practice and your courses will be plenty for that. Working on some large FOSS project will teach you most of the skills, though maybe don't specialize too much. Some people seem to mostly fix bugs, others design and half-finish stuff before switching to something else, etc. It's best to know the full lifecycle in order to have relevant experience for all situations.

memorydial 2y ago

Focus on building real projects, contributing to open source, and gaining practical experience. Strong problem-solving skills, knowing system design basics, and some cloud familiarity (AWS/Azure/GCP) help. Networking and referrals matter a lot—try to connect with industry folks on LinkedIn or attend meetups. Most importantly, don’t just grind LeetCode—show you can build and ship things.

freedomben 2y ago
Very much agree with this. When I am looking at recently graduated candidates, I look for things they have actually built. When they have Open source projects on GitHub, that is incredible. Just throwing any crap up. There isn't sufficient though. Just throwing your school assignments up. There doesn't count either. My best advice is start writing code to solve problems in your own life. Basically write apps to solve your own problem. A great example currently on hn is an expense tracker. That sort of stuff is great because you can showcase your front end and back-end skills, along with design and refinement. Then maintain that project for a while to show a history, which demonstrates your skill of maintenance. That sort of thing Will get you hired by me as a junior in a heartbeat.

dclowd9901 2y ago

Biggest thing I can advise is stay away from AI. Learn what you're doing, learn how code works, is structured, is written and why. The most successful engineers are the ones who learn the "language" of software engineering. They have some sense of how a program is structured even before looking at a line of code.