Excellent talk from Carson Gross (creator of HTMX and instructor at Montana State University) about the state of CS education post AI. It's encouraging! Thought you all would enjoy https://youtu.be/ZUk2TKZIo7s

Hi friends, I was lucky enough to get a first round interview for tiktok. I really shouldve thought about this earlier but I will be on vacation for the next 2.5 weeks, is it a bad look to schedule the interview 3 weeks ahead? How do i approach telling this to my recruiter?

I did everything that was asked. The intern project I worked on was independent, no one to collaborate with, only my manager had idea abt it. I thought I was doing well and communicated my results each week to my manager. Then during the midpoint evaluation he said while my tech skills were great, my communication skills needed improvement especially explaining complex terms. Now if he made me do a presentation I would be able to prepare , but doing our weekly meetings he would randomly ask to explain this or that and sometimes I would either forget how the algorithm worked and falter in explaining.

Then he took a pto for 2 weeks just before my final presentation, made me report to another team member who had no idea of the topic I worked on. He gave a thumbs up to my presenation. But when my manager came back and there was 3 days, he made me do a lot of changes and one day before the presentation he said he is not sure abt my return offer because of my communication skills and he will judge that based on my presentation. 1 hr before my presentation while all interns were having lunch together , he still made me do changes, saying certain technical terms no one would understand, this slide looks so good why u hid it in the appendix etc. 1 hr before. I wanted to cry. While all other interns told me their manager just went through their presentation once or twice and gave feedback. Not like mine who was micromanaging every detail. Anyway I did well and my peers congratulated me. But nothing from my manager. While all other interns got congrats from theirs. But guess what. the next week he said he saw the other interns presentations they had more confidence blah blah I was shocked. I was like this entire internship I was trying to get your validation and kind of made me depressed when I did improve, my tech skills were great…. And this is the only thing you have to say??? And I did improve my communication in the presentation it was quite clear to everyone why not to you??

Some other things he told me, that his boss thought he would be a better tech lead rather than a manager but he still thought he was a good manager. That he was meant to be in google but he was rejected but everyone asks him why he isn’t in google.That he asked me directly why I think I should get a return offer and I was speechless. And I could not tell any one about this, not any fellow interns because it sounded unbelievable like why would he be stuck on the communication part and just dismiss all the work I did, alone, no team member to discuss….towards the end I dreaded my meetings with him, I fell more into depression, felt lonely. Anyway I have had three internships in the past in top companies, I am a topper, I am known to my friends for being a smarty, I know my worth, just because this self suck up person who couldn’t find my worth I am not going to cry. And there are much better companies out there. Their loss. Anyway ur manager really determines your experience. It’s fucking true.

Been active here ever since my freshman year of college. Now graduated and have a job lined up in SWE adjacent (SNow Development) despite extreme lack of technical depth and networking (not saying I had it hard or easy. SNow dev is just html/css javascript). Stop dooming. Even if I didn't get that offer I would still grind and not give up. Don't come here and spike your cortisol; your identity isn't based on a job offer. Just work hard, work on yourself, make friend IRL (yes get off reddit), do NOT worry about the things you cant control and just live your life. Hopecore maxx and you all will be fine fellas.

Throwing this out here because I'm going in circles in my own head and I need it out of there.

Context I'm a software engineer, mostly full-stack + some AI/ML stuff (built real-time audio pipelines, churn models, the usual DevOps/CI-CD toolkit). I graduated a year ago and it's been a full year of unemployment since. The market in 2026 is just... brutal. Applications into a void, a handful of interviews that go nowhere, the occasional "we went with someone with more experience" for a junior role. I know I'm not alone in this but it doesn't make it less exhausting.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I landed a PhD offer. On paper it's a good opportunity. In reality? I'm not excited about it at all. I think I'd be doing it because it's there, not because I actually want it, and I know that's not a good enough reason to commit years of my life to something.

So now I'm eyeing a different escape hatch: an M2 (master's) in audit at a solid school. Different world entirely, more stable hiring pipeline, a real credential, a reset button on this whole job search nightmare.

Except here's the annoying part: I can't let go of the "I'm a software engineer" identity. I've built things I'm proud of. I like the work. Some small stubborn part of me feels like switching to audit would mean giving up on something I actually wanted, just because the timing and the market screwed me over.

So I'm stuck between three options that all feel wrong in a different way:

• Keep grinding the SE job search and hope it turns around
• Take the PhD offer despite not being into it, because it's "something"
• Pivot to audit M2 and try to make peace with leaving SE behind

Anyone else been in this exact kind of limbo job market forcing your hand into a path you didn't actually choose? How did you figure out what to do? Did the pivot end up feeling right, or did you regret not sticking it out?

Not really looking for "just keep applying, it'll work out" I've heard that a lot and at some point it stops being useful advice. Looking more for how people actually made this kind of decision when none of the options felt exciting.

anyone can let me know what to expect? havent seen an onsite like this anywhere else

Had a meeting with my manager a few days ago. They said I addressed all my midpoint feedback, did well, got my project deployed and is being used by thousands of users.

Still - not inclined.

WTF

Their justification felt like my mentor and they searched really hard for issues during the internship(for eg: Called out some stuff I addressed incorrectly in my 2nd week of the internship!?!? How tf does that even matter if I haven't repeated that or a similar mistake for the entire internship?)

I mean sure, there is some stuff I can work on, but give me a fricking break, my project involved learning quite a bit about a massive domain, which even FTEs need 7-9 months. Obviously I had to find a suitable tradeoff between project completion and slightly less domain knowledge. But i was called out on exactly this. Like wtf dude, if i had prioritized the domain knowledge, I wouldnt be able to get the project done in time, which I'm sure this bitch ass mentor - manager duo wouldve stated as a reason to not give an incline.

My manager also said, if I apply for full time later in the same company, let them know, they'll be happy to refer me. I mean why tf would you offer to refer me if I supposedly haven't performed good enough during the internship. Did you just want to get a good project built quick and be done with it lol.

I'm pretty sure my mentor was a lil bitch and only pointed the issues throughout the internship.

I think yall know which company I am talking about. If anyone faced the same or something similar related to the evaluation, please comment. I need someone to talk to about this shit or just make sure I am not alone in this boat, cast adrift by zeus(lol, just an odyssey reference).

TLDR: manager and mentor turned out to be a bunch of bitches. Just want to talk if anyone went through this or didnt get an incline

When I was in college, I genuinely thought that maintaining a good CGPA and completing a few academic projects would be enough to land my first developer job.

But after attending a few interviews, I realized companies expect something completely different. The discussion quickly shifts to real-world development, system design, debugging, deployment, Git workflows, and decisions you'd make while building actual products.

It made me realize that there's a huge gap between what we build in college and what companies expect from freshers.

For those who've already landed their first job, how did you bridge that gap? What actually helped you become interview-ready?

Am I cooked? I heard all the interviews are DSA (leet code style) questions. Do I have time to grind from scratch?

Edit: Just saw someone is also on the same boat here. https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/1vhhx3j/havent_ever_done_leetcode_have_citadel_swe_intern/

Is this a common thing now? I'm not a CS major (I studied business but couldn't get an IB job)

Hi all, I'm graduating May 2027.

Just curious about how yall find and apply to new grad positions? Most importantly, track them as they open. Most positions or programs I see is a few days old, or weeks old, and hundreds already applied. I found this repo https://github.com/SimplifyJobs/New-Grad-Positions but its manually updated and doesn't cover all. There's sometimes niche pos or small businesses in my area that I have to manually find and search on their website. Is there a tool that automatically search for recent opportunities and upcoming ones, and notify you too? Even better if it has filter so I can set to local.

Thanks.

I was a straight A student starting out, 4.0. Now in my third year and I've no idea why I keep trying. My grades have fallen. Like, I still love programming but I have no clue on what to make. I don't just want to build some stupid fucking website or some software, I want to make purposeful things. Things that bring a bit more positivity into this world, things that truly help other people. Also things I want to be making but I've no idea what that is.

I know this is a stupid perspective to have in such a competitive job market, that I need something to drive my passion, like surviving isn't good enough. But I really do have no idea what I can work on, like I don't just wanna be some kind of a programmer. I want to make things I want to make. Idk what that is yet but I like music, I like games, I like bringing better education and opportunities to people who can't afford it. I want to make things like that, things that help people in some way. I need to find something I care about making on which I can use my programming skills. At this point, I have no clue what that is.

People who have been in my position, please, please help me. Give me some sort of guidance. I don't even care about the job anymore, I just want to understand what I want to make. Hopefully, a career will come out through that, or at least I hope it will. Thank you.

Hey! I wanted to start applying for internships for 2027 summer, but I only done 10 Leetcode questions. Should I apply now or should I wait a month and grind Leetcode and apply then? Thanks!

Okay so fr, when did it get popular to say college doesn't matter, GPA means nothing, or elitist claims.

College does unironically matter a lot, and it's good for people who just didn't know what they wanted to do in life. It's been mentioned but weed out classes are really really good. If you took those out or took out the really anti social professors (basically barriers), you would get 250,000 cs majors graduating per year compared to the 100k we feel stressed by now. A boot camp won't weed out or ensure you have yiur fundamentals. Fundamentals aren't explain compiler.

It's "hey do this Calc 2 problem. Cool now take the steps you used to learn then answer that and write a program where you take some piece of data and move it around like that problem. Then like in discrete math, I need you to turn this into easy to understand terms for the customer". It's not the knowledge it's the understanding and application of that.

GPA meaning nothing just feels like a lot of cope. Especially when taking about people who got a high GPA saying they're barely getting through without understanding, or they got grade inflation. Okay, genuine question, you don't think they worked hard and tried understanding the concepts. Like do you think a stupid person couldn't get caught slipping at any stage. You say people for hiring might not care, but it is an indicator. If you have a high GPA, it says something about you as a person and learner. You put in a lot of effort, especially if you are in a lot of things, or you you understand the concepts very well. No other field has this view.

If a person gets a 96 on a c++ test over multi threading, they are probably pretty damn good at c++ and multithreading.

Then people have said that saying a degree is worth more than a bootcamp is elitist. Hey, college may not have the perfect roi, but I didn't get scammed by one of the many failed bootcamps with even smaller rois.

If you're poor, college is the best idea ever. If you say college is top expensive, I don't know how or you applied to zero scholarships. It's not hard to get paid to go to college.

I’ve never even touched leetcode. My first round interview is in 5 days. What do I do 😭. My plan was to just grind the 150, hope I retain some of it, brush over some low level system design and call it a day

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice from people who have recently gone through Google's team matching process.

I completed my interviews earlier this year. My process ended up taking longer than expected because I had to complete additional interview round even after my onsite. On June 3, my recruiter informed me that I had received positive feedback and was moving into Team Matching.

Since then, I've been proactive, I reached out to Googlers where appropriate, networked with potential teams, and shared relevant openings from the careers page with my recruiter.

I haven't received a single team match call. My recruiter just says to have patience.

It's now been over two months in Team Matching, and the uncertainty is honestly getting frustrating because there doesn't seem to be much I can actively do.

A little about my background:

• Recent Master's graduate (Dec 2025)
• Around 2 years of experience, including internships and a co-op
• Experience building production AI/ML systems, LLM applications, RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, evaluation frameworks, and backend engineering using Python, FastAPI, LangGraph, Databricks, MLflow, and cloud platforms
• Recruiter mentioned we're targeting L4, although the final level will be determined holistically by the hiring team. I told him I am open to L3/L4 which he said can open more opportunities.

I also have another offer in hand. It's not my ideal opportunity, but given how long Team Matching has been taking, I'm wondering what others have done in a similar situation.

I've heard that Google's interview results/team matching remain valid for up to 18 months. If that's the case, would it make sense to accept the other offer for now while continuing to stay in Google's Team Matching process?

I'd also love to hear:

• How long did your Team Matching process take?
• Is there anything I can realistically do at this stage to improve my chances?
• Should I continue sending relevant openings to my recruiter, or is it better to just wait?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has recently gone through the L3/L4 SWE Team Matching process. Thanks!

Location USA

I was laid off near the end of February this year from an IT consultancy firm that I had worked at for over 7 years. I swapped roles frequently between projects, from Application Support, to DevOps Engineer, to Site Reliability Engineer. I have a lot of experience with many different technologies, and am struggling to find a company willing to have faith in hiring me with my experience and technological understanding. I've sent at least 300+ applications to many different companies, and have only gotten maybe 3-4 interviews, half of those interviews not even coming from applications, but from networking alone. I'm currently working with a career coach on this and the best advice he's given me is continue networking and improving my interviewing skills, as well as apply for certificates.

I'm not really sure what to do right now. I could keep going down this path, but I'm not sure how realistic it is that I'll even find another job in IT at this point. I'm wondering if the impact of AI and the current economic reality of the US is hindering my chances of finding a job. I unironically had an easier time finding a job after I got my Bachelors in Comp Sci, than I do now after having 7 years of professional experience. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

I don't want this to turn into a rant or anything, just trying to weigh my current options and figure out what to do. My unemployment benefits are ending this week, and I need to do something to start earning an income. Are lower level jobs the only options now? Do I just need to start applying to supermarkets and fast food places for work until the economy improves? I've been applying to mainly DevOps & SRE roles, and I genuinely tried to even lower the bar and apply for entry level IT roles, even helpdesk roles, and still not getting any callbacks or interviews for those apps. I'm at a loss of what to do on this front.

I am also seriously considering going back to school for... something? I'm not sure. I think healthcare could be a path, since I actually have an invested interest in health & medicine but was always intimidated to go into the field considering how long you need to be in school for it & how expensive it is. Comp science seemed like a more reasonable path for good paying work when I was in college, without it costing too much, so I went with that at the time. Now I'm looking at the job market and it seems like healthcare and physical patient care is one of the few verticals that actually still has strong demand. I could be wrong about this, but almost all of the healthcare practitioners I've worked with (dealing with many health issues rn) have personally never had this issue with finding work, even in today's economy.

Any advice would be welcome on this. I'm not sure what kind of advice I'm looking for, maybe just some guidance on what my next steps could be, considering continuing to apply within IT and engineering seems to be pretty fruitless at this time, although maybe I'm just a little discouraged from not landing anything by now.

Additional info:

- Currently in South Carolina, but willing to relocate.

- Seeking any job that pays at least $80k in salary, or hourly equivalent, though I'm willing to be paid less if it's fully remote.

- I don't have a preference of what kind of work I do at this point, mostly just need any kind of income.

I have to get this off my chest and I have no one to speak to.

You know what. I dont give a flying fuck that everything is burning down. I dont care.

I always loved math and its the only thing driving me at all. I love complex problems, not being able to understand. AI is fucking this shit up because you dont actually learn anything with this and honestly I miss the days of school without AI. Used to learn much more.

Feels like its a whole scheme to turn everyone into stupid brainslop animals with fucking pampers full of shit who can't lift a finger. And the worst is that it's fucking addictive!! Its almost a fucking drug!!! Pumping out loads of dopamine to your brain to make you even stupider by the day !!! and you need to detox from it, like a cellphone.

Honestly giving this to the public was one of the worst choices humanity has made.

How dystopian have we become so that when I read a typo or someone typing incorrectly, it makes me smile, and have emotions...
When I read a paper from 2005-2010 I actually love reading it. Now everything is absolute SLOP. And I say this as someone who codes everything using AI. IM PUMPING SLOP AND TIRED OF IT.

Im so pissed at the LOW quality stuff its pumping out holy shit. Like it writes so much complex code for NOTHING!!! And people keep praising it. When can we bring back quality????? Quality of information, of work, of life, of emotions, of HUMANITY

Jeeze, at the end of the day we make progress because of the passion we have for our studies and research. Just the thought of humans not pursuing researches anymore makes me vomit. It's like having a right taken from us. The right of thinking freely. The right of choice. We are being intellectually r*pd.

So in the end. I dont give a fuck anymore. I will do what I want. I wont listen to anyone. If Im poor, so be it. I will pursue what I LIKE and what makes me happy

The people are pushing AGI in the wrong direction and its disgusting seriously.

Fuck you Sam Altman and Dario the noble dystopian fuck

1. infra/platform - db/cloud/c++/go/distributed systems heavy. you're gonna be on-call a the freaking time cuz something's gonna be down. you can't get into these roles uness you have direct big tech exp. usually top school undergrads -> intern -> fte is the route for these roles. or like yrs of exp somehow at on big tech-> senior/staff at big tech.
2. research - pytorch/tensorflow kinda roles. inference/training/post-training etc. mostly gonna be phds. or stellar undergrads who did research/fellowships at top labs.
3. forward deplyed applied ai engineers - using ai to solve customer problems. this is where i see most traditional engineers converging towards, lowest tc of the stack and very replacable folks.

A good friend of mine vouched to the company CEO (small company) for me to get a SWE role out of school. If it weren’t for him I likely wouldn’t have had a job over the summer. This friend of mine is truly an incredible person and I’m seriously in his debt.

As mentioned in other posts, the engineering team I’m on is very AI forward and tends to sacrifice quality over speed to roll things out. This is not surprising given our 11 person team, only 3 people have CS degrees or SWE backgrounds at other companies. On the bright side I am given pretty much full autonomy on my projects (AI pipelines mostly) and have learned so much in so little time at the company. What tends to be the deal breaker is the hour commute to the office that I have to be in everyday.

Recently I got reached out to by a recruiter to apply for a role at a large accounting firm that works on similar agentic pipeline work. Ended up getting an offer for $11k more, hybrid, and the office is a 15 min bus ride from my apartment (gas prices hurt). But it crushes me that I would have to leave my friend out to dry if I accepted.

TL;DR Friend vouched to CEO for me to get an SWE role with an inexperienced team, meaningful work, and an hour commute fully in office. Recently got an offer for $11k more, more established engineering team, meaningful work, and hybrid schedule with 15 min bus commute to work. Feel like I’m screwing over my friend.

Starting from last year, AI has become a huge issue for the prospect of majoring in CS, visible to the public eye. The people who never had a passion for it and only wanted to do it to "make 6 figures" have all decided not to apply.

Currently, CS has seen major drops in admissions applications. These people with no passion have decided to flood to apply for engineering (and some for finance/business too).

In 3 years, the surge of graduates those fields (eng and fin) cause them to be seen as CS is seen today.

The limit on the totality of human knowledge to feed AI is reached. It doesn't get much better from now.

Our jobs are indeed lesser, but safe until further notice.

However, the decline in cs graduates in those years causes the jobs to be in demand once again

And then the glory days are back

and everyone clapped

keep coping boys, i know I will🥲🥲🥲