This past year, I completed two software development engineer internships with some notable tech firms and received return offers at both. While both offers are compelling, I still want to test the waters this application cycle by interviewing with other companies in order to explore more options.
At the risk sounding boastful, I have had an oddly successful application cycle this year in terms of response rate compared to my peers. Despite the looming economic recession, layoffs, and hiring freezes in the industry, I have had callbacks from very prestigious companies and have even been contacted by two recruiters from one of my dream FAANG companies. These recruiters seemed particularly interested in the iOS experience on my resume from my summer internship.
Having a safety net in place with my current offers allows me to be a bit more selective about which companies I apply to. Last year, I filled out well over 150 applications and only received a handful of bites from some relatively small/unknown companies. This year, I only filled out about 20 applications and already have 5 interviews lined up with top companies. Could it be that internships are much more competitive than full-time roles? Or does having prior internship experience truly boost my response rate? It’s hard to say.
However, it’s one thing just to get an interview; passing the interview is a whole other beast. Interviews for full-time software engineering positions tend to be much more thorough and rigorous. One of my interviews with a FAANG company lasted an entire day and involved seven (7) rounds!
This also means that I need to brush up on my data structures and algorithms fundamentals in preparation for technical interviews. It is surprising how fast you lose this knowledge if you don’t practice it often. I had solved about 250 LeetCode problems last summer and have already forgotten how to do many of them. Getting back into a training regimen was grueling at first and not very motivating. However, I have also found that once you get over the initial hump of solving a handful of problems, the patterns and tricks start rapidly coming back to you as you unlock that portion of your long-term memory. I have been working through the infamous “Blind 75” list of fundamental problems as a review, using NeetCode’s handy website to track my progress. I have completed 60/75 problems so far and have been supplementing this practice by conducting mock interviews on Pramp every day.
Of course, there are also behavioral components to these interviews which I am admittedly much less comfortable with. I am not very good at coming up with nor articulating stories on the spot and often need to have a “script” memorized, and interviewers will likely expect me to draw from my prior internship experiences for these stories. I will need to find time in the coming weeks to sit down, brainstorm, and fully flesh out these stories.
In spite of the current job market, my job hunt this year looks a lot more promising than last year. It will be an interesting application cycle to say the least and I look forward to seeing which offers I emerge with in the end.
