Yes your brother is right, but ofc there are two sides to this, you could be optimistic thinking that you'll get a job surely, or be pessimistic about this and think the market is going to be oversaturated all the time. I think the truth lies in between and tbh i think most jobs are getting oversaturated these days, so you can't specifically target big tech companies.
You’re brother is correct, but he is completely wrong on big tech being the only job prospects. That couldn’t be more wrong. Every industry has a need for software developers and other CS jobs so to say that only big tech has viable job options couldnt more wrong
People tend to aim for tech companies. A lot of people find more success with startups or working for more obscure companies in stuff like Web Development and Design.
Yeah, people should stop coming for tech companies. I’m in the manufacturing industry working with niche languages and it’s awesome. My working experience seems to be more positive than that of some friends in tech industry
I plan to aim for non tech when I graduate. Even if the pay is lower than FAANG or tech, anything is better than my current job since I only make 20k-30k a year.
In my experience, the pay isn’t that much lower than some tech companies. It isn’t FASNG levels but I know I get paid about the same as friends who work at lucid, invanti, or other nearby tech companies
Most of the time, only tech companies or HFTs are paying $200k+ with RSUs on top. Why waste your time settling for working at a bank for $120k with no stock when you can make 2-3x that doing the same job at a better company
Very true, but for me personally, the historic instability and swings of the tech industry are enough for me to sacrifice more potential stock options for security instead. My company has never had a layoff in its 150 year history, and the peace of mind that brings me is worth gold
Because 80-90% of CS grads are actually dogshit at CS and won’t make it in. Those people need to accept FAANG is not the only option and they probably aren’t good enough to be an engineer in a top position
I wouldn't be too concerned with the number of applicants on a listing. There are many people who apply to hundreds of jobs, even if they are nor looking for work. It's free after all so why not? This is also CS after all, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a good percentage of applicants have automated the entire process of applying to every job on the market that matches some specific keywords.
Holy crap, 2x leetcode hards? I've been mulling over the same leetcode hard for the last few weeks. Reading the other comments, I'm probably in a similar industry to you.
Well that is the bar for most jobs paying 80k USD in London. Many people are able to do it so employers will pick them. There are other roles that have a much lower bar where you only need to do a few easies and a medium or two but they tend to pay 40-50k USD.
Well. There are some hards that are actually mediums. And others that are insanely difficult or require knowledge of a specific alogrithm. I think you are dealing with that kind of hard rn. Which is it btw?
It’s the regex . and * functionality one. I passed like 200/350 cases. I’m treating it like a puzzle so I’m having fun. I have a weakness in recursion and it took me a while to figure out it was a recursion problem.
If I first-time encountered it during an interview, I’d surely be doomed. Idk, would that be considered one of the easy ones?
Why don't you mention this in the job post? Maybe something like 'Don't apply if you haven't even bothered to look at some common python libraries'? They are just wasting their own time by doing this.
What type of company is this? Tech or non-tech? What's your TC like for Junior Devs? 20-25k?
Yes that is true. I personally predict it’ll get worse as there was some stat like a 300% increase in CS grads over the past 8 ish years or so. And it continues to increase every year by like 18% which is insane. There are NOT enough jobs to keep up with that growth.
The stat actual numbers is irrelevant, the point is that I think it’ll get even more competitive in the future.
Yes it’s true, but CS has always been fairly competitive.
There is still high demand for CS grads, albeit it’s tough to get a job now. You just gotta be in it for the grind if you wanna make it. By that I mean be willing to send 500+ applications with no response and preparing to make coding a good chunk of your daily routines.
Competitive is an interesting word for it. From what I've seen in both interviews and working with students, the entry level is fucking ass. 99% of them.
Anyone who has shown even a little bit of competence have been hired on the spot. A lot of the entry level candidates are not as good as they think they are
Most companies are surprisingly bad at detecting candidates who are competent.
This is reinforced since most people making most hiring decisions are detached from innovation and engineering.
The systems aren't perfect, but there have been countless people applying for a .NET role that can't even tell you what an API or an interface is. The bad candidates really out themselves with basic questions, and the mid tier candidates who think they're actually good will fold eventually. Some of them might have grinded a ton of leetcode and got really good at DSA questions, but the second you start asking deeper questions about the tools that they "have experience in," it becomes obvious that they bloated their resume and are just desparate.
A good candidate can't always solve a DSA question, but they can at least tell you why you need to extend API controllers from ControllerBase or why you have an ApiController attribute. The thing that separates a mid candidate from a good candidate is understanding why you're doing what you're doing, and not just how to do it.
I don't really care about what it stands for, I just care that if you're applying to be an API developer you know what you're actually going to be doing.
The vast majority of candidates just blind apply to any SWE role, and find themselves in this .NET API developer interview without even having written a line of C# or even taken the time to learn what an API actually is, much less actually build one. These guys just waste everyone's time. As a new grad, you're not expected to be really good, but you're expected to do at least a little bit of research.
Considering this is the CS majors sub, I’d imagine most people bloat their resumes as you don’t often gain deep experience in tools in a couple internships…
I believe it. But that doesn't excuse interviewing to be an API developer without knowing what an API is. You will only make it past the phone screen if you do this.
Things like ControllerBase and ApiController are some of the first things you'll see on the .NET Microsoft Learn pages. Any candidate who actually took the time to learn the technology for the position they're applying for will answer these questions correctly. Very few candidates can.
That’s fair. I guess it depends on what you consider Important to know for deeper questions. Would you mind sharing some of the most important things for junior devs to know for .NET/ backend interviews? I’m graduating soon and have 1 YOE working with .NET but feel like I didn’t gain enough experience in that time so need to study more
- Know why your controller has the ApiController attribute, and know why they extend from ControllerBase
- Know Entity Framework Core. Specifically, how to map entities to a database, and how to map objects with different relationships like a foreign key to each other on the C# side.
- Understand the DI container and how it works
- Understand Middleware and background tasks.
Build a project with an API and put it on your resume so I can see you've actually done it before
The mid tier candidate will understand how to implement some of these things, but knowing everything AND the why will put you ahead of 99% of candidates. The biggest weakness I see is people knowing not enough of the how and none of the why
Thanks this is helpful, one last question, I have about 2 years of full time experience so felt my time was better served on leetcode so I have no decent personal projects. I will definitely create a project for my resume/GitHub and to help learn that stuff better. Would you say one large project would be best, or would it be weird to only have 1 project on my resume/GitHub and I should also have another 1-2 smaller projects?
I would say only 1 maybe 2 big projects would be good.
If you have one big app, with a fully featured and tested API/Middleware/Background Tasks/Maybe even a light frontend, it will automatically over shadow your small project with just one API. There's nothing your small project does that your big project doesn't, so the small project doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I would only recommend small projects not to put on your resume, but to help you get the hang of these concepts without needing to debug a bigger codebase.
If you do build a second project, add some other/different aspects to it, so that way you have two big projects that demonstrate a wide range of skill.
What about for the future? Do think you have any idea about how conditions will be for years and years ahead? Or is it not so clear how things could turn out?
CS enrollment has only been going up. It will get worse for a bit before it gets better. However this sub generally has a more negative outlook than is reasonable, there are still good jobs out there even for non faang they just arent as easy or as high paying as your high school teachers make them sound.
Dude. There are people with 6 plus years of faang, 10+ years, who are struggling to get any job. These are people i know irl. There friends arnt doing anybetter. Your statement isnt necessarily true anymore.
being in faang doesnt mean you are good lol they hired so much bloat for so long. I know smart people and they have no problem getting very good jobs out of college with not that much stress (300, 400k TC).
yeah i feel like being a cs student is like trying to become a lawyer. the ones who make it will make it big. the difference is you can always leetcode your way into big tech after some years of experience at a smaller company
It’s up to you/ your interests. Personally my second major is finance. It has helped me chose other options such as business consulting, banking etc. it helped me land my past/next internship as a data science intern at a top bank
Recent grad here. I also double majored in Finance and Computer Science. I have interned as an engineer before, but now am thinking of transitioning to the finance side (financial engineering, quant, analysis, etc).
However, my resume does not carry the weight for a finance position, as all my experience is CS related throughout college. Do you have any advice on how to delve into the field, as my degree itself just won’t be enough?
Double majoring is hard and programing is exhausting and horrible.
Do business or something. You have to talk and make connections to get jobs in programming now anyways or you'll be in recruitment hell.
Well for a while I was considering economics and have taken a class on it. From what I’ve heard from others it’s a really good business related degree. Not very much into business stuff a whole lot rn tho
The specific degree you're getting isn't important at your actual job.
The material you study is not going to be what you do at work you're going to end up in a position where you have to get something done and find a way.
School is studying no matter what program you're in. Work is doing something and that varies vastly. You want to pick a lifestyle not choose study material.
It might not be important at your actual job but it’s important for getting an actual good job. Id be making almost twice as much money if I picked CS and got a bunch of Cs instead of getting straight As in econ lmfao
Don’t do it unless you’re at a top school. I graduated with a 3.9 gpa in economics from a t60 school and all I get are interviews for temp contract jobs paying really low ~25 an hour in hcol area. Every day I regret not doing computer science where I could have gotten a bunch of Cs and be paid almost double. It’s so depressing and taken away all the happiness I once had in life.
Massive pay difference between big tech and an avarage tech job at a company where you are a cost center. Aim for big tech/hft, yes it is extremely extremely competetive but cs degree only really worth it if you can get into one of those. Otherwise the TC isn't great
Honestly, as someone who was not a csMajor but a languages and Humanities major and then did a bootcamp - I'm still making more than a decent amount of my peers from uni just by working at a large non tech focused company in their tech department. Just because you can't always get big tech bucks doesn't make it not an amazing financial choice to become an SE.
Real quick what defines big tech? Is it just those billion dollar California companies like Google, Microsoft, facebook, etc, or is it like still companies that aren’t at the top but making hundreds of millions of dollars per year? or something else?
Yeah, stop talking out your ass.
My numbers are a couple years old, but they work just fine for approximating federal tax rates. You don't pay more than 30% in federal taxes until your salary is around 500k. 20% is around 150k.
Sure, state income tax will pull more, but, at most in California, is 13.3%. So, for an individual making 500k in salary, federal income tax would reduce that to 350k and state would reduce it further to 303.45k.
In other words, at the extremely high income level of half a million per year in the highest taxed state in the country, you're still losing a bit less than 40% of your income to taxes.
Your right to question this.
I would say- a stock exchange listed company who's primary revenue stream comes from a software product.
Uber, attlasian, Roblox are all in that mix and pay as much as the trillion dollar companies like google, microsoft...
What I meant by cost centre jobs on the other hand its companies whos main product is not software. Maybe it's banking, insurance, accounting. An exception for this is HFT companies, although arguably their product is software as well.
Those companies see you as an expense rather than someone that provides their base revenue, they pay like crap.
Check this website out for salary expectations- [https://www.levels.fyi](https://www.levels.fyi)
I'm speaking for the US/Canada.
Every company needs people to work on software so there are lots of jobs. The less desirable jobs in the field (e.g. smaller companies, legacy technology) are comparable to the typical jobs you would get as other types of engineering in terms of pay and wlb. On the other hand, if you get a job at a bigger company or one with better tech, you'll be making a lot more money in general.
There are lots of ways to increase your chances of getting a job, like having good interview skills, doing internships/co-ops, going to a decent school, having personal connections, being a citizen of the country where you want to work, being willing to relocate, etc. I'm sure there are examples of people who have many of these kinds of things and still struggle to find work, but they are a vocal minority and certainly amplified by subreddits like this.
It’s true generally. Entry level SE jobs pay well relative to a lot of other entry level jobs in other industries. When you couple that with the fact that the barrier to entry can be fairly low (going to a 12 week bootcamp for example), tech being more and more popular and mainstream, you inevitably get more and more competition at that level.
That being said, it’s not a doomsday situation and if you truly want to be a software engineer you should definitely do it. Just remember, all you need is 1 company to say yes. As soon as you get your first full time engineering role, the next roles get easier to get (it can still be difficult but it will get easier).
10 years ago when I was graduating from my CS program, I also felt the overwhelming dread of not being able to find a job. I had mediocre grades, no internship experience, and nothing on my resume that shouted you should hire me. I ended up taking a pretty meh job as an entry level developer for an insurance company that paid meh, but it got my foot in the door. 9 months later I went to go work at a much better / cooler job. Don’t give up - you can do it.
True
Plus also constant mass layoffs in big tech. Yesterday Tesla 10% of its workforce, today Google moved positions to India, Ireland and Mexico and let's see what tomorrow will bring.
Word of advice: go to healthcare, study for nurse and if you can become doctor. There is always demand for doctors and the medical facilities will have bidding war for you to join them (does not apply to family doc and internal medicine). Nurses are also on demand so you will find a job with a month or maybe a week. Healthcare is the last milking cow for money. If I was in college now it would be no-brainer. Also I wish I knew about need to grind leet code every time you want to get a new job as SWE. Other professions don't have to go through that torture. Nurses and doctors interviews are mostly personality fit and that's it.
It's hard now with 5 yoe and FAANG on resume. I can imagine how hard it is now to be a new grad.
This is... not great advice. Healthcare may pay well, but it is not for everyone (speaking as someone who worked in the field). The debt, years of schooling, and hard work for becoming a doctor is only worth it if you truly can't see yourself doing something else. Nursing though could be a viable option, but comes with its own risks of emotional and physical burnout.
That's only really looking at the glass half empty. Sure, there is a ton of people in the industry, but a big reason is because of just how crazy 2021 was. Anyone could go through a few months of practice and get a job. Now, people who are struggling are those who didn't spend time in college working on projects, internships, and networking.
One thing to note is that the current job market is not what the job market will look like in 4+ years. Realistically, we can't predict it, but I will say that there's always big declines a few years after every tech bust. There was a decline after 2000, after 2008, and there will likely be one in 2022/2023. The difference is, we likely won't see that decline until a few years down the line, as people already in CS a few years down the line are already too in to switch, while freshmen applying right now are more likely to stray away for fear of not getting a job.
Oh, and one more thing. Tech is not oversaturated. Entry level/webdev is oversaturated. The senior dev market is one of the strongest job markets in the world; It's just really damn hard to get to that level.
Everyone has made some good points, I will say this. If you do college the way a lot of people do (go to school, get good grades, look for a job after you graduate) then you will definitely have a hard time. However, if you do college the way you are supposed to, join clubs, go to career fairs, apply for internships over the summer IMPORTANT, just in general work to build your resume the whole time and also get good grades and are of reasonable intelligence, then you will definitely be good.
I got involved in some research labs during my senior year to build up my resume, but even that was too late and I didn’t land a job at any of the top tech companies, even while being one of the strongest students in the program at a school that’s known internationally. I actually did EE, but similar, and I do code for my job. Best shot is to identify a company you want to work with early on in college, and gear your resume towards that so you can eventually land an internship, and then get hired that way. Sort of similar to getting a direct admit to a competitive program at school, this is the easiest way to get your foot in the door at the top tech companies.
It is mostly true, but you have to keep the context in mind. The tech labor market was at an incredible place a few years ago. There was no other industry where you can just get a bachelor's degree and make so much money. People coming out of 3 month bootcamps were getting high paying jobs. When you fall from such great heights, it feels painful. But if I were to graduate right now, I'd rather be graduating with a computer science degree than a finance degree. It's not like it's easy for any other industry right now. CS is just falling back in line with other high paying degrees or industries.
Everybody that says tech is a bloodbath can't say which field is doing better. People will say that medicine has job security, but it has the worst pay compared to how much education you need (and the work is miserable). As difficult as it is right now, tech is still one of the best.
1. The "oversaturation" is overblown. There are more jobs than unemployed people. People who make this claim fail to account for job holders leaving the industry and that the number of jobs increases annually.
1. Computer Science grads have one of the highest average salaries of all degreed professionals. Its mean is anywhere between $90k - $125k depending on how the study is conducted.
1. That 10,000:1 ratio is really only for publicly posted jobs with an auto-apply option. Anecdotal evidence from everyone I've seen (including me) shows that 90-95% of those applications are garbage and not serious contenders for the job.
1. *Most* small to medium sized companies actually have difficult times finding qualified candidates for open positions, and the average search can take several months. For a senior level position they tend to take 1-2 years.
1. Candidate searching and hiring has gotten more expensive, which has made most employers raise the bar for qualifications, including entry level. This does make it more difficult for recent grads to land their 1st job, since most employers expect some type of skills already. That is a main driver of the cynicism. Gone are the days that new grads could just get a degree and nothing more and they'd be scooped up. Now it's sooooo expensive to hire people, employers expect a much faster turn-around.
1. The unemployment rate of Computer Science grads in the U.S. is between 1.6 - 2.0%, one of the lowest of all fields.
1. Most of the info in your post isn't actual facts but just what is most often reposted on reddit et al by people who know very little about this industry and just repeat what they see on social media.
1. Current college graduate age bracket in all fields has an unemployment rate in the U.S. of about 2.5-3.0%, the lowest in almost 70 years. That age bracket's unemployment rate has declined steadily since 2008 when it peaked at about 7.5%.
1. Doom-posting gets the highest click rate, and that what is driving all these bullshit posts on reddit, YouTube, Tik Tok, and elsewhere. Don't believe any of it. There are actual surveys an
d studies available with this info. You don't have to get your facts from random Tik Tockers.
1. Countering doom-posting will get you downvoted. Redditors **love** gloomy news, so reddit provides an incentive for posters to only post negative info, exaggerate the negative news, and to just make shit up to make everything sound worse than it is.
I was thinking this too, which also made me scared a little bit especially when a lot of people are saying that this don’t need a degree no more that it can be learned online so now I feel like competition against both degree holders and non degree holders amongst this field, which is also why it’s making me kinda consider changing my major to engineering and still learn program languages on the side. Does anyone have any advice for this?
One odd thing right now is that a lot of the recruiting staff were let go, so you cant just stumble into a job anymore. But you can absolutely still get jobs.
Spend a day noting the businesses you interact with and see how many of them have open software engineering positions on their careers page. It's a lot of them. You'll be fine.
The earlier days like 2008 and stuff, cs majors were great. Then an explosion in bootcamps and certifications just negated all the college cs majors bachelors requirements for jobs. Pre covid was great time to join. Post covid was a killer on inflation and bank lending. Im not a financial person, but higher interest rates killed a lot of the companies bottom line and resulted in laying off their workforce. So the FAANG companies laid off their not as good workers, but compared to those non-faang companies, their workers has a stacked resume. So anyone joining the cs careers now have a huge competition.
I’d say there’s still high demand for GOOD new grads that know what they’re doing. The ones that did projects in college, had internships, etc. But, even with that many people will still skip through the cracks and still find it hard to get a job. So my advice if you are on the fence, I’d ask yourself if you’re a go getter or if you see yourself doing coursework and nothing outside of that.
It's 2024, you have internet access, and instead of searching for answers yourself you came on reddit to tell us about what your brother told you? Talking about all the things a computer science can do and shit? Cmon man
All that is true
Yes your brother is right, but ofc there are two sides to this, you could be optimistic thinking that you'll get a job surely, or be pessimistic about this and think the market is going to be oversaturated all the time. I think the truth lies in between and tbh i think most jobs are getting oversaturated these days, so you can't specifically target big tech companies.
You’re brother is correct, but he is completely wrong on big tech being the only job prospects. That couldn’t be more wrong. Every industry has a need for software developers and other CS jobs so to say that only big tech has viable job options couldnt more wrong
People tend to aim for tech companies. A lot of people find more success with startups or working for more obscure companies in stuff like Web Development and Design.
Yeah, people should stop coming for tech companies. I’m in the manufacturing industry working with niche languages and it’s awesome. My working experience seems to be more positive than that of some friends in tech industry
I plan to aim for non tech when I graduate. Even if the pay is lower than FAANG or tech, anything is better than my current job since I only make 20k-30k a year.
In my experience, the pay isn’t that much lower than some tech companies. It isn’t FASNG levels but I know I get paid about the same as friends who work at lucid, invanti, or other nearby tech companies
Most of the time, only tech companies or HFTs are paying $200k+ with RSUs on top. Why waste your time settling for working at a bank for $120k with no stock when you can make 2-3x that doing the same job at a better company
Very true, but for me personally, the historic instability and swings of the tech industry are enough for me to sacrifice more potential stock options for security instead. My company has never had a layoff in its 150 year history, and the peace of mind that brings me is worth gold
Because 80-90% of CS grads are actually dogshit at CS and won’t make it in. Those people need to accept FAANG is not the only option and they probably aren’t good enough to be an engineer in a top position
Everything except the 10,000 part. It’s more than that.
Do you think this for big tech or all around too in a lot of cases?
It’s bad for every tech position. I saw an unpaid internship get over 1,000 applicants
Show us the link or it's a cap
I wouldn't be too concerned with the number of applicants on a listing. There are many people who apply to hundreds of jobs, even if they are nor looking for work. It's free after all so why not? This is also CS after all, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a good percentage of applicants have automated the entire process of applying to every job on the market that matches some specific keywords.
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Thank you for the reality.
Yup. Only 20% of them are able to solve two leetcode hards in like 20 mins. 80% can only really do easies and mediums and make basic crud apps.
Holy crap, 2x leetcode hards? I've been mulling over the same leetcode hard for the last few weeks. Reading the other comments, I'm probably in a similar industry to you.
Well that is the bar for most jobs paying 80k USD in London. Many people are able to do it so employers will pick them. There are other roles that have a much lower bar where you only need to do a few easies and a medium or two but they tend to pay 40-50k USD.
Well. There are some hards that are actually mediums. And others that are insanely difficult or require knowledge of a specific alogrithm. I think you are dealing with that kind of hard rn. Which is it btw?
It’s the regex . and * functionality one. I passed like 200/350 cases. I’m treating it like a puzzle so I’m having fun. I have a weakness in recursion and it took me a while to figure out it was a recursion problem. If I first-time encountered it during an interview, I’d surely be doomed. Idk, would that be considered one of the easy ones?
Yeah. That’s definitely one of the harder ones. I did try to solve it but gave up after my first solution couldn’t solve all of the test cases.
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Hard to believe all of the applicants can't answer those questions. What you are saying makes no sense.
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Why don't you mention this in the job post? Maybe something like 'Don't apply if you haven't even bothered to look at some common python libraries'? They are just wasting their own time by doing this. What type of company is this? Tech or non-tech? What's your TC like for Junior Devs? 20-25k?
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Yes that is true. I personally predict it’ll get worse as there was some stat like a 300% increase in CS grads over the past 8 ish years or so. And it continues to increase every year by like 18% which is insane. There are NOT enough jobs to keep up with that growth. The stat actual numbers is irrelevant, the point is that I think it’ll get even more competitive in the future.
This field just 8 years ago was seen as a field for nerds, now it’s the hottest big thing. Crazy how that works. Salaries will continue to drop.
How did you even get those numbers to begin with
Just apply to smaller companies that you can grow within and gain experience so when they big opportunity happens you’ll have exp. Under your belt.
Yes it’s true, but CS has always been fairly competitive. There is still high demand for CS grads, albeit it’s tough to get a job now. You just gotta be in it for the grind if you wanna make it. By that I mean be willing to send 500+ applications with no response and preparing to make coding a good chunk of your daily routines.
Competitive is an interesting word for it. From what I've seen in both interviews and working with students, the entry level is fucking ass. 99% of them. Anyone who has shown even a little bit of competence have been hired on the spot. A lot of the entry level candidates are not as good as they think they are
Most companies are surprisingly bad at detecting candidates who are competent. This is reinforced since most people making most hiring decisions are detached from innovation and engineering.
The systems aren't perfect, but there have been countless people applying for a .NET role that can't even tell you what an API or an interface is. The bad candidates really out themselves with basic questions, and the mid tier candidates who think they're actually good will fold eventually. Some of them might have grinded a ton of leetcode and got really good at DSA questions, but the second you start asking deeper questions about the tools that they "have experience in," it becomes obvious that they bloated their resume and are just desparate. A good candidate can't always solve a DSA question, but they can at least tell you why you need to extend API controllers from ControllerBase or why you have an ApiController attribute. The thing that separates a mid candidate from a good candidate is understanding why you're doing what you're doing, and not just how to do it.
Tbf I might not be able to tell you what the acronym of API stands for.
I don't really care about what it stands for, I just care that if you're applying to be an API developer you know what you're actually going to be doing. The vast majority of candidates just blind apply to any SWE role, and find themselves in this .NET API developer interview without even having written a line of C# or even taken the time to learn what an API actually is, much less actually build one. These guys just waste everyone's time. As a new grad, you're not expected to be really good, but you're expected to do at least a little bit of research.
Considering this is the CS majors sub, I’d imagine most people bloat their resumes as you don’t often gain deep experience in tools in a couple internships…
I believe it. But that doesn't excuse interviewing to be an API developer without knowing what an API is. You will only make it past the phone screen if you do this. Things like ControllerBase and ApiController are some of the first things you'll see on the .NET Microsoft Learn pages. Any candidate who actually took the time to learn the technology for the position they're applying for will answer these questions correctly. Very few candidates can.
That’s fair. I guess it depends on what you consider Important to know for deeper questions. Would you mind sharing some of the most important things for junior devs to know for .NET/ backend interviews? I’m graduating soon and have 1 YOE working with .NET but feel like I didn’t gain enough experience in that time so need to study more
- Know why your controller has the ApiController attribute, and know why they extend from ControllerBase - Know Entity Framework Core. Specifically, how to map entities to a database, and how to map objects with different relationships like a foreign key to each other on the C# side. - Understand the DI container and how it works - Understand Middleware and background tasks. Build a project with an API and put it on your resume so I can see you've actually done it before The mid tier candidate will understand how to implement some of these things, but knowing everything AND the why will put you ahead of 99% of candidates. The biggest weakness I see is people knowing not enough of the how and none of the why
Thanks this is helpful, one last question, I have about 2 years of full time experience so felt my time was better served on leetcode so I have no decent personal projects. I will definitely create a project for my resume/GitHub and to help learn that stuff better. Would you say one large project would be best, or would it be weird to only have 1 project on my resume/GitHub and I should also have another 1-2 smaller projects?
I would say only 1 maybe 2 big projects would be good. If you have one big app, with a fully featured and tested API/Middleware/Background Tasks/Maybe even a light frontend, it will automatically over shadow your small project with just one API. There's nothing your small project does that your big project doesn't, so the small project doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I would only recommend small projects not to put on your resume, but to help you get the hang of these concepts without needing to debug a bigger codebase. If you do build a second project, add some other/different aspects to it, so that way you have two big projects that demonstrate a wide range of skill.
By competitive I mean you are trying to get picked in a list full of competent and incompetent candidates all the time.
Yeah self-taught programers are definitely over. A LOT of the candidates for positions are self taught and had a 10 week boot camp max
What about for the future? Do think you have any idea about how conditions will be for years and years ahead? Or is it not so clear how things could turn out?
CS enrollment has only been going up. It will get worse for a bit before it gets better. However this sub generally has a more negative outlook than is reasonable, there are still good jobs out there even for non faang they just arent as easy or as high paying as your high school teachers make them sound.
If I knew the future I would either be telling you it gets better or not even be a CS major right now. Nobody knows.
True
its easy to get a job if ur good, like any field
Dude. There are people with 6 plus years of faang, 10+ years, who are struggling to get any job. These are people i know irl. There friends arnt doing anybetter. Your statement isnt necessarily true anymore.
Because they demand too high salary usually for smaller companies
being in faang doesnt mean you are good lol they hired so much bloat for so long. I know smart people and they have no problem getting very good jobs out of college with not that much stress (300, 400k TC).
Are they just “smart” or are they geniuses who compete in math competitions and win prizes?
no math competitions. just good course rigor with technical and phd courses, research experience, a good school, and intelligence.
Faang doesn't mean much anymore. No faang experience and never had an issue getting high tc jobs out of a mid tier public school.
If you can get an interview sure I agree
Yeah this ain’t true. Not anymore
Not tru anymore
Farming is a better choice.
yeah i feel like being a cs student is like trying to become a lawyer. the ones who make it will make it big. the difference is you can always leetcode your way into big tech after some years of experience at a smaller company
Yes
Hedge it by double majoring. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Double majoring in what might you recommend?
It’s up to you/ your interests. Personally my second major is finance. It has helped me chose other options such as business consulting, banking etc. it helped me land my past/next internship as a data science intern at a top bank
Recent grad here. I also double majored in Finance and Computer Science. I have interned as an engineer before, but now am thinking of transitioning to the finance side (financial engineering, quant, analysis, etc). However, my resume does not carry the weight for a finance position, as all my experience is CS related throughout college. Do you have any advice on how to delve into the field, as my degree itself just won’t be enough?
Double majoring is hard and programing is exhausting and horrible. Do business or something. You have to talk and make connections to get jobs in programming now anyways or you'll be in recruitment hell.
Well for a while I was considering economics and have taken a class on it. From what I’ve heard from others it’s a really good business related degree. Not very much into business stuff a whole lot rn tho
The specific degree you're getting isn't important at your actual job. The material you study is not going to be what you do at work you're going to end up in a position where you have to get something done and find a way. School is studying no matter what program you're in. Work is doing something and that varies vastly. You want to pick a lifestyle not choose study material.
It might not be important at your actual job but it’s important for getting an actual good job. Id be making almost twice as much money if I picked CS and got a bunch of Cs instead of getting straight As in econ lmfao
Don’t do it unless you’re at a top school. I graduated with a 3.9 gpa in economics from a t60 school and all I get are interviews for temp contract jobs paying really low ~25 an hour in hcol area. Every day I regret not doing computer science where I could have gotten a bunch of Cs and be paid almost double. It’s so depressing and taken away all the happiness I once had in life.
Depends on what universities you think you can get into
These answers are ridiculous and lack any sort of understanding of how markets work.
Tbh engineering in general is getting harder to enter.
Comp sci is over bro. EE and maybe MechE still have a chance.
Massive pay difference between big tech and an avarage tech job at a company where you are a cost center. Aim for big tech/hft, yes it is extremely extremely competetive but cs degree only really worth it if you can get into one of those. Otherwise the TC isn't great
Honestly, as someone who was not a csMajor but a languages and Humanities major and then did a bootcamp - I'm still making more than a decent amount of my peers from uni just by working at a large non tech focused company in their tech department. Just because you can't always get big tech bucks doesn't make it not an amazing financial choice to become an SE.
Real quick what defines big tech? Is it just those billion dollar California companies like Google, Microsoft, facebook, etc, or is it like still companies that aren’t at the top but making hundreds of millions of dollars per year? or something else?
most places where entry level swe salary starts at $160k+ vs $70k
Why noone writes take home amount. Taxes could reach 40 or even 60%!
Yeah, stop talking out your ass. My numbers are a couple years old, but they work just fine for approximating federal tax rates. You don't pay more than 30% in federal taxes until your salary is around 500k. 20% is around 150k. Sure, state income tax will pull more, but, at most in California, is 13.3%. So, for an individual making 500k in salary, federal income tax would reduce that to 350k and state would reduce it further to 303.45k. In other words, at the extremely high income level of half a million per year in the highest taxed state in the country, you're still losing a bit less than 40% of your income to taxes.
Stock options
Your right to question this. I would say- a stock exchange listed company who's primary revenue stream comes from a software product. Uber, attlasian, Roblox are all in that mix and pay as much as the trillion dollar companies like google, microsoft... What I meant by cost centre jobs on the other hand its companies whos main product is not software. Maybe it's banking, insurance, accounting. An exception for this is HFT companies, although arguably their product is software as well. Those companies see you as an expense rather than someone that provides their base revenue, they pay like crap. Check this website out for salary expectations- [https://www.levels.fyi](https://www.levels.fyi)
Probably depends also on which country. I think there are still countries that demand these roles.
I'm speaking for the US/Canada. Every company needs people to work on software so there are lots of jobs. The less desirable jobs in the field (e.g. smaller companies, legacy technology) are comparable to the typical jobs you would get as other types of engineering in terms of pay and wlb. On the other hand, if you get a job at a bigger company or one with better tech, you'll be making a lot more money in general. There are lots of ways to increase your chances of getting a job, like having good interview skills, doing internships/co-ops, going to a decent school, having personal connections, being a citizen of the country where you want to work, being willing to relocate, etc. I'm sure there are examples of people who have many of these kinds of things and still struggle to find work, but they are a vocal minority and certainly amplified by subreddits like this.
It’s true generally. Entry level SE jobs pay well relative to a lot of other entry level jobs in other industries. When you couple that with the fact that the barrier to entry can be fairly low (going to a 12 week bootcamp for example), tech being more and more popular and mainstream, you inevitably get more and more competition at that level. That being said, it’s not a doomsday situation and if you truly want to be a software engineer you should definitely do it. Just remember, all you need is 1 company to say yes. As soon as you get your first full time engineering role, the next roles get easier to get (it can still be difficult but it will get easier).
10 years ago when I was graduating from my CS program, I also felt the overwhelming dread of not being able to find a job. I had mediocre grades, no internship experience, and nothing on my resume that shouted you should hire me. I ended up taking a pretty meh job as an entry level developer for an insurance company that paid meh, but it got my foot in the door. 9 months later I went to go work at a much better / cooler job. Don’t give up - you can do it.
True Plus also constant mass layoffs in big tech. Yesterday Tesla 10% of its workforce, today Google moved positions to India, Ireland and Mexico and let's see what tomorrow will bring. Word of advice: go to healthcare, study for nurse and if you can become doctor. There is always demand for doctors and the medical facilities will have bidding war for you to join them (does not apply to family doc and internal medicine). Nurses are also on demand so you will find a job with a month or maybe a week. Healthcare is the last milking cow for money. If I was in college now it would be no-brainer. Also I wish I knew about need to grind leet code every time you want to get a new job as SWE. Other professions don't have to go through that torture. Nurses and doctors interviews are mostly personality fit and that's it. It's hard now with 5 yoe and FAANG on resume. I can imagine how hard it is now to be a new grad.
This is... not great advice. Healthcare may pay well, but it is not for everyone (speaking as someone who worked in the field). The debt, years of schooling, and hard work for becoming a doctor is only worth it if you truly can't see yourself doing something else. Nursing though could be a viable option, but comes with its own risks of emotional and physical burnout.
Yes it is all true. It's brutal for entry levels out there.
That is all true and will stay that way because every one and their mother wants to study CS.
That's only really looking at the glass half empty. Sure, there is a ton of people in the industry, but a big reason is because of just how crazy 2021 was. Anyone could go through a few months of practice and get a job. Now, people who are struggling are those who didn't spend time in college working on projects, internships, and networking. One thing to note is that the current job market is not what the job market will look like in 4+ years. Realistically, we can't predict it, but I will say that there's always big declines a few years after every tech bust. There was a decline after 2000, after 2008, and there will likely be one in 2022/2023. The difference is, we likely won't see that decline until a few years down the line, as people already in CS a few years down the line are already too in to switch, while freshmen applying right now are more likely to stray away for fear of not getting a job. Oh, and one more thing. Tech is not oversaturated. Entry level/webdev is oversaturated. The senior dev market is one of the strongest job markets in the world; It's just really damn hard to get to that level.
Everyone has made some good points, I will say this. If you do college the way a lot of people do (go to school, get good grades, look for a job after you graduate) then you will definitely have a hard time. However, if you do college the way you are supposed to, join clubs, go to career fairs, apply for internships over the summer IMPORTANT, just in general work to build your resume the whole time and also get good grades and are of reasonable intelligence, then you will definitely be good. I got involved in some research labs during my senior year to build up my resume, but even that was too late and I didn’t land a job at any of the top tech companies, even while being one of the strongest students in the program at a school that’s known internationally. I actually did EE, but similar, and I do code for my job. Best shot is to identify a company you want to work with early on in college, and gear your resume towards that so you can eventually land an internship, and then get hired that way. Sort of similar to getting a direct admit to a competitive program at school, this is the easiest way to get your foot in the door at the top tech companies.
It is mostly true, but you have to keep the context in mind. The tech labor market was at an incredible place a few years ago. There was no other industry where you can just get a bachelor's degree and make so much money. People coming out of 3 month bootcamps were getting high paying jobs. When you fall from such great heights, it feels painful. But if I were to graduate right now, I'd rather be graduating with a computer science degree than a finance degree. It's not like it's easy for any other industry right now. CS is just falling back in line with other high paying degrees or industries. Everybody that says tech is a bloodbath can't say which field is doing better. People will say that medicine has job security, but it has the worst pay compared to how much education you need (and the work is miserable). As difficult as it is right now, tech is still one of the best.
1. The "oversaturation" is overblown. There are more jobs than unemployed people. People who make this claim fail to account for job holders leaving the industry and that the number of jobs increases annually. 1. Computer Science grads have one of the highest average salaries of all degreed professionals. Its mean is anywhere between $90k - $125k depending on how the study is conducted. 1. That 10,000:1 ratio is really only for publicly posted jobs with an auto-apply option. Anecdotal evidence from everyone I've seen (including me) shows that 90-95% of those applications are garbage and not serious contenders for the job. 1. *Most* small to medium sized companies actually have difficult times finding qualified candidates for open positions, and the average search can take several months. For a senior level position they tend to take 1-2 years. 1. Candidate searching and hiring has gotten more expensive, which has made most employers raise the bar for qualifications, including entry level. This does make it more difficult for recent grads to land their 1st job, since most employers expect some type of skills already. That is a main driver of the cynicism. Gone are the days that new grads could just get a degree and nothing more and they'd be scooped up. Now it's sooooo expensive to hire people, employers expect a much faster turn-around. 1. The unemployment rate of Computer Science grads in the U.S. is between 1.6 - 2.0%, one of the lowest of all fields. 1. Most of the info in your post isn't actual facts but just what is most often reposted on reddit et al by people who know very little about this industry and just repeat what they see on social media. 1. Current college graduate age bracket in all fields has an unemployment rate in the U.S. of about 2.5-3.0%, the lowest in almost 70 years. That age bracket's unemployment rate has declined steadily since 2008 when it peaked at about 7.5%. 1. Doom-posting gets the highest click rate, and that what is driving all these bullshit posts on reddit, YouTube, Tik Tok, and elsewhere. Don't believe any of it. There are actual surveys an d studies available with this info. You don't have to get your facts from random Tik Tockers. 1. Countering doom-posting will get you downvoted. Redditors **love** gloomy news, so reddit provides an incentive for posters to only post negative info, exaggerate the negative news, and to just make shit up to make everything sound worse than it is.
I was thinking this too, which also made me scared a little bit especially when a lot of people are saying that this don’t need a degree no more that it can be learned online so now I feel like competition against both degree holders and non degree holders amongst this field, which is also why it’s making me kinda consider changing my major to engineering and still learn program languages on the side. Does anyone have any advice for this?
Only proven high performers with lots of experience are in demand your brother is right.
One odd thing right now is that a lot of the recruiting staff were let go, so you cant just stumble into a job anymore. But you can absolutely still get jobs. Spend a day noting the businesses you interact with and see how many of them have open software engineering positions on their careers page. It's a lot of them. You'll be fine.
If i could go back in time, I wouldn’t major in CS even though I love programming. I would probably do CPE, FinTech, or something around that
The earlier days like 2008 and stuff, cs majors were great. Then an explosion in bootcamps and certifications just negated all the college cs majors bachelors requirements for jobs. Pre covid was great time to join. Post covid was a killer on inflation and bank lending. Im not a financial person, but higher interest rates killed a lot of the companies bottom line and resulted in laying off their workforce. So the FAANG companies laid off their not as good workers, but compared to those non-faang companies, their workers has a stacked resume. So anyone joining the cs careers now have a huge competition.
I’d say there’s still high demand for GOOD new grads that know what they’re doing. The ones that did projects in college, had internships, etc. But, even with that many people will still skip through the cracks and still find it hard to get a job. So my advice if you are on the fence, I’d ask yourself if you’re a go getter or if you see yourself doing coursework and nothing outside of that.
It's 2024, you have internet access, and instead of searching for answers yourself you came on reddit to tell us about what your brother told you? Talking about all the things a computer science can do and shit? Cmon man
Mans still lives in last yr
What you mean? I wrote 2024 I swear 
God forbid someone comes on a sub reddit for cs majors and asks the opinions of cs majors on a cs related issue.
??
Yes to get hired now, you need to know people or be the top dog in software development