I am graduating spring 2027 with a CS degree, but already lost on preparing for newgrad roles (I heard some jobs come out as early as August, so I'm starting prep now).
For background, I've worked as a DevOps intern for 1+ year (stayed part time during school). I'm doing one more internship (Cloud SWE), overall I'll have 1.5 years internship experience. I'd consider my strong in cloud/devops, average in system design, and weak in Leetcode/web dev compared to other cs new grads.
I have the AWS Solution Architect Associate certification, and was planning on getting the Certified Kubernetes Administrator as well. I am confident with my real experience, and can hopefully reflect that in my resume to get noticed. My worry is lacking interview skills.
I will (probably) do fine on anything cloud/system design because of my background and SAA certification. But, I am weak in Leetcode/general coding interviews.
Any advice on how I can prepare?
Should I focus on only Leetcode (alongside preparing for my CKA certification)?
Should I split time between system design and leetcode prep?
Should I not focus on Leetcode if that's not in my interests (I don't like DSA that much, more interested in Cloud, DevSecOps, Infra, automation type roles, I just feel like I need keep myself open to pure SWE roles since that's the most popular/common new grad roles).
Really just feeling lost on what/how to prepare and what to expect going into new grad. I wish I could focus on only cloud/infra/devops roles too, but feel like I need to consider/market myself for pure SWE as well since that will be the most popular job offering for new grad cs students like myself. Any advice greatly appreciated, thank you!