u/redd3moon

Hi everyone,

I’m starting the MSCS program this Fall, I’d be appreciated if you could provide me some insights through these questions:

1. Is it possible to do a research in your first quarter? I’m hoping to work with a specific professor. Did you reach out before arriving, after, or during your first quarter? What worked?

2. How many of your cohort actually landed a TA/GSR position in their first quarter vs. by end of year 1? Any patterns on what made the difference (prior research experience, cold emails, getting into the right courses first)?

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this has been asked before. I'm trying to get a clearer picture of what the interview process actually looks like for ML/AI compiler intern roles, and most of what I can find online is either generic SWE prep or NVIDIA-specific.

If you've interviewed (offer or no offer) for an ML/AI compiler intern, kernel engineer, or compiler engineer intern role within the last ~2 years, I'd really appreciate any insight on the following:

• Which company did you interview with?
• How many rounds total, and what did each focus on (coding / system design / project deep-dive / compiler theory / behavioral)?
• Was the coding LeetCode-style or compiler-flavored (topo sort, graph coloring, dominators, SSA construction, IR traversal)? What difficulty?
• How deep did they go on C++? Object lifetime, templates, memory model, UB corners, reading generated assembly?
• For compiler theory, was it standard topics (SSA, dataflow analysis, register allocation, loop opts) or more domain-specific (MLIR dialects, kernel fusion, quantization, autotuning)?
• Did they test ML/domain knowledge — transformers, autodiff, kernel fusion, tensor layouts, quantization arithmetic?
• What surprised you, and what do you wish you'd prepared more for?

Companies I'm especially curious about:

• NVIDIA
• Modular
• Tenstorrent
• Apple (ANE)
• Google (XLA / MLIR teams)
• Smaller AI chip startups (Groq, Cerebras, d-Matrix, SambaNova, SiMa, FuriosaAI, Tiny Corp, etc.)

Even one data point on any company would be hugely helpful. Thanks in advance!