I wasn't able to post this in cscareeradvice because i'm using a throwaway account.

Ophelia Health put me through 6 rounds of interviews, 2 coding interviews, 1 system design interview over the course of 7 weeks. I was told "Congrats, you're moving on!" to the last round. It was scheduled for a week. The day of, I get an email in the morning 2 hours before that they're going with other candidates.

Something is definitely off / fishy. I asked several time for an explanation but got ignored. Sour grapes? Sure. But also, probably a really unprofessional place to work as they have zero respect for candidates and basic human decency. Interview at your own risk.

ftr I'm not a frequent weed user at all. It's just when I get really drunk and people offer it to me that I take it. Anyways the last time I smoked anything was like 3.5 weeks ago and I just took the drug test td and I'm terrified that I might have failed. I'm now realizing I should have gotten test kits to make sure I was clean before going. Major fuck up on my part. Praying to god that I'm clean. This is the one internship offer I got and I really hope I didnt fuck it up on something that stupid.

I find it interesting that so many people speak negatively about Duke’s CS program calling it small. However, how are y’all doing?

kind of cooked on time. sophomore, no internships yet, been applying but not hearing back much. have some projects i've shipped and robotics club experience but no big name anything.

what would you actually do right now if you were in my position? cold dming on linkedin? referral threads? just spam applying?

also if anyone here works somewhere and is willing to refer for SWE internships lmk, dm me. US PR so no sponsorship needed. genuinely appreciate any help

Hey everyone,

I had an interview scheduled for a SWE intern role that was supposed to start over an hour ago, yet the interviewer has yet to join the hackerrank link or send me the meeting link.

I’ve been waiting for almost hour and a half. I was wondering if i should just leave the hackerrank link and contact my recruiter or wait a bit longer.

Has anyone experienced this before? What did you do to get your interview rescheduled? I’d appreciate all the help.

Thanks!

EDIT: i contacted the recruiter twice. Once a day before the interview and once 10 minutes after the start time. No reply for either emails. Am heavily considering emailing them again

Hi everyone,

I feel like I’m not the only one who feels uncertain about my career path. I’m graduating this summer but I already know since last summer I don’t want to continue with cs anymore. Although I understand the fundamentals learned in class, I just don’t find coding enjoyable anymore, not even with AI. I was wondering what else can I pivot to now. To those who do love cs, keep going. Please don’t bash me, I just want some advice.

Hey everyone, long post but I need to get this out and maybe hear from people who've been through something similar.

Quick timeline:

June 2025 — Started the Google interview process

End of July 2025 — Finished all my onsites

Early September 2025 — Finally got my results back (~1 month of waiting)

September 2025 → now (April 2026) — Team matching. Still.

So that's 7 months in team matching, and almost a full year since I started the process. Over the past few months I've been consistently sending him relevant roles every weeks, things that match my background and interests pretty well. He would sometimes reply, sometimes not.

My questions:

* Is 7 months in team matching normal? I see mixed experiences on here

* Has anyone emailed google candidate support and actually got something useful back?

* Any general advice for someone feeling stuck in this limbo?

Honestly a bit demoralized at this point. Would love to hear from anyone who's been through a long team matching process

Hi everyone,

I’m an F-1 student and recently interviewed for a co-op/internship position at IBM. During my final interview, I clearly mentioned that I would be working using CPT authorization provided by my university.

After about 4 weeks, I received the offer, signed it, and completed all onboarding forms including background check details. Today, I also filled out a citizenship form where they only asked for my citizenship and whether I have dual citizenship. They did NOT ask anything about sponsorship or work authorization in that form.

This situation is different from a past experience I had with another company (Intuit), where they explicitly asked about CPT/sponsorship before giving an offer and later rejected me based on that.

Since IBM gave me the offer first and is now processing onboarding without asking about sponsorship again, I’m a bit anxious:

Should I be worried that my CPT status or citizenship could still affect my offer at this stage, or is it safe to assume everything is fine since they already issued the offer and I disclosed my situation earlier?

I have a 2.75 GPA for my CIS degree, and I have spent approximately 7 years to get. I have 7 classes left before I graduate. How screwed am I and is there any hope?

Long time lurker here. It was Looking doom and gloom but I kept silently applying and got into a bootcamp that got me a job as a contractor.

Around 6 months to get it into the paid bootcamp. I would say getting into linux and having a cool homelab really helped.

Its a mainframe dev role. Idk how the career path is but it does beat being a Barista.

I just wanted to say thank you for all the advice, and I appreciate you all.

If you are feeling bad about any mistakes you made on your applications: I just applied to my dream job and accidentally said I wasn't authorized to work in the US (on an application that stated no international applicants). I then realized I couldn't make any changes and only could upload supplemental files so I attached a word doc with an apology and a picture of my passport... how cooked am I?

I graduated in 2025 and have been working as a SWE for a year at a fortune 5 company however I’m not happy with the city that I’m in and would want to switch jobs and move to nyc in a year once i’ve hit the 2 year work experience mark and hopefully job hunting wouldn’t be as brutal. Now in the next year, should I still be focusing on building projects/doing certifications/anything else or does it only matter what i’m doing at my current job? or should I just be focusing on leetcode/building my network? what’s the strategy for recruitment after graduation?

(I understand that recruitment will be rough because of the job market but I do want to experience the work culture in a different company so I am willing to put in the work)

Hi everyone,

I’m a new grad software engineer deciding between two offers and would really appreciate perspective from people a few years into their careers.

Offer A (Charles Schwab)

• Role: Software Engineer (full-stack)
• Pay: ~$88k base (nonexempt, so OT eligible) + ~10% target bonus + $5k sign on
• Location: Dallas area
• Tech: .NET, AWS, Angular (retirement software)

Offer B (Lockheed Martin)

• Role: Software Engineer (UI/GUI focused)
• Pay: ~$96k base + ~3% bonus + $5k sign-on
• Location: Virginia
• Tech: Java
• Security Clearance

What I care about (in order):

1. Long term career growth / mobility (transferable skills)
2. Exit opportunities (big tech, higher-paying roles)
3. Compensation growth over time

My current thinking:

• Fintech seems better for building modern SWE skills and keeping doors open
• Defense seems more stable, and the clearance could be valuable, but I’m worried about getting pigeonholed

Questions:

• How difficult is it to transition out of defense into mainstream tech later?
• Does Schwab experience translate well into top tier companies?
• Am I underestimating the value of a clearance early in my career?

Would really appreciate any honest advice, especially from people who’ve been in either path.

Thanks!

I originally applied and did final round interviews for a SWE role at a large company. I was pretty much ghosted, but when I followed up with the recruiter, she offered me a final round interview for a different position(SDET/QA) on a different team she felt my experience was a stronger fit(2 intern summers of SDET/QA). The interview was rescheduled last minute, and when I took it today it was with two people. The first interviewer covered behavioral questions and walked me through the role and team. Then a senior technical lead joined about 7 minutes late and asked me 3-4 technical questions, which I feel like I nailed. After that they asked if I had any questions and wrapped up. The full interview was about 15 minutes instead of the scheduled 45. So I guess I pretty much understand it was probably a pity interview right? Just confused why they would even reschedule , I felt like I was pretty qualified for the role considering my experience.

I assume that most people convert off ROs from a junior year FAANG+ internship (could be wrong idk), but what about the years before that? Like if we look at freshman summer -> sophomore summer -> junior summer, does it generally go something like C1 -> Spotify -> Meta? Or do they get their first known internship in sophomore year and manage to jump to FAANG+ straight from there (like no-name -> IBM -> Snowflake or smth)? As an incoming freshman with a no-name internship, what should I be aiming for?

please give suggestions??
I am not sure how should we make use of AI in this round!!

Gave the Coderpad interview round yesterday and passed it.
Anyone from the community in the same boat for this position??
How long will take for the Superday to get scheduled?

Hi guys. So I received an internship offer letter last week and some other stuff to sign and send back. However, I needed some clarification on the offer and they haven't responded yet. I'm worried that they may pass me by for someone else who was okay with those terms. I wanted to know if it's frequent to be denied an opportunity even after the offer letter has been sent out

I recently went through a summer internship loop at the cloud arm of one of China’s largest tech companies. The earlier rounds with engineers and ICs were great — sharp people, respectful conversations.

The final round with a senior manager was a completely different experience. From the opening minutes, the tone was condescending and dismissive. There was a clear, repeated edge directed at candidates with overseas education backgrounds — the kind of remarks that aren’t really questions, just thinly veiled judgments. I’ve done a lot of interviews. This one stood out for how openly disrespectful it felt from start to finish.

I’m not going to generalize about the whole company — the ICs I met genuinely seemed great. But leadership keeps recruiting heavily in Silicon Valley and overseas, while candidates are walking out of rooms feeling talked down to by the very people who’d be managing them. Maybe this is part of why they keep falling behind in AI — when managers fundamentally don’t respect people, even the smartest engineers in the room can’t ship anything that matters. That’s worth knowing before you accept.

If you’re a student or early-career professional weighing offers: do your homework on team culture and the actual manager you’d report to, not just the brand. 🚩​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Currently a product manager at a big tech looking to move. I have a CS Bach degree and 3 yoe as a SWE and 4 as a PM.

Option 1 - Masters in CS specializing in AI/ML. Could work as a PM or AI engineer with this.

Option 2 - complete career switch into medicine. Something I have always wanted to do but the time and money commitment stops me. I am aware of the scarifies I’ll have to make with this but given the state of the tech market, I don’t know how long I’ll have a job (ever in life). I am incredibly burned out and want to plan long term.

Thoughts?