Software Engineering Intern Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

I'm an intern and I have around 3 weeks left in my internship. I'm not too sure what to do with this because I'm aware that maybe I didn't leave the project at the optimal pace and he said he would "take it from here" but there is still time. I've tried to ask my mentor if I should do anything and they said I should coffee chat with people but I don't think this is going to look good when I'm presenting to VPs next week. Any feedback would be appreciated. My manager & skip is on vacation this week as well.

Hello everyone! I've been building my career in software development, but I'm now looking to pivot into product management. I'm curious about the best strategies to make this transition and would love to hear your insights or experiences.

Here are a couple of options I'm considering:

Internal Transfer: I could ask my current employer (where I'm interning) about the possibility of moving into a PM role. However, I've only been with the company for a month, and I'm concerned that it might be too soon to request such a shift. Should I wait a few more months to build more credibility before making the ask?

External Opportunities: Alternatively, I could start applying to PM positions, highlighting my relevant skills and experiences on my resume. Another path might be pursuing an MBA to strengthen my credentials for a product management role.

Which approach do you think would be more effective, or is there another route I should consider? Thanks in advance for your advice!

Bonus question - is there a "Taro" for Product Managers? Where people give advice on career growth, etc.

I have gotten an offer for a security engineering internship from Amazon for Summer 2025. However I have already signed an offer with a unicorn. I was wondering if I could move this Summer internship to Spring so I can have the potential to get experiences in both?

Hi Taro Community,

I was really inspired by a recent discussion post on Taro regarding the key behaviors of a 'Greatly Exceeds' (GE) intern. I found Alex's detailed explanations and guidance very helpful, and I gained a much better understanding of the internship expectations.

Following up on that post, I would love to learn more about the key differences between expectations at the various levels for internship(MA, EE, GE). In particular, I was wondering about the main areas in which the expectations for Meets All (MA) and Exceeds Expectations (EE) differ?

The reason why I am asking is that I will be joining Meta this summer as an intern and would like to do my best to grow as much as possible during my time there.

Hey Everyone,

I’m currently working on an iOS application, that has already been deployed on the App store. I’m still experimenting with it internally with a few friends, but I noticed that for some of them, when the app is installed it is just displayed as a blank screen or with missing icons or default font colors.

The app passed through App store screening before it was deployed, but I suspect that there is a compatibility problem. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on what the cause might be, and how I may resolve it.

Link to see the screenshots of the normal and buggy versions of the app:

Link to download app:

A little about the application --> It is a security surveillance iOS app that aims to minimize criminal illiteracy by providing citizens with technology for staying aware, secure, and connected. It includes features such as direct messaging, rapid alert system, sensory data monitoring, and a siren observability module.

I'm open to sharing my code too for a review, but only privately. Thank you so much in advance!

I will be interning at Meta during this summer. After watching Alex's amazing video regarding Meta's internship, I learned that interns are expected to perform at the level of an E3 new grad by the end.

I want to make sure I am correctly understanding the key signals a junior/new grad software engineer should be demonstrating. From what I understand, I come up with the following:

• Coding velocity (code output)
• Coding quality
• Independence (can unblock oneself without too much reliance on mentor)
• Debugging
• Asking great questions
• Responds well to feedback
• Builds great relationships with team members
• Disambiguation

I'm sure there is more to be included, so please feel free to add anything I may have missed. I hope this list could be helpful to other interns/new grads who are seeking to improve their skills.

I got a new grad offer from a startup that's undergoing hypergrowth. They're doubling HC and expanding to many verticals. The primary reason why I really want to join this startup is to catch that hypergrowth wave, similar to what Seed did during his time at Klaviyo. However, something that worries me is that by the time I join this startup (in Jun, Jul or Aug 2025), the hypergrowth period will have ended, which kinda defeats the purpose of why I'd want to join in the first place.

What are some good questions to ask to gauge whether or not the startup will continue to grow at the rate it's currently at?

Many people including me struggle to understand large codebases, especially when we start at a new company. It might be due to legacy code or just size/complexity of the codebase.

Alex/Rahul have already advised on talking 1:1 with team members + breaking stuff to see how things work. I would still love to see a live deep dive on few large codebases to learn how you would get familiar with the codebase asap.

Would it be possible to make such a course?

Thanks!

I graduated in January 2024 with a Masters in CS and am still looking for my first full time job. I've been doing an unpaid Frontend internship since march and have been volunteering as a Software Engineer (C# and Unity) during my spare time at a local university. Can I include either or both of these experiences to the Work Experience section in my resume? Will having two current work experiences be a red flag? Is it better to remove the Lab work because it isn't directly related to what I want to work on in the future (Full stack web dev)?

My brother got an offer from Google and a series A startup. The startup has all the good qualities for a startup:

1. Founder successfully built a company that IPO’d
2. High talent density in a small team - 20 employees most with PhDs and undergrads from T5 schools. He’s also friends with the employees.
3. Backed by a top VC firm (Benchmark, Accel, a16z, Sequoia, etc.)
4. Brother’s skillset fully aligns with the startup’s needs.
5. Brother wants to become a founder eventually, so this is great training for him.

At Google, he will likely work on ads - solid team but probably a heavily optimized product already.

My friends and family all encouraged him to do the startup, and he himself is also excited by the startup. However, startups are risky at the end of the day, and he’s worried that if the startup doesn’t do well, he won’t have anything to show for on his resume. Meanwhile, Google, while less interesting, can set him up for better opportunities down the line because of the brand name. Given how tough the job market is, having a good brand can really change things for him.

He performed a best and worst case analysis of the startup and here’s what he came up with:

Startup

Best case:

Startup IPOs and he becomes a millionaire. Can go and start his startup or anything he wants.

Worst case:

Startup fails and he’s out of a job, can’t find a job because he doesn’t have a brand on his resume

Google

Best case:

Gets fast promotion

Worst case:

Gets laid off. At least he has the brand on his resume so job hunting won’t suck

So my brother has been really torn about the decision. The startup job has perfect career alignment with his future aspirations, but its future is uncertain. Meanwhile, Google is the safer option, albeit more siloed. So should he take the risk?

By extension of this, when should early career take risks? YC (although biased) and other sources encourage early career people to take risks. From the best/worst case analysis shown above shouldn’t early career be the time to build career liquidity rather than take risks?

I was going to ask what is the best way to approach recruiters from each company and what type of questions would you ask? Also what type of conversations would you try to have with the recruiter as well? Overall I was really looking to know how to get the most value out of a career fair as I can.

I am invited to an onsite with a company that would like me to do their final round interviews at their HQ. They are around 3 hours away from where I live. I haven’t confirmed but I think that given how far I live from them, they should be understanding enough to offer an online option. I know that interviewing in person significantly increases your chances. I’m not a huge fan of the company but given the job market, I feel like I kinda have to do it if it means it’ll increase my prospects on getting the job.

I’m currently in the interview process with a few other places that are arguably more prestigious. Is there a way to leverage this so that me choosing to interview online doesn’t negatively affect my candidacy? Is it even worth doing the interview in person?

I watched the DS&A course on Taro and I thought the video on what a "yes" and a "strong yes" mean was really helpful.

I was wondering if the same analysis can be done for what a "weak no" and a what a "weak yes" mean? I think this comparison would be helpful since it gives us an understanding of the small details that can push someone between passing and failing territory.

Another question I have is that I've finished questions with optimal time complexity but I still fail the interview. So under what circumstances would candidates get a "weak no" (or even "no") even with an optimal solution? This is obviously a super broad question, so I tried breaking it down into several categories:

Communication:

• Clarifying questions
• Explaining thought process

Problem Solving:

• Needing hints
• Time/Space complexity analysis

Coding:

• Debugging
• Code quality

Verification:

• Test suite composition

I will be interning at Meta as a Software Engineer. However, it seems the team I'll be joining is more focused on compliance and regulatory issues, which I would think is probably more politically-driven compared to teams that are more consumer-focused.

While I’m confident the team will be great to work with, I'm uncertain if this is an area I would be interested in working in moving forward. What would be the typical process for team matching during the transition from intern to full-time engineer?

I’ve noticed sometimes that companies will ask something like ‘what do you want to work on?’ Or ‘what do you think you’ll be working on?’ I often struggle with these questions because I don’t really know what teams exist within the org so it’s hard for me to l tell the interviewer what I want when I don’t even know the options. In fact, I don’t really mind what I get assigned to, and sometimes I know what I don’t want to do better than what I do want to do (for example, I definitely don’t want to do front end, but other than that I don’t really mind which part of the backend I get put into)

I’ve thought of answering back with something like ‘I don’t have a huge preference, but I’d like to work on whatever will be most impactful for the companies based on my skillsets. If you really have to make me choose, then I’d do …’, but I don’t know if that makes me sound unconfident.

so how do you go about answering these questions?

I just received a team matching survey for my upcoming Meta internship and had a few questions.

• What is the main difference between "Product Infra" and "Infra Platform"? Both seem to relate to backend API development, but is there anything specific I should be aware of?
• Is "Web Product" mainly frontend development, or is there also some backend work with APIs?
• Are there any specific orgs you would recommend I indicate preference (or avoid) as an intern?

I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

A few days ago, I almost broke production.

Our company doesn’t have any formal CI/CD protocols. When we ‘push to production’ that would mean testing code on our local computers, then going onto our single production machine, clone our changes, test on the production machine, then merge to main. The dev team was incredibly small, but this process started failing when more people worked on the codebase.

My manger strongly prefers merging one large feature all at once as opposed to merging changes bit by bit. Even though I pushed for the ‘one diff, one thesis’ approach, he pushed back on it. He would rather clone my entire feature all at once over making small changes.

A week and a half ago, I finished my main feature. My code successfully worked on the production machine, but my manager kept pushing back on actually landing the code to production. I kept pushing for my manager to push my code but he kept extending the due date. Now that I’m close to my internship, he is asking me to push code.

The issue is that and another dev were trying to push their features to production. The other developer went first since his feature was smaller, then it was my turn. When it came to merging my code, I made errors in resolving merge conflicts, which resulted in errors. I tried ‘undoing’ the commits by reverting changes (when I should’ve done a reset), which caused the commit history to become longer and more complex, making the situation worse. After rolling back commits, somehow even the old code wasn’t working.

My team and I are working to resolve the issue, but I was really upset throughout the whole process.  I’m frustrated at my own incompetence with version control, but I’m also frustrated with my manager for not listening to my suggestions, as I think this would’ve been prevented if I had integrated my code earlier and in smaller chunks.

My team knows that it was a version control issue (as opposed to a code issue), especially since I showed them on two different occasions that my code works.

How should I handle this situation? I definitely feel like I should apologize but how can I make up?

My company is a mid-sized unicorn and they’ll be hosting an in-person gathering with some recent new grad SWEs (they have only worked at the company for 6 months) to talk with incoming NG SWEs such as myself. I’m wondering what questions I should prepare? I’ve thought of the following:

• Logistics (living situation, commute, etc.) - it’s boring but I think it’s fair to ask since most new grads will be relocating for the first time
• What would you have done differently in your first 6 months here?
• What’s the most important thing you think everyone should know?
• What does feedback with your manager look like? How is your relationship with your manager?
• What are some things you think we should do beforehand to best prepare us for the job?
• I know that the company has a very customer-centric engineering culture. Do you recommend us to spend more time prioritizing talking to customers or spending time doing engineering work?
• (Company prides itself on fast career growth but also doesn’t have leveling) How has your ownership grown over the time you’ve worked here? Have you had the chance to demonstrate leadership? What metrics do you use to measure career growth?

Is there anything else that I’m missing? The company promotes SWEs directly to tech leads/managers and doesn’t have leveling. Ideally I’d like to ask questions to get a better understanding of how to get to these positions fast. What types of questions would give me an understanding of how to "play the game"?

As an intern undertaking my first industry-relevant experience, I often find myself drawn to continue working on projects beyond my scheduled work hours. Should this extra time be considered overtime and discussed with my manager, or is it expected to be unpaid and regarded as a personal choice?

I heard that it’s common practice to bucket engineers into different loops based on YoE and not title regardless of company. For example, if you hit E6 at Meta with 3YoE (which is rare but possible) and you want to jump to an equivalent company (Apple, Amazon, Databtricks, Stripe etc.), they’d only level you as a mid-level dev since the YoE for a mid-level is 2-5. A more realistic example is a 3 YoE senior at Meta going to Amazon/Apple. Is this true?

If so, is the only benefit of fast promo just more pay? Since at the end of the day you’re still measured by YoE rather than your actual title when you jump.

PS using Meta as reference since they’re known for fast promo

Every time I complete a project (regardless of setting), integration (or end-to-end) testing is the task I least look forward to. In my mind, I’ve probably spent weeks building and individually testing each component, sometimes testing 2 or 3 components simultaneously. By the end of the project, I feel tired and just want to work on something new, so I rush to the finish line and call it a day the moment I get all my components working together.

I’ve seen the course on creating a test plan. I tried implementing this, but as mentioned above, by the time I’ve gotten to this stage, I’m so fed up with the project where I just write a couple of basic tests and tell my boss I’m done.

As much as I have an icky feeling shipping something I don’t know is fully working, I also feel so tired and just want to move on to the next thing.

One solution I tried was using automated tests (sort of like TDD to a certain extent) - I’d set up some expected behaviors at the start of the project and run these integration tests at the very end. It’s great if it works - making it automated significantly reduces friction of running the tests, and you get to ‘eat the frog’ by coming up with a more comprehensive set of tests at the start.

The bad part is it only works if you can get automated testing to work. Most times integration testing gets tricky to automate, especially if you can’t mock out stuff like networking code and databases. Automated tests also take time to maintain. As a result I tend to forgo automated testing.

A naive approach is to apply my strategy but instead of doing automated testing, just do it manually. The issue is that it feels painful having to verify correctness manually. And it’s especially discouraging if you manually verify your code to be wrong.

So what are some solutions that can help me get over that last mile? Any suggestions for some low friction ways to set up tests without using automated testing?

My manager has been pushing me to move fast for the past month due to my lack of progress and as a result, I haven’t been as careful with my testing and I found a major error in my code that might set me back by a week or two. My project is essentially a data generation pipeline and there’s an error with the data generation code. I was supposed to generate data to train an ML model. I started the data generation but only realized that we had an error 1/3 of the way in.

We have a major deadline by early March and I’m afraid that there’s a real possibility that I can’t make that deadline. I have some ideas that may work (building a smaller scale version of my pipeline and train a small model to validate). In January he was worried with progress but a month later he seems more relieved with current progress, so breaking the news to him is worrying since I’d make him worry again. What’s the best course of action in this case?

As a postmortem, what could I have done to prevent this situation from happening?

Hi All,

I expect to be starting at a Masters in CS program in the Fall, and am using this as a springboard to switch careers, after spending time working in finance (Investment Banking, Venture Capital). I am still hearing back from schools, but I expect the Master's program to be high quality (at best, UIUC, and at worst a top 30 program like USC / UChicago / Northwestern / NYU).

I only recently started to take CS coursework, in preparation for the MS in CS program, and I think I've covered much of the basic core (Intro Comp. Sci, Data Structures, Computer Organization & Systems, Discrete Math). I am wondering what I should be focused on to land a good internship in the Summer of 2026, ideally in Software Engineering or Machine Learning Engineering.

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on:

1. Whether they've seen other career switchers transition successfully, and if it'll be harder in this market,

2. What Masters student recruiting looks like - are we viewed in the same "resume pile" as Undergrads?

3. Assuming I have no directly relevant work experience (I've worked in Investment Banking and VC, but not as a SWE) how can I gain experience that will make my resume stand out?

4. Are there any internship recruiting primers out there? E.g. where to apply, timelines, etc.

Thank you in advance!!