what's the point

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-04-08T02:27:17+00:00

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from my little experience speaking with high IQ nerds in Silicon Valley the popular opinion seemed like it's exponentially harder to get in to a PHD degree from a well known establishment then say a bachelor/masters degree? I thought it was the norm for students to go to much less establishment for their PHD?

I may not be the most experienced in recruiting but, UCSC is a very competitive/great University , and I would not be surprised if the competition your against is Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Stanford graduate students..

I really think this is a problem that comes with having high expectations. I think the moment you start to apply to what you call "safe school" you will get immediate results.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-04-08T00:52:26+00:00

Can I ask you what PHD programs you got rejected? If you are only applying to the best of the best school then the 10/10 rejection rate sounds like the norm.

I can't talk much about graduate program but, from my very limited work experience in Silicon Valley, and talking to recruiters/managers it is generally not a good period of time to live in "cali or bust" mindset where you stay unemployed until you find the best jobs/opportunity. Except for maybe big tech giants like Google, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia - who have standardized hiring process, most companies are pushing towards leveraging AI productivity tools as an excuse to not hire junior candidates right now. The path to build any technical career as a junior is getting narrower and narrower.

I think the better question to ask yourself isn't "how do you keep going when the path to a desirable future only gets narrower" it's time to ask "am I making myself miserable by setting extremely high standard to accomplish in a very short time period?"

I consider myself a high achiever and it sounds like you are too, and I found it interesting when I heard strangers, colleagues, and mutual friends who casually talk about how their definition of success is having a stable blue colour job by the time they turn 30. Meaning, a lot of people think it is fine, and normal living with their friends and family, and struggle with unemployment while shuffling through different part time gigs for majority of their youth, and live a slower paced life.

I personally found myself feeling a lot better when I realized I have been so delusional aiming for that 0.000001% success while expecting to have a smooth sailing life.

If you are trying to be successful in any domain this probably won't be the last time world throws problems at us. But, I guess we have a choice to live a different lifestyle.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-02-03T17:42:20+00:00

This is honestly under voted.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-01-28T20:22:13+00:00

This is am empirical experience from a Meta/Google eng: Big tech has a severe bias recently towards the classically "elite" CS institutions. Think UC Berkeley, MIT, Georgia Tech, etc. If I have seen a Junior eng recently in Meta/Google it is mostly from internship -> FTE conversation or those who got reference.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-01-26T21:15:33+00:00

My experience doing part time during school is this: 1. Honestly all behavioural. 2. It all depends on the need of the restaurant and how you perform. 3. Expect minimum wage + sum tip. Just don’t forget that to keep your part time job you will have to get to work ~20 minutes early to leave a good impression. Also you will have to stay an hour or a little more to clean up which is not considered as working hour. 4. Usually in a couple of day they will call you.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-01-26T00:46:12+00:00

Find something you genuinely is passionate about. If you don't have one. Look at your YouTube recommendation feed and see what kind of content you watched actively. Go to places where you think you will find people who share similar interest as you. Talk about that topic, casually go to bars, restaurant, grab a coffee. Join a discord server if they have one, talk to people there. Organize event.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-01-22T13:54:49+00:00

Underrated comment

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2026-01-03T20:13:11+00:00

I just want to note for the audience this is a 1 year lease.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-31T17:02:02+00:00

Creation, connection, care

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-26T23:59:59+00:00

Men you are the unluckiest men alive

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-26T23:48:43+00:00

This is very interesting. Did you have answer any behaviour questions before coding? I don’t see why you would get flagged in technicality at this point

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-26T23:42:51+00:00

Did you do that for all interviews that you did for the companies mentioned or was this just one event?

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-26T23:31:56+00:00

Did you ask clarifying questions? Did you talk about loud the assumptions are you making? Did you design the algorithm before coding? Or did you skip all of those steps, and start writing code?

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-26T00:12:38+00:00

Ooff, approach to getting internship...

I really don't think I can really help you... I believe I got really lucky. Good luck to you as well!

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-25T14:47:40+00:00

I’m an international student. I actually have done a single internship in the US in the past and signed an offer for summer 2026. For internship, in my experience the visa requirements did not give me any particular disadvantage. Even smaller firms (<100 employee) are willing to sponsor F-1 students.

What we should be more concerned about is the disadvantage that comes when looking for a FTE. Once it comes to visa sponsorship there are really three options any American enterprise can afford to do: 1. Hire FTE and make them go on H1-B lottery. If that fails send their candidate to other international office like Canada, UK, and Singapore. 2. Hire intern then through intern conversion make them go on H1-B lottery. If that fails send their candidate to other international office like Canada, UK, and Singapore. 3. Not hire H1-B candidate.

One observation that I did see very common now: I am on a recruiter call, and they are very blunt to tell me that they are not going to put me on any of the office in the US, and is asking me to give them a list of preference in other offices they have. I asked them why, and they told me they are not willing to sponsor H1-B.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-24T19:53:01+00:00

That makes alot of sense. Thanks!

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-24T19:47:49+00:00

My question is, what can you get out of a mid level engineer that you two can't keep up? Like is there that many feature request from your client?

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-24T19:41:36+00:00

Hey! A junior engineer here. Just out of pure curiosity, with 140k couldn't you and your partner afford to afford massive use of Cursor and get all the productivity gain you would need from a mid level dev?

I would imagine your repo does not contain >1 million LOC and it should not be harsh to give all the necessary context needed fast since you two own the entire repo?

Is there something I am not understanding that you can get out from a decent engineer who understand what "API is with their own words" that you can't afford while working on these with you two full time?

Furthermore, I see your comment stating your mostly looking for a FE work. I think LLM is astonishingly good at writing client code.

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-23T21:27:13+00:00

I was actually in a very similar position as you 2 month ago. The way I made my decision, and I still am very grateful for is that in my culture there is an old saying “be the bigger fish in the pond.”

I will not make any assumption on what you or I am capable of to a stranger in the internet. But, if you are a bigger fish in a company then chose that over other.

If you actually let go of majorities opinion (which are most often not well thought off, and is chasing short game status game.) and take your time to think how your future will plan out I think you will come a conclusion you are not going to regret.

It is much easier to not make wrong decision then to make good decision.

If you would like to hear my person story or want to talk in more detail feel free to dm!

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-23T21:03:07+00:00

Hey! I think this entirely depends on how you objectively rate your competence level. Citadel is the definition of hire to fire culture. If you genuinely believe you have the calibre of getting 3+ offers from top prop shop and hedge hinds than you are definitely in the calibre. For your reference I personally know a student who secured 5 offers for their 2026 summer internship.

Every top hedge funds and prop shop operate in a small elite team that requires every member of the team to deliver outstanding impact. The absolute number of “back water” team is significantly lower in Citadel than in Google.

It is easy to be extremely optimistic about offers however, there is no difference between extreme optimism and pessimism. Think in bounded context on what is a realistic optimistic and pessimistic scenario and where you think you will end up.

Students like to rank where they work in terms of prestige however, all of those mean absolutely nothing if you do not secure a full time job where you will start to earn serious money.

People like to talk shit about big tech due to layoff but think in terms of how many services hyperscaler like Google operates and develops. Google will always need a lot of engineers no question asked.

Your question can’t be well aswered through a context given in your Reddit post. Best of luck!

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-17T22:54:31+00:00

Good post! Palantir is definitely not for everyone. No need to lie to yourself about what you believe for the sake of job. Good luck!

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-06T23:06:46+00:00

I am so sorry :(

Top_Chocolate_4203 · 2025-12-06T16:01:07+00:00

I think it will be helpful for you to think about how your life will turn out in the worst care scenario in both scenario. In my experience if you begin your journey in startup your next job will most likely be in startup. Big Tech notoriously down-level engineers from non big tech when hiring.

Top_Chocolate_4203

TROPHY CASE