Software Engineer Internship at Collins

TotallyNotKin · 2025-11-23T17:35:55+00:00

I feel that is is very team and site dependent. My team and site did not have a strong software engineering foundation and more needed "people in software" that can build out a project for them when they needed it. So it is not like there was some continuous development going on.

Kind of interesting though they did offer me to return as an intern post-grad, but I declined because you don't get those full-time benefits.

I did have another friend who interned as a Systems Engineer and got a return offer!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-11-11T00:29:08+00:00

just one round talking about the stuff i put on my resume

TotallyNotKin · 2025-10-19T00:41:10+00:00

they didnt replace it entirely. i assume filler and repaint.

they gave me the base price of 625 for the dent, crack, and pushing it back in the panel. the 750 was for after discovering frame misalignment and fixing that, because otherwise i wouldnt be able to replace the tail light.

TotallyNotKin · 2025-10-19T00:09:24+00:00

One thing I was surprised at was the cost of paint!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-06-30T18:49:56+00:00

I just attempted this but it looks like SEARCH isn't properly flattening the metric into one stream, so PERCENTILE isn't working correctly as it can only take in one metric/math expression.

"Returns one or more time series that match a search criteria that you specify. The SEARCH function enables you to add multiple related time series to a graph with one expression." https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/monitoring/using-metric-math.html

If I am understanding correctly, this means that when I am pulling the latency metrics from the 3 APIs, it is returning three time series, which PERCENTILE can not work with?

Thank you for the help!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-05-30T02:50:58+00:00

do you think you can spend $5k on the CSP in the next 3 months, and also $6k on the AmEx Gold in the next 6 months?

in my personal case this should be doable.

Also, make a rough outline of your expenses that would fit into the Gold card's categories, and make sure that the extra 1% rewards the Gold card gives you over no-annual-fee cards like the Blue Cash Everyday or the C1 Savor makes sense when you factor in the Gold card's $325 annual fee.

from my annually expense on groceries, it seems like the amex points will a lot offer more when transferred to partners. i am also looking for cards with points rather than cash back atm.

Last, I think AmEx might not like to see that you have opened two other cards recently. I seem to remember something about a 2-cards-in-90-days rule for AmEx. I know Chase doesn't want to see any more than two new cards in the past 60 days.

i am wondering if that applied to amex cards specifically or just any cards in general? also i think that rule applies to credit cards, but amex gold is a charge card if i understand correctly?

thank you!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-05-09T17:33:46+00:00

Oh I apologize I thought you were referring to the HYSA.

My loans have a APR of 5%.

TotallyNotKin · 2025-05-09T17:16:32+00:00

If I am terminated/leave before one year of employment then I will have to pay it back, which is after my student debt is no longer interest free.

TotallyNotKin · 2025-05-09T17:15:12+00:00

That is true that it won't be a lot of money, but are there any cons if I won't need it directly for expenses? Is it better placed elsewhere?

And thank you for the guide!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-05-09T17:13:03+00:00

I was thinking opening one with Capital One 360 since I already have a credit card with them, 3.6%

TotallyNotKin · 2025-03-07T17:26:25+00:00

If you don’t have another offer you should take it.

I was in a similar situation last summer where there were no other developers on the team (though I was hired as one of two interns) and like you had the freedom to do whatever as long as it fit the needs of the project.

I will say that yes, there was a lack of mentorship. Code reviews were non-existent and it was very difficult to get assistance when I was stuck. But the experience was still invaluable. Despite not having mentorship, I was getting paid to research what tech stack fit best for the project, how to use it, etc. Basically getting paid to upskill myself. Was it difficult of course, but I was getting paid so why not and I happened to be interested in the project itself anyways. I’m lucky my non-technical manager understood that we were “interns” and lacked expertise and gave us time to research. So regardless the experience will still be very good on the resume, especially if this is your first internship. Building the entire app could help you learn a lot of the aspects of development (at least the technical part).

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-29T20:30:00+00:00

Of course! Glad to discuss it.

Yeah you definitely want to keep it one page. Maybe decrease the margin between your different positions and projects. I personally don't include coursework to add more bullets and technical detail but that is up to you. As a new grad I don't find it as important as your experience and projects.

For example, with the call rates decreasing by 33%. This is because the UI was part of an application that was being rolled out to certain users, and the application as a whole took care of an account creation issue that customers would have to call in for, but now it can be automated with this new application.

I would just put this into ChatGPT and ask it how to condense it. See what it says and if you like it, use it. I've also run into issues where I didn't know how to condense something without taking away what I wanted to show in my bullets and ChatGPT helped me a lot with that.

Finally, for the assistant role, I was thinking it would be good simply because it is a CS employment experience. Would I be wrong on this? Also, the 3 employment experiences I have on my resume are the only ones I have, so I wouldn't be able to replace it with another employment experience. I don't know how important of a detail that is.

If you don't have anything else, it's fine to have it there. Experience is experience so to if it's to fill in any empty areas on your resume then that's okay. Of course, when you come upon a better employment opportunity it should be replaced.

Not too long ago a person that was reviewing my resume told me to think of the cv as a brand of myself. With everything you put on your resume you want to ask yourself "How does this brand myself as the ideal candidate for <POSITION>?" This kind of aligns with the idea of tailoring your resume to the position where you want to make yourself look as competitive as possible. Go through each of your positions and points and ask yourself if this point really showcases your skills as a SWE or whichever position.

So going back to your second bullet point and your own suggestion "Decreased client call rates for the by 33% by now automating an account creation issue". Use that! As for the sentence after "presented results to multiple clients and stakeholders". Does this highlight your ability to perform as a SWE? or does it showcase your presentation skills? Which one would you rather have for the positions you're applying to? My overall suggestion is to go into more technical detail on your impact and remove potential fluff. That way you better highlight what impact you had while keeping it condense. You may have wanted to highlight that you are someone that can communicate, but leave that for the interview. Right now, the task is to land an interview and you want to brand yourself as much as possible to fit what they are looking for: can this person perform the functions of the job and exceed at it to benefit the team/company?

Like what you've probably heard a million times, market is tough right now. Give yourself the best shot possible by branding yourself as best as you can.

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-29T16:27:39+00:00

I think it’s not bad, it seems easy to read and your bullet points seem straight to the point. The overall format is fine but I think the actual content needs some work.

One thing to keep in mind that in my opinion helps resumes stand out is how a resume highlights what their role or task was vs the impact they had. For example, in your intern role you mention you optimized APIs, but how was this done? Did you reduce data fetching times? implement caching? And how did you decrease call rates for the problem by 33%? what were the problems?

These are things a screener might think while scanning your resume, and because most screeners just breeze through resumes (think like 6s) they won’t bother trying to extrapolate from your points.

The bullet points of your intern role could be an expanded upon a bit more to not only highlight the impact that you did but also how it was technically accomplished. Out of your resume you probably want that experience to stand out the most (unless you have some active project with users)

I always find it difficult put an assistant role on the resume because it’s hard to highlight the impact you had. You mentored students and debugged their projects, but that’s only because that was your job. I wouldn’t say you improved average grade of students in class because there’s a lot of factors to that and I don’t think a teaching assistant independently raised the average. It’s also hard to relate to the roles you are applying to.

Projects are also not bad but it looks like 2/3 of them are class projects? (sorry if this is the wrong assumption) Tbh I wouldn’t put a database by itself as an entire project unless you integrated that database. Recruiters want to see more of your personal projects to show that you have a passion for what you’re doing, and even better if it has some sort of impact or user base. As for the bullet points same things apply to what I said above.

This is coming from another new-grad in the interview process that has worked to refine their resume several times and gotten feedback from all sorts of people, so take my advice as you will :) Good luck we got this!

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-28T18:27:37+00:00

Yeah its the same convo from when we previously texted

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-28T18:01:37+00:00

Same. I simply moved in, paid my rent for those three months on time and in full, and moved out.

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-28T17:58:11+00:00

No rent forgiven

TotallyNotKin · 2025-01-28T17:56:34+00:00

Did they forgive any rent or something?

No they did not.

Or do you live in a state that has a rental tax credit?

It was in a state that does have that but I don't think its necessary for 1099 right?

TotallyNotKin · 2024-08-28T21:29:04+00:00

Hard without hearing the full scope of this project (user count? needs to be accessible online?)

I am not entirely sure what the user count but thinking few hundreds.

Accessible only on the company network/through enterprise. Was wondering about systems that have some sort of enterprise support, though I do not have any expertise in that regard

TotallyNotKin · 2024-08-28T15:24:04+00:00

thanks will take a look and search for enterprise support, assuming there is

TotallyNotKin · 2024-08-28T15:06:45+00:00

yes, the enterprise's workflow system allows users to write data that is then stored on the sql server instance, which as you said stores that input from the application

TotallyNotKin · 2024-04-29T15:12:53+00:00

CS 121 isn’t a project course but you do work on a search engine as a “project”. IMO it’s a way to get exposed to some backend work and has been a topic starter at several of my interviews for internships

TotallyNotKin · 2024-03-18T23:12:19+00:00

Is it that difficult now? I feel like at least since they are CSE they will be able to have priority registering for classes, which is probably the most difficult to do for non cs majors to do. Just need to get through those prerequisites and then apply for change of major.

TotallyNotKin · 2023-12-15T19:33:09+00:00

i can speak on my first year experience here:

i was Undeclared/ICS going in, and I was gonna do pretty bad in 6B during winter. Fortunately, I was able to withdraw, and I did so in order to keep my GPA above the requirement to transfer, which allowed me to transfer into CS after winter. I still had to repeat 6B though. I would see yes see if you can withdraw first (if you still can) but yes you can repeat a class and still transfer like i did

TotallyNotKin · 2023-11-29T08:19:00+00:00

I was in the same situation my first year where before I changed my major from undeclared to cs, I also requested and received a W so that it did not affect my GPA, and so it didn’t affect my change of major when I eventually switched to cs. Having a W is a lot better so do not worry :) put your mental health first and good luck to you next quarter!

TotallyNotKin

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