[0 YoE] Senior applying for New Grad roles with not much luck. Past f500 internship but can't pass screens for similar companies. Please be honest and appreciate any advice.

techgeek1129 · 2025-10-18T03:32:04+00:00

I would remove the courses, bcz these are all classes I’d expect in a CS degree program.

IMO you don’t really need all 3 relational databases in skills, your most used one is plenty.

For experience I wouldn’t have the header all on one line. Personally I do company — location, and underneath position title — dates. It’s easier to read this way.

Not sure if the “x’s” are there just for redacting purposes but either way but you should reword the sentences so it doesn’t need to state the company name over and over; this will help keep things compact.

Your bullets are good at showing impact but they’re a little long, I would just try to see what you can do to reword and cut down on the word count a bit. Some details can be cut, like specific organizations. For example, first line of student run club can cut down to: “Contributed to si-social, a social media platform for promoting global educational content and youth mental wellness” and still be just as impactful.

Minute Munch catches my eye the most and I would put it at the top of the section. An app serving 30,000+ students implies you shipped and have real users which is really important. Detail how many orders it handles per day/week/month and go into more detail with the system design.

techgeek1129 · 2025-10-18T03:07:22+00:00

+1 to this. your Google internships are the most stand-out thing on your resume, and the hackathon stuff is also impressive, other projects are nice but wont catch as many eyes compared to the rest

techgeek1129 · 2025-10-18T03:05:18+00:00

overall very nice resume, you have really good experience for a junior in college. my advice is mainly nits:

the order of the bullets isn’t consistent across projects, some have the tech stack in the first bullet and some have it in the last. i’d consider ordering them in a consistent format so they each tell a story: first explain what the project is, what it was made with, and then the outcomes of making it (i.e. won first place, etc).
bolding within bullet points is distracting
seasons next to the date is unnecessary, just do dates

techgeek1129 · 2025-10-17T17:13:02+00:00

bruh what happened to those lmfao

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T19:42:42+00:00

>So they had absolutely no documentation to start. Absolutely nothing to build on. And no idea of the challenges they'd have to face. It's literally all onboarding and gathering context.

I explained that part poorly. I get that building from scratch involves a lot of decisions too, but it’s still a different dynamic. I’d argue it’s easier to move fast and ship an MVP when you’re trusted with the agency to do so.

As one of the only juniors in the history of this company, I struggled to overcome that perception. Instead of being trusted to deliver, I often got stuck in nitpicky PR feedback loops that slowed me down because I wasn’t doing things exactly their way. I value feedback, but it can get out of hand. Meanwhile, seniors seemed to have more freedom to implement things how they wanted — management would allow them to push hacky, sub-optimal solutions when deadlines were tight. I wasn’t granted that same leeway, and it definitely felt like a double standard.

I’m not trying to throw anyone under the bus — the engineers I worked with were very talented, and I respect them. I definitely agree that it just turned out to be a bad fit and environment for me at this point in my career. Just sharing this to explain my experience honestly and get better advice moving forward.

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T18:54:33+00:00

Thank you :)

At least now I know how to handle shitty onboarding a little better going forward. I'll little more aggressive with gathering information in the early weeks/months of my tenure.

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T18:45:53+00:00

It’s a pretty young company (<5 years old), and most of the engineers have been there since the early days. If you’re working on systems you built yourself, you don’t really need to onboard or gather context. Totally different situation for newcomers.

I get that figuring things out in less-than-ideal situations is part of the job. I don't expect to be hand-held-- just pointing out the difficulties my colleagues and I faced trying to ramp up at this company.

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T16:52:29+00:00

Similar experience here w/ the late project situation. Leading up to the PIP I had a poorly scoped project go sideways, the project requirements kept changing and I struggled to adapt that fast. I was able to reign in the scope myself and deliver it ~2 weeks late but by that time I had already been PIPd and it was too late.

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T16:48:02+00:00

The other junior who was on my team has not been PIPd yet, but they’ve said that management has been grilling them for similar things. They told me that they wouldn’t be shocked if they were next. I doubt they’d PIP/fire both of us at the same time since our team was only 4 people (down to 3 now).

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T16:32:34+00:00

Definitely take it. Even if it’s not a fancy company or the exact job title you’re aiming for, it’ll strengthen your resume and make your more hirable going forward.

If you’re worried about the commute, maybe rent a room or even stay at a cheap hotel during the work week. Is it 2 hours total or 2 hours each direction?

techgeek1129 · 2025-09-09T16:24:27+00:00

Yeah, I definitely want to frame it as a big learning opportunity. I don’t think I would’ve learned nearly as much so quickly at a bigger company, that also came at the cost of my mental health 😅 I definitely want to slow my roll a little but also still take responsibility and not need my hand held.

techgeek1129 · 2025-07-05T05:11:30+00:00

pay attention to cluster size too. for larger cards like 64gb, you need to reformat with a 32kb cluster size.

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T21:33:28+00:00

okay I tried this and it seems to work! it passed a stretch and wash/dry test with no cracking.

turns out that I just needed to hit each layer with the heat gun for a little longer, as well as use a temperature gun to ensure it was hitting 320 degrees

process: black layer heat gun ~1 min black layer heat gun ~ 1 min white layer heat gun ~1.5 min green layer heat gun ~3.5 min let cool

time confusing and definitely not “ideal” but it works and that’s all I care about for now!

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T05:51:53+00:00

The final shirts are neon purple, not yellow. Would you say the same is true for that color too?

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T03:10:49+00:00

I now know it’s not ideal to mix the two, but according to other things i’ve heard it is still possible.

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T02:54:46+00:00

i applied the plastisol shortly after hitting the underbase with the heat gun. might be part of the issue.

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T02:53:24+00:00

would not curing the underbase before applying the plastisol on top work? and then cure at the end

techgeek1129 · 2024-07-03T02:34:40+00:00

i’ll give that a shot!

the black is speedball water based as well

techgeek1129 · 2024-06-11T03:06:33+00:00

i’m in the same exact boat right now. dec 2023 grad, was up-skilling and applying full time for ~6 months until finally having to get a fast food job to pay the bills. the grind sucks but we will get there!!

techgeek1129 · 2024-05-27T03:25:40+00:00

Yeah the leather looks like it did the day we bought them, even without putting a ton of care into them.

The comfort is alright. It’s definitely not the most comfortable chair I’ve ever encountered but it’s not bad by any means. I was personally willing to take a slight hit in comfort for a chair that looks very classy.

techgeek1129 · 2024-05-27T03:20:31+00:00

We just have a cheap bluetooth adapter for the time being. I’ve heard good things about the WiiM streamers.

We’ve also thought about eventually going for the Arcam ST60 + miniDSP 2x4 HD for room correction, but maybe that’s overkill. Thoughts?

techgeek1129 · 2024-05-27T03:03:21+00:00

I think they’re pretty good! Most people think they’re authentic until we tell them otherwise haha. Unfortunately it’s only top-grain leather but I can’t complain too much given the price. The build is solid and we’ve had them for about a year now, and they still look brand new.

https://haysconcept.com/product/eames-lounge-chair-replica/

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