I am 2nd year student studying computer science and I have an interest in ML/AI gained through working on a bit of AI research at my university this year. This research work was very enjoyable and something I would like to pursue, however with a PHD being required to get into it I don't want to go down the route just because it's enjoyable if it is low paid and not worth the years of studying/postgrad.

What are the likely career options in this area after a PHD?

I’m based in asia, but I think the situation should translate across regions.

Always wanted to be a ML researcher, but studied non STEM subject in bachelors. lucked my way into a decent ML msc and landed a full time research assistant role for DL, working on some computational problems (deep learning, database structure, binary trees)

i just accepted an offer to be a functionally tech sales, in a large company. Basically have to build applications with their LLM and sell it. I don’t think I like it but it pays better, And it’s a big company so I gave it a shot. I also had no luck with PhDs because of my bachelors

If I do my year here, is it over for my dream to working as a ML researcher? I was technically already a ML researcher with my old company, and I really do like that work a lot more than this corporate bs. But the pay is almost doubled at this new role. any thoughts?

For context, I'm a DevOps Engineer with 6 years of experience (with a brief 1,5 years gap as Fullstack Engineer).

I like what I do, the technologies I work with, but to be honestly blunt, I'm getting tired of other people bullshit crazy complex systems. More and more I see myself craving to be working in a field with a smaller scope that's much more self contained.

Assuming you have all the time in the world to transition, what would you recommend? Open to any suggestion.

As a concrete example of what I see myself doing, I loved the https://www.nand2tetris.org/ courses. There's this book about compilers/interpreters (https://craftinginterpreters.com/) that is on my list. Is it realistic to consider learning a lot about languages/compilers/etc and get a job remotely in this area (say, a Go language developer)? 

I'm from Portugal, so that's something to consider.

Can I take a course offered somewhere on ML or something or do I have to get a masters degree for an AI role?

Hey everyone,

I’m moving to San Jose this January to start my MS in Computer Engineering at SJSU. I’ve been hearing mixed things, some say the Bay is the best place to meet startups, others say it’s all about who you know.

My background (TL;DR):

• Projects in fraud detection, anomaly detection, CNNs, explainable AI (SHAP/LIME)
• Deployed ML pipelines on AWS + GCP
• Web scraping/automation (SeleniumBase, BS4, Browserbase)
• A couple of research publications in ML
• Did internships and currently working as a data engineering intern cause plans for Fall 25 did not go through due to visa appointment issues

What I’m trying to figure out:

• What’s the best way for someone like me to land part-time or internship opportunities at early-stage startups in the Bay Area?
• Is it all cold emailing/founder DMs, or do people actually find success through campus recruiting/career fairs?
• Any tips on communities, meetups, or specific strategies that worked for you?

Not looking for a “golden ticket,” just trying to get some real-world advice from people who’ve done it in the Bay.

Appreciate any insights! Thanks in advance :)

Im currently a student at SJSU for SE. I came into the school wanting to do CS/heard from social media that the location alone makes it easy to get your foot into the industry with connections. However, for numerous reasons, I really don't want to stay in the major of SE anymore and want to swap to an adjacent major but im conflicted. I applied and got accepted into SFSU for CS which would actually allow me to commit to computer science but people say the school is trash, program is horrible, no actual company goes to that school, and if given the opportunity choose SJSU instead. On the flip-side, I was thinking of potentially swapping to an "adjacent" major such as data science or math then getting a minor in CS which would allow me to stay in SJSU to stay near the "opportunities" in sj but I wouldn't be doing directly CS and it's not necessarily a major I'm too passionate about and additionally, doing a non-cs degree while trying to get into SWE sounds like I'd be screwing myself more.

Hi all, I have been interviewing with a software company for a C++ role for over two months. 2 screenings( one by the recruiter and one by the hr), One hackerrank, two technical rounds, followed by one with hiring manager and one with head of the department. So in total 5 rounds(excluding screening call). It's been 2 weeks since the last one and they came back and want to schedule one more technical round. I am not sure how to take it that they want to have a technical round after cultural round. Is it that they have another strong candidate already in line and they want to have another round to make sure to reject me?.

I recently graduated from a safety/last chance university in Canada, and learned pretty quickly in my internship at a small company I very much do not know enough for a SWE role. I know it's entirely my fault for not taking my education seriously and I'm going through Odin Project to teach myself what I should have learned. I'm currently working part time as a cashier but I'm hoping to swap to an entry level, ideally white collar, role while I'm doing that. I've been looking at data entry and entry level IT roles. Is there anything else that would be a good fit for my situation?

Currently a technical product manager trying to see if it’s smart to get back into a more technical role. Have 2 years of help desk and app support experience and a year and a half of TPO/PM experience. If I were to go would go in a more cloud or security role. Specifically SecOps or IAM. Open to a GRC path as well. Anyone make the switch?

I'd imagine this will be quite a contrast to these posts from 2023 and 2024:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/18ds9ke/does_your_company_pay_for_your_chatgpt/

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1cy06us/ai_will_replace_us_all_but_in_the_meantime_my/

Hi,

What is your opinion on Stealth Startup?

I've seen so many people who apparently are founders, or have some nice role at Stealth Startup.

How is it seen to new opportunities/HR?

My friend is suggesting I do something similar, since for about a year I ran a digital agency and closed it fater a year, and they say it can seem in a bad way?

thoughts?

I'm not focused much in finding a job right now, im working on a new startup and already am talking with some investors for seed investment, but i've seen the face of them when i said my last business was a digital agency. Which it wasnt just that, we also published 2 SaaS tools during that year of production.

What do you think of this?

Hey folks,

I’m experimenting with an idea and want to work closely with a handful of devs over the next 3 months. The goal: help you clean up parts of your codebase that feel painful to touch or modify.

This isn’t about rewriting everything, just improving those spots that eat too much of your time — things like:

• Refactoring a giant method or class into something more manageable
• Adding missing unit tests so changes feel safer
• Fixing low-hanging fruit that keeps causing small bugs or friction

I’m offering this for free, but I only have 5 slots (to make sure I can actually help each team). What's your gain ? - you save your time and just merge the code.

The only requirement: you should have at least some messy or hard-to-maintain code that slows you down.

If this sounds useful, DM me. Let’s make your codebase a little less scary.

How Walmart's Kickback Scandal Exposes Silicon Valley's Staffing Underground

https://www.ctol.digital/news/walmart-fires-vp-kickbacks-terminates-1200-contractors/

I do understand that my path is (uncommon) for a lot of people in the compsci industry. Getting a job was really competitive but I busted my ass and got one. I laugh at anyone who says that information systems isn’t a valuable degree.

That aside, I think I think I want to work with Data. I have a strong desire when working with Tableau, PowerBI, and anything SQL related. I ENJOY it. I know how to write backend code to manipulate SQL data, but I want to go more towards the route of a DBA eventually.

What do you guys think?

Hey all! I am currently applying for roles at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies.

Here is my experience in a nutshell:

(1) BS degree in CS (graduated 16 years ago)

(2) Worked 2 years at a mid-size tech company (~5000 employees), desktop development using C#

(3) Spent 5 years completing a PhD in a related/adjacent scientific field (not CS). Coded daily in C# (for desktop) Matlab, Python (for data analysis), and C/C++ (for embedded/firmware)

(4) 5 more years working as a “research engineer” within academia. Continued using all the same technologies (C#, C/C++, Matlab, Python). Also added Xamarin/.NET MAUI to the list (for C# mobile dev)

(5) The most recent 4 years working as a “research engineer” at a small company (less than 20 people). Continued using many of the same technologies. Added Flask (for Python server-side stuff), tensorflow (for Python ML stuff), Flutter (for more mobile dev), and have also learned KiCad (for circuit board design), and still heavily work with C/C++ for firmware dev and C#/.NET MAUI for mobile dev. Also added Godot for game dev over the past year.

16 years total experience. I love my job and everything I work on, but unfortunately I’ve max’d out my salary potential at the small org that I’m at. I was hoping I could earn a lot more by going to FAANG.

Given my experience, what level do y’all think I should try to apply for?

I went to a T10 and got a Bachelor’s degree in CS, with a concentration in AI. But none of my roles were AI-related and it was standard front end/backend work. Now that everyone is trying to jump into AI, I’ve checked out some roles, but they all require multiple years of experience with AI tools and suites. I’m curious what I can do to actually make use of my previous training in AI and get one of these new AI roles. Surely having some academic background counts for something?

So I am working in a company where due to IP, security and export control considerations particular to my industry, almost all AI dev tools including Cursor, Github Copilot and Claude Code are banned. All we use is a locally hosted and pretty old ChatGPT installation which isn't that great.

That's fine, I can still do my work as I have always done, however I have already started to see dev and QA job ads stating commercial experience with dev tools like Cursor as mandatory. EDIT - I have a small amount of commercial experience in Copilot but only that tool and from a previous role. Not enough that would impress a recruiter.

It is possible that I could use side projects to get and show competence, however I have spoken to two local tech recruiters who say that they only consider commercial work experience in a tool or language as valid experience, so no side projects. Such is the competitive job market in my area. EDIT - some in another subreddit suggested freelance work or open source as options, which are great for learning the tools at least.

I have no immediate risk of being laid off, however I am concerned that is it ever happens, not having that AI dev tool experience could leave me effectively unemployable. One dev I asked for advice suggested I change jobs immediately. I love my job and am paid well, so would be very conflicted to leave just because of this.

What would you do if you were me?

Made a post after I was laid off here: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/s/km2NZfy92k hoping that this post gives yall some hope.

It’s not the best offer in the world since it’s about a 30% pay cut from my previous role and it’s fully in office but an offer is an offer. It’s with a smaller no name tech company that called me in for an in person interview and gave me the offer the next day.

I did work on projects, apply endlessly, and leetcode a ton the past couple of months so my best advice is to keep going and take breaks when needed. Market is still brutal but it’s not completely hopeless. I’m still going to be grinding for a better role/compensation but I’m extremely grateful that I finally received an offer 🙏

I am a backend software engineer with 6.5 years of experience. I think that skills as an engineer are becoming dull everyday as the projects in my team are not interesting and I have been mainly getting migration/maintenance work despite my protests. Also, I am not getting enough opportunities to interview for other companies because of the shit job market.

I want to upgrade and sharpen my skills as a dev and improve my resume at the same time, my resume since my current work is not anything too special to highlight. But I am confused on what direction I need to take in order to improve as a mid level to senior level developer.

I don’t think building some boilerplate projects like a to do list or a note taking app would be helpful for my skills or resume, since I am not at entry level(though I doubt if it even works for them these days). Nor would leetcode. I do study system design on the side, which might help me if I get some interesting work or while interviewing, but it does not help in strengthening my resume. What should I do then in order to get noticed more for opportunities while also improving my skills?

Some people have advised to build software projects to solve problems that I personally face and not some common course project. But I am completely out of ideas and inspiration to solve any issues that I might face. I can’t think of any problem that I need to desperately solve by building an app. What else should I do? I think that my career is plateauing and I would not be able to keep up with the job market with the way things are going

My current position pretty much lets me do what I want as long as I can spin it - typically I can, I’m currently leading the project to fully integrate HR, AD and Entra with requirement for data manipulation in transit (written by me.. in powershell (ew?)).

I love working with code and infrastructure, it’s by far and away my favourite piece of the job. Therefore it feels like devops proper is the trajectory I am on.

What should I be doing to pitch my work as an infrastructure engineer to potential employers as a devops engineer.

My career thus far has been incredibly Microsoft centred, I don’t mind it - I’m not a huge Microsoft hater, they make good serviceable products and I’m not the one paying for them. I have gripes about some of their ideas (primarily user empowerment) but on the whole - I’m not a Microsoft hater.

That said, I have always enjoyed the philosophy ofof Linux and the absolute distillation of the philosophy with containers. This is something I am actively looking at in my personal time.

I have endless opportunities to cross code with infrastructure, what are the big wins I should be going for?

I have aspirations for automating the certification of service principles and potentially moving the CA off a windows server. But after that, I’m potentially looking at DNS which would be challenging since it’s currently on windows and tied to Domain Controllers which unless I manage to go full entra - aren’t going anywhere.

Tldr; what projects, within an enterprise space are worth pursuing to get some devops credentials. I can code, I can infrastructure, I can business (I’m not an expert in any, but I can do it) else I’m stuck on click ops with weird / wonderful side desk projects.

Sidenote, does anybody give a shit about powershell or should I attempt to fully move over to Python - not that it’s an option on some projects, my current project (across AD, Entra, Exch on prem/ online) would be horrible in python.

Ramble over. I wanna move into devops, how.

I graduated a few months ago and I sorta just gave up immediately for a long list of reasons, but I'm honestly kinda sick of being extremely broke all of the time. Is it going to be easier for shit tier new grads in highly competitive areas to relocate somewhere not as in demand to get their first job? I was born and raised in the Bay Area and even though there is a lot I don't like about it, I'd honestly rather not leave but it seems completely unrealistic to get any sort of work here unless you are a literal prodigy or unusually hard working, which I am not. I don't have particularly high standards or expectations for anything at all in life and I've changed my mind on relocating.

Essentially, my real question is, how does applying for jobs out of state work exactly? Will they even consider someone from several thousands of miles away or are they going to favor locals? Are you going to have to fly out? Is relocation assistance enough to leave an expensive area like the Bay with zero money saved up? I'm going to expire as a new grad in a few months so I might as well try to get something, even if it's like in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't seem worth it to apply anywhere in the Bay Area since the competition is completely insane.

Im about to start my 2nd year in my Computer Science degree and after a while of trying out different things im CS ive decided that I really want to get into aerospace. But im not really sure about career aspects. Can someone explain please?

Might be a rant, might not, but I’m feeling kinda lost right now. I’ve got an associates degree and about two years of internship experience, but I’m still not getting callbacks. I’ve done a bunch of personal projects, but it feels like no matter how many I build, it’s never enough. Even if I can get in front of a recruiter via networking, it feels like I get shot down before getting the chance to interview.

That’s what got me thinking, what kind of project actually turns heads anymore? Making a CRUD app or even building your own neural network doesn’t really seem to cut it these days. It feels like I have to use the latest AI tech (RAG for example) in some crazy way to get noticed. For context, my side projects include a Sentence Toxicity Classifier (using a RNN), a SIEM/SOAR pipeline to test things with Splunk, a Discord music bot, and a handful of other projects I thought were pretty solid. I always figured showing that I work on stuff in my own time would help me stand out, but if everyone’s doing the same, how do I actually separate myself?

Do I really need to go all out and build a full blown website with the latest AI tech just to get a call from a recruiter? What projects are actually impressive in today’s job market? Not complaining, just genuinely curious and lost right now as im sure many of us are.

Before I start ranting, this situation is my fault. It's been over a year since I graduated in Computer Science. I have little to nothing to show for it. I know the job market is ultra-competitive right now but it's still my responsibility to work with what I have, and I haven't been.

I realized during the five years I've studied Computer Science that even though I love video-games and thought robotics was alright (I did robotics programming in highschool & during my senior project, mentored by AmazonRobotics), I have no confidence in programming, and frankly, problem-solving in general. Everything is so reliant on connecting/social engineering now that my anti-social ass hasn't been doing. My parents have gotten people from my church and extended family, to give advice to me and frankly I've mostly been ignoring them when they repeat the same stuff I've been hearing for a while now. I apply to X position a family/family friend tells me to apply to, I get rejected/ghosted, repeat ad-nauseam until I stopped applying months down the line out of frustration, lying to them saying "yeah I applied to plenty of places". Confidence is at an all-time low.

Today my mom yells at me on how much I've been freeloading and threatens to kick me out, and I couldn't talk back at her because I know she's right.

For the short-term, I have $2,700 in my bank account, pretty much nothing to live on my own for. I hate being around my family but really want a remote position to show to my parents ASAP, so I don't get the boot. At this point I don't care what field it is, it doesn't have to be CS/programming--I really want to get a remote job in SOMETHING I can tolerate, in the next couple weeks or so while I try and gather my bearings for my future, or else I am likely getting kicked out. Preferably something that doesn't get too in the way of me studying for certs.

For the long-term, If it helps, again, I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science, a AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification, and am currently studying for the CompTIA A+ certification because I figured maybe I can try the IT space if I hate programming so much (already paid for a voucher, planning to take the exam in ~2 weeks). Unfortunately had no real work experience/internships in the Comp. Sci. field as I was too busy just trying not to drop out; took me 5 years to graduate. I've worked Doordash for a couple months using the family car, until my parents forbade me from doing so (for asinine reasons but it's their car so I can't talk back). I thought I was passionate in programming, I'm not. I have pretty much no passion in anything except games and anime, both industries sound awful to actually work in. Last week I started brainstorming a Unity game since I randomly thought it would be nice to work on something, anything, and put it on GitHub.

I'm well-aware that my story is not rare. Again, this is my fault. I've been too passive, and arrogant. But today I might as well ask for advice, both for the short and long-term. Thank you.