2025 EES CodePath: I Landed Internships at Top Tech Companies: AMA

There we go. Hey y’all, it’s Daniel from the Career Center team. Welcome to the breakout session.

I landed internships at top tech companies. Ask me anything hosted by Boris Hernandez. We’re excited to have you join us today.

But first, got a few reminders for you. Please utilize the chat to have conversations and share your thoughts during the session. Our team’s going to be monitoring the chat and any questions that you have may be answered live during the session from the Q&A panel.

Following the session, we’re going to ask that you complete the brief feedback survey. Your feedback is important to us. With the reminders out of the way, I’d like to introduce our speaker, Boris, today who’ll be hosting an ask me anything session.

Boris is a student from Texas&M University Corpus Christi. He’s completed internships at Meta twice at Mercury and will be joining Google this fall. And in his free time, he enjoys poker, chess, mixed martial arts, and building with Legos.

Huge welcome to Boris. We look forward to hearing from you. Show him some love in the chat.

Thank you, Daniel. Excited to be here. Thank you everybody.

See some familiar names. Hi, Kelsey. See some people I know.

Happy to be here. Awesome. Well, I’ll start us off with some questions and then we’ll get to some questions from the open Q&A afterward.

Starting off, Boris, what role did code CodePath play in shaping your path and how did it prepare you for these opportunities that you had? Yeah. Just for some context, I took the software engineering course and the technical interview prep course.

And a big part of getting a job nowadays especially is making sure you’re really good and in the technical interview prep. So it helped me immensely because sometimes it’s hard to be disciplined and and stay on top on top of doing your leak code and stuff like this. So having kind of that accountability partner in a in a way with CodePath was immensely helpful and helped me a lot throughout my processes.

Yeah. No, that’s awesome. TIP is definitely amazing at keeping you on your aame, keeping you accountable and helping you reach your goals.

So I’m glad to hear that we were able to support you in that way. When it comes to your preparations for you know applications and like the interview process were there any strategies that made a big difference for you? Yeah.

I guess also a little more context. I didn’t really know what an internship was until like the end of my freshman year. So after everything had already closed basically.

So going into it, I had basically the summer to kind of prepare myself and kind of think of like how I can maximize the opportunities and make sure I get something. And I think one of the things that helped me a lot there’s a lot of different things that go into it, but to keep it simple, I think like one applying early is like the most important thing. And like being obsessed with your resume.

So I would like you can see any of my friends, anybody, I would be obsessed with my resume. I’ll be doing it all day every day. And also making sure you consistently code.

But like the main things is just applying early, making sure your resume is where it needs to be. So like constantly updating it. And whenever you get an opportunity because especially now the market’s getting a little tougher when you get that opportunity, make sure that you ace it is is super important.

So I think those were the main strategies that kind of helped me. There’s a bunch of different resources. There’s like you can find like lists of internships on GitHub.

That’s the main way I do it like simplify is really good tool things like this and just leveraging your network as well. So knowing people who work at like these companies like other interns and being able to talk to them about their experience and like what to kind of expect from the experiences. I love that answer.

I feel like a lot of people talk about networking upward to people who are, you know, maybe working full-time jobs already, but you know, don’t forget network with your fellow peers, you know, people who are doing those internships because they can give you that critical insight. I love that. My next question for you was, throughout that, you know, application process, I’m sure, rejection is something that happened, right?

It happens to all of us. It’s tough. Was there a particular rejection or maybe tough experience that ended up shaping your success later?

Yeah, perfect question. So I guess some context, I keep saying that for each one, but it’s important. Whenever I started applying my sophomore year, my first ever application led to an offer with with Capital One.

So, I was like, whoa, this is so easy. Oh my goodness, everyone’s saying it’s so hard. Oh my goodness.

Sound is dropping off. Let me see. Can y’all hear me?

Well, Daniel, can you hear me? Okay, better now. Okay, cool, cool, cool.

So yeah, so that was my first experience and I was like, "Okay, this is so easy." But then I got humbled very quickly. My next application was with Dualingo. And I’m very close even with the recruiters from Dualingo even now.

Like I have some of the recruiters numbers like they’re amazing people, super great people. And I got to the final round with them and I was like okay this is this is confirming what I think super easy and I got rejected and from there the rejection just keep on kept on coming. I was like oh my goodness this is this is like not what I expected from my first experience.

And so I think I was like oh yeah I’m going to go with Duolingo this before I even got the offer. So being able to kind of recognize like okay don’t I guess expect things to happen and like everything happens for a reason. So like because of that I ended up getting an offer from Meta later.

And I wouldn’t have even been applying if I had gotten the offer from Dualingo. So I think that was really crucial and like understanding like u rejection is redirection. So, making sure like you’re not getting too hard on yourself, especially during the times where like things are are not going well in applications.

It’s a lot of luck, not gonna lie. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of it is luck, especially you can have somebody give you like a really hard question, something like that. So, yeah, a lot of it is luck, I see. But yeah, yeah, just keep on going and don’t get discouraged, I would say, is the biggest thing because after I got rejected, I was like very sad for a while.

So, I think just being able to recognize that things happen for a reason and keep going is very important. Yeah, I’m glad you had that light at the end of the tunnel and that you were able to, you know, push forward despite you know, receiving rejections and and move past that and ending up getting you know, an offer at Meta is huge afterwards. So, yeah, that’s amazing.

Thanks for sharing your story. Now when you did you know work these internships you know at Meta you know how did you make the most of it? What was there was there anything that you did that maybe helped you the most?

Yeah I guess a lot of it especially that I’ve learned like going through it is starting strong is one of the best things you can do for yourself. So like whenever you get there making sure that you are on your agame right away. That’s like the easiest thing because then later on you don’t you can kind of slow down a little bit at like naturally as it would and it’s not as bad because if you start and you’re like doing okay then later it gets harder.

So I think just starting really strong and some ways you can do that is just being talking to your manager first of all and kind of setting your expectations of like what you want to achieve with this internship that how you want to grow. Especially getting all the things out the way in terms of understanding your project, talking to people on the team, things like this are are super helpful I think. And yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing.

From there, it’s just working hard and I think communicating, not being afraid to ask a lot of questions, especially at the beginning. Especially as an intern, you’re expected to ask a lot of questions. So this is really important and very helpful.

And I think that’s the main thing. And I guess also kind of try to realize that like it’s normal to struggle. So when when you’re going through it and like something’s maybe not working or or you don’t understand something, that’s completely normal and that’s why you’re there.

So just recognizing that and keep on going. Yeah, I love that mentality, you know, continuing learning. It’s okay to make mistakes.

You’re there to learn, right? I you you touched upon a couple of concepts there that I’d love to dig into a little bit deeper. Like you talked about setting expectations.

Could you talk a little bit more about like how you went about doing that and like what kinds of expectations that you did set? Yeah. So as example I guess for my most rec recent internship at Meta I was working on Instagram res oh looks like we’re running into some technical difficulties.

Give us a quick second here while we wait for Boris to reconnect here. Make sure that you’re dropping your questions in the Q&A tab and upvoting ones that you’re interested in hearing more about. We’re going to be taking those from most up votes down.

So, make sure that you’re voting as well. Man, I got him. Oh no. What’s up y’all?

Good to see everybody. It’s my AMA now. I hope you’re all ready.

Mom, if you could drop your question in the Q&A tab. It’s like, to the top left of the chat, see little, bubbles that say Q& A. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Welcome back. Okay.

Oh, a second. So now I’m on my phone. Is it Is the everything okay?

Can y’all hear me? Well, yep, we can hear you. Okay.

Yeah. Somebody said Meta got me. That’s so funny.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. But yeah, we’re we’re talking about setting expectations.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So the first meeting I had with my manager I firstly talked to them about how I want to I guess be evaluated. So that’s one thing talking about like oh I work well when I’m giving given freedom to actually work and and I can come to you when I absolutely need questions and and having that kind of understanding there and then also just setting expectations like oh I want to grow in these like these areas I I think I’m pretty strong in this so I would love to work on something related to this especially if you have some control over what your project is. I think that’s super important.

And also whenever you’re going even applying I think like setting expectations for yourself. Internships are a really big opportunity to be able to grow. So I think choosing different experiences is very important and at least in my opinion you shouldn’t return to an intern to the same intern place.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Yep, we got you back. Sorry about this. Apologize.

All good. All good. Yeah, you’re saying you should have returned to the same place.

Oh my goodness. My Wi-Fi is broke. Go here.

Something that really stood out to me about what you were saying, Boris, is Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Welcome back. Something that stood out to me about what you’re saying is about creating your own experience, right? Like you were talking about really owning it, really setting those expectations, guiding your own project.

I really love that concept of, you know, it’s your internship. You’re building your own experience and you’re making it your own. So, I I really love that.

The the next question that I had for you was about, you know, maybe doing a little bit of a retrospective. So, I’m curious, looking backward, is there anything that you wish that you’d known before starting your you know, first ever internship search? Yeah, I think a big thing is knowing that yeah, there Google’s coming for me.

I don’t know what’s going on. Yeah, is like especially applying early. I feel like people don’t really focus on that, but applying early is such a cheat code.

If you don’t like being able to apply as soon as you possibly like you have high way higher chance of actually getting the interview in the first place. So also thank you Daniel for caring. When my internet is going.

You’re doing great. Appreciate it. But yeah, no, it’s all you.

It’s all you. No, you’re you’re bringing the golden answers to everybody. So, cool.

I I mean, thank you for you know, answering those those questions. I’m going to open it up to some questions from our audience here today. Starting with the most up votes.

So, we’ll bring those up on the screen right here in a quick second. I’ll start reading out the first one here. Our first question is from Mrage who asked, "How did you make your application stand out before you had any internship experience?" Yeah, I think that’s a really good question.

U, that’s one of the ones that I get a lot especially from like my friends who don’t maybe have experience. I think for me it was like finding experience. So, like if I didn’t have experience, I would go out and seek experience.

So whether that’s you know asking a friend who whose mom has like a a store like can I make y’all a website and like like doing that and like being able to put that on my or like start tutoring and being able to put that on my resume or or start a organization at my school. I started a color stack job at my university and I feel like that elevated my resume a lot especially in like the leadership standpoint. So I think those were huge, just being able to actually seek it out when you don’t have it.

Because it’s easy easy to just sit there and say like, "Oh, I need to wait for an internship, but there’s so many other things that you can do to kind of pad your resume." And, I think those are really important, especially doing projects. For me, it’s kind of it was hard to stay disciplined, especially with doing projects or things like this. So, I think one of the things that helped me a lot was doing hackathons.

Because they force you to is Yeah. Research as well. Thank you, Martin.

Research is important or or doing hackathons to be able to get those projects done in like a 24-hour window are a very big help. So I think those are the main things. Just seeking it out.

No, that’s awesome. Something I’ve been hearing from you as a theme is that you’re really you’re hungry for opportunity, right? Like you’re not waiting for things to show up.

You’re chasing them down. You’re creating your own opportunities. You’re creating your own internship experience and I really love that you know the idea of building your own experience.

So thanks for your answer on that. The next question I have from you is from Omar here who asks what skills do you think are the most important that make the resume stand out? There’s a lot of different things in terms of skills.

I think one of the main things is if you’re applying for internship or a job in general, look at the section where it says like required or like things skills that are required, making sure you have those in your resume is like the first thing because you don’t want to get auto filtered out just because you don’t have certain words in your resume. So, first thing is first is that and like most of them have a lot of the same kind of technologies or or overlapping. So for me, I don’t really have to add some unless it’s like a very niche one or something like this.

So I think that’s the biggest thing is just making sure they’re on your resume. And then actually showing that you can use these. So like in projects, things like that.

Those are really important. In terms of what’s most important, I don’t think there’s one that’s like, oh, obviously you have your popular ones like JavaScript, TypeScript, and like things like Python or even frameworks like React and things like this. But, I think just looking at what is most common in required sections for jobs is the biggest thing I could say there.

I see. And, a quick follow-up question to this. Was there anything that you did maybe outside of your resume or the application itself that maybe helped you along the way?

Because you’ve got such an amazing roster of internships, you know, I’m curious if there’s anything more you did. Most of my No, most of my applications were just cold apply. I have had a lot of opportunities that did not go all the way but the way I got them was like like I have friends who work at like or who I have a friend who is interning at like LinkedIn for example and then he’ll connect me with the recruiter and I’m like oh and so like being able to have like kind of those warm introductions is super helpful.

Don’t sleep on on like friends working in in internship. I feel like a lot of people try to go straight for the recruiters themselves or or go to engineers. For me, I feel like it’s been most helpful to just talk to to other interns and kind of get an idea through there.

I have a lot of connections with recruiters. Most of those are through events like CodePath or Color Stack or just events. Some companies will hold events in the city during the summer.

And I think that’s one of the biggest things. So like the Dolingo one that I mentioned earlier, that was just an event in the city that Dualingo held. I just applied to get in and I went and like then from there like recruit networking with recruiters, I feel like a lot of people approach it so transactionally.

So actually talking to them as a person and trying to get to know them will will yield much higher success than just like oh can I get a referral, you know? So I think that’s another big thing. So yeah, I guess that’s most of it.

And then I think Tran asked a question in the chat. He said, "Should we apply before seeking referral or just apply early?" I think you should ideally have a referral before you even apply before the role even opens. To me.

But personally, I don’t want to give advice that may or may not be good. But I just apply as soon as I can and then it I either leave it like that or if they can give a referral post that like even after I apply then I I pursue that. Yeah, use your own judgment.

Person. Yeah, 100% on using your own judgment and you know, Boris, I mean, feel confident in you know, your your perspective because I I think recruitment I always say this, recruitment is a a personal experience, right? It’s people to people.

There’s always going to be different approaches that work for different people. So, you know, I think if you share you know, what’s working well for you, I think that’s 100% valid. You know, this is a great segue, though.

We were talking, you were talking a little bit about networking and you know events and we have another question in the Q&A from Dan who asks, "I’ve heard everyone should be networking as creating relationships, not just a one-time talking. How do I do that? Especially when I have no experience, so the other person doesn’t really need anything that I can help or offer." okay, I see.

So creating relationships. I see. Yeah, I think it is tough.

A lot of people just are not interested. So I think one way is just instead of approaching as like a strictly networking relationship, just try to be try to like make friends, you know, like making friends is a big way. It doesn’t have to be so I guess singular in like we have a networking relationship, right?

So like I I guess it definitely is hard as well. But u again meeting other friends maybe at your university or other universities or and also a big thing for me in the way I’ve kind of cultivated these relationships is just being active and going to these events again and again and you see the same people you see the same recruiters like if you go to like a a ship or or like the the company events over the summer and you’ll see the same people over and over like oh it’s good to see you again. And then you just kind of do it that way, but like just I guess being memorable.

So yeah. So I think that’s the biggest thing. And then in terms of creating relationships, look into like your alumni, junior university, other places, CodePath, maybe people who have taken courses before, try to reach out to them.

Other things like this. And I I guess you can still offer something even though you you think like oh I have nothing I can offer. You know you’re you’re a fresh mind so you can I don’t know you can people like helping people right?

I mean most people so I think those are like the tips I have. I don’t know if that was necessarily good answer but hopefully that helps. I think that was a great answer.

You know, like when it comes to building a a actual a deeper relationship, right, with somebody, it’s not just like a hey, nice to meet you and then we’re off and then I never see you again, right? You see them a few times, you build a a natural organic connection and you recognize each other and you know, I think that’s really powerful. Yeah, so thanks for your answer on that one.

There’s let’s see the next question from Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say not all not always you will have that opportunity. So I think either getting their LinkedIn or their email being able to kind of follow up that way.

That’s more like the traditional way of of like following up like and you can also send them emails like hey you don’t have to bombard them but like maybe every three months, every six months like hey following up again just some updates on what I’ve been up to. Would love to set up a call something like this. Personally, I don’t do this, but I know a lot of friends that do, and they’ve had success with this.

So I think that’s also worth mentioning. Yeah, totally. You know, nurturing a connection.

I mean, networking is like making friends, right? We know each other. We got to know each other.

Let’s let’s stay in touch, right? We’ll keep you know, building on that connection. Cool.

Next question I have here is from Kang, who asks, "What’s the most useful advice you received when you look back? It’s a good question. It’s hard to say.

I always fall back to kind of the same ones. I think it’s very prevalent to have imposter syndrome, especially today, like if you don’t maybe go to the best university or you’re you’re like, "Oh, my friends all got internships and I didn’t." things like this. I think from some a quote I was told was Oh, I forgot who said this.

It was at a a Google event. But they said they don’t hire you to know everything. They hire you because they think you can figure out figure it out.

And that has re stayed with me like for years now, like two, three years. Because it it’s so true. Like every time I would feel like, oh, I’m so dumb.

Like, how can I not figure this out? I just think of that. I’m like, okay, let me reset.

I don’t have to know everything. It’s normal not to know everything. And just going through my steps of being able, how can I figure this problem out and approach it?

I think that’s been the most helpful thing for me. Obviously not a lot of other things but that one stands out to me personally. That is such a great answer and actually you know I was attending the Google session earlier and they were talking about how when they’re interviewing they’re looking for those kind of core problemsolving skills right the ability to sort of think through a problem and find a solution.

So I think you hit the nail on the head with that quote. That’s amazing. Next question I have is from William, who asked, "What do you think is something crucial to job apps or resumes that’s maybe often overlooked?" That’s a good question, William.

I think again applying early, I think having those keywords again, like making sure it’s it’s passes like the TSA or is it TSA? I don’t remember what the exact term is. The exactly for like the keywords that parses ATS.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Thank you, Ryan. TSA is the airport. What am I talking about?

I’ve been to the airport too much. But yeah, yeah, I think that’s really important and I think especially just having other people look at your resume and getting feedback from that. Honestly, I feel like the best advice for people of résumés are like people who are like junior seniors and also applying because a lot of times if you talk to like an engineer who’s already been in in there for like a couple years, they’re not applying, right?

So, they don’t really know what’s going on or like recruiters I think also are very good source because they’re the ones actually looking at it. But yeah, but I I think those are like the best things in terms of like having other people review it. In terms of your resume, how you can make it make sure it’s good, making sure like again ATS compliant.

And then applying early obviously if you for me personally I don’t really reach out to people for like referrals for the most part. Because I I see like trying to ask in the the chat like is it necessary to have a mentor? Me personally like I’ve had mentors but I don’t feel like I’ve had a mentor that necessarily has helped me in terms of like applying things like this.

It’s been more so just about like career type things. So I’m like oh this is going on in my internship like what do you think about this or something like that. So I think it’s not crucial to like reach out to people and get referrals but definitely helpful.

I think that’s like the main things that are overlooked is like applying early and then getting people to review your resume as often as possible. And yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Hey, working in the CodePath Career Center team, it would be a shame for me not to plug our resume review services.

So, make sure you take advantage of the resources that are available to you as a CodePath team member or as a CodePath member. You can you know, submit your resume for an asynchronous review or you can meet with a coach to get a second opinion on your resume. A lot of our coaches have that experience that Boris was talking about in terms of you know being able to you know look from an industry perspective or recruiter perspective.

So thanks for thanks for letting me shout us out. I have another question here from Zashan who is starting an internship next week and is losing sleep but is wondering how your first PR went. Any tips on that front?

Okay, let’s see. How was your first PR? Don’t lose sleep again whenever you get there.

I I I fell to that trap where I was like, "Oh, I need to learn the stuff I’m doing before I get there and be a pro and like do all these things." again, like the point of internship is that you learn while you’re there, right? Like they’re not expecting you to come in and be like a principal engineer, right? Like the especially if this is like your first internship, they kind of expect you to not be that good.

My first PR I think my first PR went really badly in terms of it took me so long to like especially if you work at like these big companies it is very difficult to know where everything is like so maybe something is not documented the way it should be and you don’t really know how to find things. So I think that was it was very hard in that. But, utilizing your mentor, you’re going to be given a mentor, your manager, asking them like, "Oh, where do I" and then if you run into an issue, make sure that you don’t repeat this issue.

So, document it in like a Google Docs. I’m going to say like, "Oh, this is the issue I ran into." and how do I fix it? And like just document this so for later when if you happen to run into the same issue, you don’t have to ask the question again.

And you can just keep keep moving. Yeah, I think also having the experience of like working at a startup in Mercury helped me a lot because you have a lot more I guess you have a lot more responsibility. So you get a lot more done and you you see a lot of these hiccups and you learn to overcome them.

Yeah, I think it’s amazing that you can speak to the the side of things of of learning, right? Like you you’re not expected to know it all going into it. And I really loved when you mentioned that.

You know I think on top of that really when it comes to you know the the the fears and and overcoming those fears you know it is really important to recognize that it’s okay to make mistakes and not to make the same mistake twice. I I think you you know gave some really solid advice there. You know something on on the next question from Ethan that is something that you’ve maybe touched a little bit on with your leak code practice in the past but Ethan asks my biggest struggle right now is passing OAS despite doing leak code daily I’m still finding myself struggling what were some of the things that you did to prepare for those OAS or technical interviews and what advice would you give some give to someone in my position yeah OAS have been notorious ly tough for me as well.

Honestly, I feel like it’s different for every person. I know for I have friends who have done like thousands of or hundreds of thousands of of le code questions. And they that’s how they learn, right?

For me, I probably have done less le code than most people, I would say. Just because for me the way I approached it was very much in terms of I wanted to understand the patterns. So I did like there’s a bunch of different resources.

So for me I use neat code. I think I typed it in chat. That’s super helpful for me.

But how do you approach the questions themselves is the thing right? So like using space repetition was like a big helper for me. So, I would do a question, maybe not the hardest question, but I would do a question, do it for like 30 minutes, 45 minutes.

If I have like if I’m clearly like, okay, I’m not solving this, which is also important to to recognize. I’m like, I would go and watch the the explained video, look at the code, and go through it and write it, but don’t just leave it there. Like, you have to actually understand.

So like I would walk through the code like okay this is doing this why do we do this like is there another way we can do this and and things like this and then once you and that’s where the space repetition comes in in terms of like I wouldn’t just leave a question there so if I maybe solve the question first time super easily maybe I’ll give it like a week and I would revisit the question see how I did then if I did kind of poor on it and I couldn’t really solve it maybe I give it a day maybe I give it like two three days I revisit the question and attempt it again and see where I the lack of or I guess defic deficiencies in my knowledge in my understanding are and that way I so I’ve probably done like maybe like 60 70 on the high-end lead code questions but like of those I’ve redone them like tens and hundreds of times of the same questions just to understand like the actual maybe that’s a little overkill but like being able to understand the underlying pattern of what you’re actually trying to solve Like obviously the code is one thing like solving it but if you can identify what the pattern is and how you could I guess extract that and apply it to other questions or like similar similar type of questions then it’s like it’ll become so much easier. And again this is for me like this is just my personal experience and like I feel like it’s worked really really really well for me in terms of understanding but not everybody learns the same way. So, if you feel like you have to do a lot more questions, that’s fine.

But that’s what I would recommend and it’s worked really well for me. I I love that advice. You know, I I think something that you really focused on in your answer was with regards to pattern recognition, being able to recognize those patterns and then also you spoke to the deep mastery that you were able to build over time, right?

It’s not about answering all the questions, right? It’s about mastering the skill, the problem solving process and that approach and you know using repetition as a tool to get your way there. So thank you for your answer.

The next question I have I don’t know if you know you are able to to speak to this one so feel free to let me know if not but Kim asked how should an international student stand out since it’s getting harder and harder to get an internship when you need sponsorship. Yeah, I I don’t personally, but I have a lot of friends who do, and I think it’s very hard, honestly, just being straightforward. I think it’s super difficult.

And I think you have to be a lot more you have to work a lot harder for the same opportunities, which is not very fair. But I I empathize with you, and I think the big only thing you can probably do is to do the same things, but like push it to the extreme in terms of of like what you’re doing. So like the strategies would remain the same.

But also looking at like specified list of like companies that sponsor trying to reach out to recruiters to get that connection more. And I think that’s like the biggest thing that I noticed from my friends who are international students. But yeah, I think it the strategies themselves are the same in terms of standing out and stuff like this.

But focusing on companies that have sponsorship and it that might be like talking to people who have interned there and saying like oh I know these companies sponsor and I know these companies are the ones of the sponsorship of the sponsors that I want to work for like let me find out how their interview process is and like kind of start prepping for that. So if you know they’re going to give you like a code signal like start prepping for code signals and and things like this. So just doing more preparation is definitely needed unfortunately but I think that’s the the best advice I could have and if anybody has more advice somebody’s an international student I would be happy to hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think you know we could also all learn from your drive like your hunger for the opportunities and creating those opportunities for yourself.

So, I think that’s another thing that you know anyone international student or not can do to really try to you know create opportunities for themselves. Cool. The next question I have is from Jose Jose Romero, a name that I recognize.

If you were given the chance to go back in time and give yourself advice that would help make your job search much easier, what would you say to yourself? I think the biggest thing I would say to myself is to be disciplined and kind of improve that. I think for me it obviously I feel like I work pretty hard and also being nicer to yourself.

Like I like I worked really hard but there are certain points where like I was being too tough on myself. I think that’s really important to recognize like, okay, even if things are not going the the certain way you want them to, if you’re putting in the work and you’re recognizing that you’re doing all that you can, there’s no point in beating yourself up. And in fact, it’s probably more beneficial to give yourself positive talk.

And I know it’s hard, but it might help you. It will help you more. I think just being disciplined and like recognizing like if I can just do one a day, that’ll eventually build to like two a day.

And then you might eventually do even more and you you won’t need to do it eventually. So I think being more focused on building the discipline and and things like that is what I would tell myself. Definitely hard.

Definitely still struggle with that but it’s very important I think something to highlight. Oh 100%. And you know ditto to that be kind to yourself right.

I don’t know about you but I tend to be my own harshest critic. So you know, I I think we could all learn to be kind to ourselves, easy on ourselves. But also love that advice about taking it that one step at a time, right?

Like as long as you’re moving forward towards your goal, you’ll make it there. That’s amazing. All right, to the next question.

We have one from Arya who asks, do you see an increasing adoption of AI for writing code and completing tasks? This one says at Google. I know you may not be able to speak to that yet.

But you know from your past internships maybe and then if you have any insights on how to stay on top of new tech that’s used in the industry any tips there would be appreciated. Yeah I I don’t know if I’m allowed to say but I think just speaking broadly I think definitely a lot more people are using AI and I think it makes sense that these large companies would want to adopt that as well. I think yeah, it just makes you quicker and I think some of the things how to stay on top of new technologies used.

I think using it in your workflow and and seeing how other people is very important. Things like cursor have been super helpful. But also recognizing that you also have to understand what you’re doing, especially with AI.

Like you can’t just be like just hand it something and just let it let it off because then eventually something will mess up and if you don’t know how to fix it then you’re cooked. So I think doing being able to kind of understand like what you’re doing with AI and how to debug is very important. Insights how to stay on top of new technologies interesting I I think just like a lot of different things.

There’s like some YouTubers that I watch maybe shout out fire ship that are helpful to understand like what’s going on. Speaking to people that are actually working in industry is also good. Like for example like at Meta they have like an internal AI that they use which I can talk about.

So I think like understanding that like that’s where it’s going. So being able to use that and also recognizing yeah I guess just that it it might be the people who know how to use AI that get higher in the future rather than people who kind of shy away from it. So keep that in mind.

Yeah, that’s that’s some great advice and thanks for the insight. I I think like maybe to add on to that question a little bit or take another perspective on this question. Is there anything Boris that you do that you know to to sort of continue developing your skills and leveraging AI?

Are there any things that you’ve done to sort of integrate AI into your workflow that you know people could learn from? H I guess for me the way I guess the way I use AI I guess is what it’s being said like for me it’s more so using it in terms of like oh if I’m so for example if I’m just joining a a company like how can you how can I use it to find what I need to find. So I’m like, okay, working on this and I’m trying to fix this piece of of code, this issue, like and then putting into AI and see like, oh, where’s the relevant pieces of code that I need for this?

And then using that and then if I’m doing like a code change and I use AI, putting it in and then actually understanding what it’s doing. I think that’s how I’ve been using it for the most part. I think the biggest thing for me is like codebased questions.

Like if I’m like if I see a file and it’s like zero comments and it was done like 20 years ago and I I put it in I’m like okay can you help me understand exactly what’s happening here and and like I’m trying to do this task. So how can how does that kind of fit in? I think that’s like the been the biggest use of it for me.

And then also very like outside of work I use it a lot like I use Perplexity. I love Perplexity. Which is like a AI search engine I guess it would be called.

So love for flexity. Claude code. Love that.

So yeah I think just using these tools and honestly in terms of like learning new things. I guess I just do internships like like the point like again like going back to like why I’m doing an internship is not just a pat on another name whatever. It’s because I I’m learning new things.

So like my first internship I did Meta University which is like not working on the codebase but I I was basically like I was doing like my own startup in a way with my project because it wasn’t necessarily connected to Meta. And then the next one I did Mercury was an actual startup that’s like 500 people. So being able to like hear about that and work in that environment and meta going back and working on ML.

So now I’m changing again. Oh. We lost him again.

We were so close. We were so close. Welcome back.

We could as soon as meta was mentioned there. I don’t know what’s going on. No conspiracy theories.

Not gonna say anything. But yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think those are the biggest things for me but again that can be applied in different ways like doing projects and like doing different things. But yeah that’s the the biggest thing for me for sure and as an experiential learner myself I I definitely agree with you on that.

Cool. We’ll move on to the next question here which is from Kelsey who asked about you know large scale conferences. So in the past in recruiting have you ever attended largecale conferences and if so do you have any tips on navigating them and standing out of them?

Yeah. So I attended SHIP conference with the Society Hispanic Professional Engineers. I I just going to speak to my personal experiences.

Personally I didn’t really get much out of the conferences but I know that’s not very good advice because there’s definitely a lot of people who do. So I think it’s very beneficial to go. I think maybe I just didn’t approach it the best way.

Like I talked to some friends who have had success. And a lot of things they mention is like reaching out before the conference even starts to like different recruiters or like people you know will be there. I think that’s really good advice and things like that.

But yeah, I think that’s one of the main things. And then while you’re there just making sure you’re making the most of all the opportunities that are there. Totally.

And and we’re out here right now, right? Make the most of the opportunity, build those connections and get to know people, find new opportunities and all of that. Hey, I had a question for you.

It’s it’s my own question, but as you were talking earlier, you know, you’ve had a a couple of very different experiences with your internships, right? You interned at Meta, you interned at Mercury, you’re going to Google. It’s you know like you went from like the biggest of companies and the biggest of names and you’ve also worked at some of these smaller companies.

Is there a difference in your experience there that like maybe is beneficial for yourself in terms of your you know your growth and you know how how did you navigate those differences? Is there you know one that you prefer at the end of the day? I think definitely people have preferences.

I think for me the biggest thing is try to see what you actually like in a company. So you can’t really know unless you actually work there. So I think that’s really important.

But yeah, so I think like the differences for like some companies will be a little bit more chill while others will be a little less chill but you learn a lot more. And some are remote. So Mercury was a remote internship.

So think if I like that or somewhere in New York, somewhere in the Bay. All those things are important when deciding what you want to work where you want to work and like what you want to work on and like the people you work with are is really important. So, I guess kind of evaluating the the company while you’re being evaluated, if that makes sense.

Is one of the biggest thing and seeing what you actually enjoy to do. And definitely have preferences. I don’t know if I should say that while working.

Yeah, maybe not. Yeah. But you know in terms of like maybe navigating the differences between like the you know I’m sure working at a huge company versus a smaller one was a very different experience.

Was there some you know skill sets that you had to develop to succeed in the different environments? Yeah, I feel like Mercury especially maybe probably I grew the most there in terms of actual engineering skill just because you’re working out so much more especially when it’s a smaller company you’re given a lot more responsibility so I think that’s one of the biggest things so yeah I think that’s really important to optimize for growth yeah I think that would be and like Google and Meta are like similarly sized but even then like the culture between them and understanding that Manda might make you work a lot harder, you will learn a lot already. Yeah, I think that’s there’s a lot of difference to that.

It’s important to think about that when deciding what where you want to work. Awesome. Yeah, I definitely you know, takes adaptation, takes self- introspection.

So, you know, really appreciate your answer on that. Next question that I have is from Servy in the Q&A who simply asked technical interview prep which which part 101, 102 or 103? I did 101 and 102.

Okay. What parts do you find was helpful? Yeah.

And that’s the that’s the follow-up question which is the you know I serve you got in into TIP 101 u but what would love to hear what you found most helpful and you know any tips on how to pursue the course. I know you touched up on how we made a difference earlier on. Mhm.

Yeah. I feel like for me the one that was most beneficial was 101 just because I started the course before I had taken my data structures and algorithms course for my school. So I literally had no experience.

So being able to actually go into it and learn most of the things that I hadn’t learned yet was super super beneficial for me. I think that was like the biggest thing. And then also having that guided I guess guided resources like guided u help was very very very beneficial.

Yeah definitely. Having a guided support to teach you especially early on. I can definitely see why that would be really helpful.

Cool. The next question that I have here is from Isham who asked how do you make a personal project that is appealing if your technical part-time work is fairly limited compared to others and I think this is sort of related to the question that you touched upon about prior to having work experience but if you know you have any additional input I’d like to hear it. Okay.

So, if your technical part-time work is fairly limited compared to others, so is that saying like you don’t have as much time to like work on projects? Is that what it’s saying? Or I think I think maybe the focus of this question is more in terms of like how do you make a personal project that really stands out?

I see. Okay. I think there’s a couple different ways you can approach it.

One is like actually having users on a project which is super hard to do but if you can do that that will show that will like stand out because most projects don’t have users. Again for me it’s working on things that might be considered like I guess a little harder or things that you kind of are not as experienced with. So like if you do like some examples of like the hackathons again like going back to that I feel like that helped me a lot.

So being able to explore things that I wanted to do there. So like working on a project that used like NLP which is like natural language processing or or things like that or like semantic search and like different I guess techniques or tools or different things you can use is like a way you can stand out and I highly recommend using hackathons as your way of doing that. Yeah.

Awesome. Much love for hackathons. I’ve I’ve been to a few and they are amazing.

They’re so much fun. And the energy is all there, right? Like everybody’s like flowing with creative energy.

So, definitely a great thing to do. I have a question here from Joshua who asks, "What’s something that you wish you’d done differently when you were just starting off in your career?" honestly, anything when I was starting off, I guess asking more questions. Like honestly I feel like most of the lessons I learned, lucky enough for me were like very early on.

So I don’t really feel like anything really stood out. But I think that’s the main thing is like just understanding and like obviously I’ve learned that lesson now, so I kind of apply it all the time. But like and then just being happy or like I guess another thing that I maybe I can say is like in order to be good at anything, you have to be bad at it first.

So like understanding like okay I’m going to be bad at this when I start. So I just have to get over that bit where I’m bad at it and then it should be good. So I think that’s one of the main things.

And then my major is computer science and math trans the ch. Yeah I you know I your your answer has me in awe you know like definitely plus one to all of that. I mean make mistakes early.

You you talked about how it’s okay to make mistakes and to learn from them, not make them again. You know, make the mistakes early and learn from them, right? I I really love that answer.

So, yeah, let’s see. I’ll take maybe one more question from the Q&A here. Which, is from Rahul, asking as students, we have multiple things to work on at the same time.

There’s a lot going on, right? How do you manage your time and how do you prioritize your job search even when you were swamped with everything else? Yeah, I think that’s a pretty really good question.

And I don’t know, for me it like it’s about prioritization. For me, I had a part-time job on campus, but I know students who have to like work a full-time job or or or like a or like a a more hour heavy job than I did. Like obviously that’s I think that’s a a blessing that I have been not having to work something like this or like take care of a family member.

So I think that’s very important to recognize that your privilege being able to have time. I think as still someone who maybe doesn’t have as much time. It’s definitely about prioritization of thinking like okay what are we doing this for right like if you just want to go like to get a masters and PhD and like okay then maybe you should prioritize your GPA and your classes for your limited time but if you want to get a job maybe you should focus more on your resume and your le code and applying and also I think a big thing is maximizing your output without as much input so like like setting using like simplify again plugging simplify for free.

I need to get sponsored like using their tool where like you can apply to jobs quicker or looking at the resume list that people have on GitHub and just going and getting like email updates about that so that you can I guess make things easier on yourself and you’re not spending as much time. So for me it’s like I want to do the minimum amount of work with the max amount of of results. So I think that’s the biggest thing.

Yeah, definitely maximizing what you get for the time that you put in is super important. I have one last question for you, not from the Q&A, but I just wanted to see if you had any other final thoughts. Is there one thing that you want everybody to walk away from this session remembering and applying for their own job search?

What would that be? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is that it’s tough and it’s going to be tough. But you can’t lose unless you stop trying, I guess.

So, like keep going. You know, obviously we’re all going through the same market. It’s very tough.

But yeah, just kind of keep that self-belief. Be nice to yourself. And yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Boris. Unfortunately, we’ve reached the end of our session here.

So, everybody, please join me in thanking Boris for the amazing discussion, for the kind words of encouragement. Please show him some love, send those emojis, send a note in the chat. And, to close us out here, we’ll go to a brief video from our host, Bobby D.

And don’t forget to take that survey. Thank you everybody. Thank you to Daniel as well.

You’re awesome. Now, wasn’t that a great session? Oh my gosh, these breakout sessions are fire.

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