Hella

I worked hard to be able to finish my CS degree a semester early (December 2017 rather than spring 2018). The plan was to accept a job offer, and to be able to travel this spring and start working around May with the rest of the 2018 grads. I don’t know if this will happen anymore, because I’ve been job hunting since September and am now sitting at home in late January with no offer in hand. For 3.5 years dozens of people were like “omg you’re a girl studying computer science at a top 25 school?! You’re gonna have such an easy time finding a job!” But I’m not and I don’t really know why. It can’t be my resume—because I am getting interviews. Right? I’ve done interviews at places like Snapchat, Khan Academy, Reddit, Youtube, Asana, IndieGogo, Uber, Yelp, and some smaller startups as well. I know the formula is “resume + interview performance”; but I’ve been getting better at technical interviews as I go along and every single time I’ve ever submitted a coding test I’ve passed onto the phone interview stage. Still, every time after I complete a second phone screen or the onsite round I get that unfortunate email. I feel like I keep being rejected for not having enough experience, though I’ve had internships and have some projects listed and online. I admit: I didn’t do side projects really, since my coursework was demanding so my big projects were for school (My projects however are fairly large and use common technologies like Java, React, ). And when interviewers ask questions about my internship at a well known tech company, I talk in detail about what I did but honestly my team was a shit show (manager handed me to another team, left the company halfway through) and basically didn’t give me shit to do (even though I asked for real projects). Not ideal but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I guess I’m not sure whether I should bullshit it to make it sound like I did more, or admit that my team sucked. I get it: I barely know anything (which makes sense, I’m a new grad). Now that I have time on my hands I’m trying to work on learning more web development, data science, and databases. But everyone says they just want junior engineers to be quick learners and have problem solving skills. I feel like I demonstrate that and then they decide they actually want a new grad with 2 years of experience. I’m frustrated. Why did I spend so much money and time grinding through a BS degree that required like multi-var calc and linear algebra and 2 physics courses? Would I have been better off doing online courses and bootcamps and side projects for 3 years? Is it really just my performance on Leetcode type questions that’s failing me? Or maybe they’re like “well she did okay on the interview but actually did nothing at her internship so it’s a no”? Or am I only getting these interviews in the first place because they need to say they interviewed a certain number of girls? On the positive note: yes, I know I’m not in a bad position in life and I’m lucky to get the opportunity to be considered at these companies. I do have a growth mindset and know that I can/need to work hard to learn and improve and open more doors for myself. But it’s like, all these companies are telling me that I am almost good enough but not quite for them. And if I’m able to get onsites at places like Uber and Google, why am I not making it through interviews for less competitive companies? I don’t know what this rant will produce. I guess I’d love to hear any thoughts or advice or wisdom or related rants from people with similar experiences. I feel like I did what everyone said would set me up well and then they’re like “oh you got to the top of this hill? No you were supposed to be climbing that hill over there this whole time”. And it fucking sucks.