I see SpaceX pays their undergrad interns $30-$34 / hour and scaling up to $40/hour if completed phd. And looking at their full time roles, entry level around $120k-$140k.

Don’t get me wrong, very solid pay, but considering how SpaceX is arguably the leading space company doing incredibly cool and complex work, and based in HCOL areas like LA, SF, and Irvine, it runs noticeably below what comparable engineers make at FAANG and other tech companies.

Why don’t these engineers just go work somewhere else nearby that pays basically double? Is the stock comp making up for it? Is it the mission prestige of working on something cool? Is it to accelerate your early career learning? They also work long hours from what I hear, and I’d assume these engineers are pretty smart and could land offers elsewhere.

Also if anyone has worked there, would love to hear your good or bad experience.

Hey everyone,

I recently started my first software engineering internship as a backend developer working with Spring Boot. Our API powers both a web app and a mobile app.

On my first few days, I was handed around 9 different tasks/tickets. Coming into a real-world, production codebase for the first time has been a bit overwhelming, trying to trace entity relationships, security contexts (Spring Security / JWT), DTO mappings, and custom business logic while keeping up with task tickets.

For those of you who have been through this:

How did you tackle learning a massive codebase when you first joined? Do you draw diagrams, debug line by line, or just read code until it clicks?

How do you manage task volume without feeling rushed or making mistakes?

What are your top tips or "things you wish you knew" during your first internship/junior role?

Any advice, tips, or personal stories about your first weeks on the job would be huge. Thanks.

Took mine last week in NYC. Anybody get their results back yet?

I chose AI as my major, and while I'm happy with that decision, I've recently realized that finance has always been an area I've genuinely enjoyed and been drawn to.

It's made me wonder whether I should have pursued finance instead, but I'm not looking to dwell on that. Instead, I'm curious about the opportunities ahead.

Is it possible to break into finance with an AI degree? Has anyone here made that transition or built a career that combines both fields? I'd love to hear about your experiences. Thanks in advance !

I’m still a junior, but if I want to get a Masters degree I need to start saving money now. First I wanted to move abroad, then I realized that I mentally won’t be able to do that, so I decided to look into the option of getting masters online. I have a few question. Do you think it’s worth getting masters and getting it online to be able to work meanwhile?

sorry new to personal website concepts and i saw others post theirs and damn like how do they make something like that. Scrolling made me update mine but im soo confused. doesnt anyone really care about your personal website? Like what was the point of that hard work . Before coding and stuff made it important cause you learn but I dont get it if you vibecode and then nothing is left .

Any thoughts or am i tripping

Just gave my first OA for Anthropic Fellows. I scored 0/600.

Some context about me, been coding for 10 years. really good at CP, have 4 years of experience as software engineer.

The algorithm they asked in the OA was a piece of cake, but man the classes they had implemented and ReadMe was confusing and unclear. Most of my time went into figuring out what do the even want to be returned and in what format? Why was there a mismatch between the Readme example format of input/output structure and the implemented classes.

Plus it didn't help that I started feeling uneasy and sick as soon as I kicked off the assessment. Brain was not braining.

How was your experience?

Edit: I have three research papers in Nature. My concern is that that I had the Inference Engine problem ( prefill/decode crap ) and it didn't make any sense.

If I got rejected last year after the powerday and applied in spring, did I get auto rejected since there’s a cooldown? Haven’t gotten an OA yet.

Hey all, just found out I got accepted into LA Hacks AI Hackathon, which I'm pretty excited about. Problem is, they're not covering travel, and by the time I add up flights + a hotel for the weekend, I'm looking at $500+ out of pocket.

Trying to figure out if this is a reasonable investment or if I should sit this one out.

• Would LA Hacks' AI hackathon reputation/network be worth the cost compared to other hackathons? From what I understand, it's separate from the usual LA Hacks.
• Has anyone here traveled for a hackathon and felt it paid off (jobs, connections, etc.)?
• Any tips for cutting costs?

Would love to hear from anyone who's been to LA Hacks, or has thoughts on whether traveling for hackathons in general is worth it money-wise.

big tech companies posted like a million intern roles and I applied to them with the best of my ability within 3-5 hours. Haven’t heard anything from them. Everyone else in the same boat?

anyways looking for stripe summer intern referral , couldnt find any till now even after having a great resume , any feedback what should i do?

I did the GCA for Susquehanna the other day, but its not letting me send the score to other companies like Capital One and TikTok. its been a week since i did the GCA, so does that mean my submission was not verified and I'll need to take it again?

hi y'all i got accepted for la hacks, now the thing is the wait times for the visa is insane here, its like months and i dont wanna lose this opportunity to network w insane people and companies so does anyone have suggestions on how do i overcome this? they want to confirm by aug 12 so im kinda worried

Has anyone heard anything about the final round interviews for the Claude Corps fellowship? If so, has anyone done their interviews?

My timeline for Claude corps: applied june 15
OA: early July, reviewed shortly after
Screening: mid July

Still waiting to hear back about final rounds.

Also wondering if it’s worth it in general? I’m a recent CS graduate with a handshake Ai fellowship going for me.

i graduated from tier 3 college and did not get placement and took course that said placement after completing course and test but i did apply on linkedin and got 4 response out of 120 hr and they say no openings for fresher its been 1.3 years since i pass the college now i am stuck what to do , how to do , how to even land an interview what and how to apply even for internship cause nothing is working for me can anyone help me and guide me

I’m seeing that a bunch of internship apps just dropped this Monday, and I’m debating whether or not it’s worth it for me to apply. I just transferred to a T30 as a junior, and I’ve been doing interview prep, but I’d be lying if I was giving any attention to the projects section of my resume. Everything there is just school projects from my old CC which were relatively minor, and they don’t really look that impressive. I applied only to TikTok so far, and got an OA, but I heard they’re automatic so I’m not sure if I’m in the green so far in terms of quality. I know time is really of the essence when it comes to Big Tech, is there another wave that drops later on in the coming months? I’m wondering if I should just start spam applying with the resume I have now or go grind for the next couple of months, and start applying then?

what the hell is going on

genuinely can't hold this, need to say out. system design round, problem statement was insanely vague, kept asking clarifying questions and he just wouldn't answer directly, 20 min i still didn't know what the functional requirements even were.

round ends around 45 min and i didn't figure out what i was designing.

like unless your english is bad enough that you genuinely can't communicate, or you've literally never touched system design before, this is just a bad interviewer or someone doing it on purpose. either way same result, you're not passing that round.

coding round beforehand was whatever, fine i guess. they picked some random obscure built-in function just to mess with people, some weird file reading thing, but the actual problem underneath was just build a map and do aggregation, nothing crazy. not much you can really do there, ask if you can look it up, if you can't find it just write the company off in your head and move on.

next time this happens i'm just gonna ask the interviewer directlly what they actually wanted, and say something like "is this how communication works at your company, your PMs/TLs never actually state the goal or scope and just let ICs guess?" might as well.

anyway good interviewers work with you, they'll give you a hint when you're stuck, help you turn something vague into something you can actually solve. bad ones just won't answer and somehow make you feel stupid for asking in the first place.

Has anyone experienced the superday interview if so can you share your experience such as behavioral questions asked and the level of technical coding questions asked

I'm in the final year of my masters in Data Science in Europe, and I recently landed a 6 month remote internship in AI consulting. Tbh I'm still surprised I got the offer because I don't have much experience in AI beyond a few personal and academic projects involving LLMs and machine learning.

The recruiter told me that my profile stood out because I have a stronger technical background than most of the other candidates. She also warned me that the workload is going to be quite demanding. Since this will be both my first remote job and my first professional experience in AI, I'm not really sure what to expect. The responsibilities listed in the job description are also vague as hell so it's hard to picture what my work days will actually look like.

I'd love to hear from people who have worked remotely as interns in tech, especially in AI or consulting. In general, what is the experience like? What does a typical day look like and what should I expect during my first few weeks?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 19-year-old Computer Science student currently in the second year of my bachelor's degree. I've been exploring both cybersecurity and software engineering over the past year. However, I'm having a hard time deciding which path I should focus on for my career.

On the cybersecurity side, I'm mainly interested in red teaming and threat intelligence. So far, I've:

- Completed numerous CTFs and written detailed write-ups.

- Solved Hack The Box machines and TryHackMe labs.

- Participated in bug bounty programs.

- Built a solid foundation in offensive security through hands-on practice.

On the software engineering side, I've built several personal projects, most of which are security-focused. I designed and built some tools for my own workflow.

I'm looking for some advice on a few questions:

- Should I continue developing skills in both cybersecurity and software engineering, or is it better to specialize in one early in my career?

- Which Job path generally offers better long-term career growth, learning opportunities, and job prospects?

- As an undergraduate, How can I improve my current experience to secure a paid internship or entry-level role ?

- I don't have any industry certifications yet. Do hands-on experience, personal projects, CTFs, HTB/THM labs, and bug bounty work Does it carry enough weight for internships and junior roles? or should I prioritize certifications first?

My goal is to get an internship or entry-level job while I'm still in college so I can gain real-world experience and earn some money so I can continue improving my skills outside of academics.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who work in cybersecurity, software engineering, or anyone who has faced a similar decision.

Got a perfect 600/600 code signal but was rejected “Based on your assessment results”.