Target audience

You're a current senior in college and an aspiring software engineer for a tech company in the United States.

Timing overview

New grad interviewing is a bit more standardized than when you're already in industry.

Ideally, you have a return offer from your last summer internship, and the offer expires in ~November. Starting in ~August, you do a full interview loop.

You negotiate your favorite offer a bit, but don't have that much leverage to do so, especially if you don't end up returning to wherever you previously interned.

Choosing companies

See also Choosing a company

The best small (< 50 people) startups can afford strong mid-career engineers, so they don't hire new grad engineers, who need more mentorship and time to ramp up. Other startups might be desperate to hire almost anyone—even if they pay you market wages (which they might not), it's often not a great bet to work there.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

— Groucho Marx, presumably as a new grad discussing pre-product-market-fit startups

Unless you have a strong referral into the tiny startup and know it's a promising company with a high-caliber team, I would steer clear of them for your first full-time role.

Conversely, FAANG and other hype public/late-stage private companies (Airbnb, Robinhood, Stripe) are a pretty safe bet. With their brand on your resume, it'll be easier to get a job in the future or raise VC funding for your own startup. Your equity also has a 95% (for public companies) or 75% (for late-stage private companies) chance of being at least somewhat valuable, and these companies tend to have established promotion paths and regular salary increases if you're doing a good job.

Table of contents

Target audience

Timing overview

Choosing companies