Achieving Your Dream Software Engineer Job — A Roadmap For Final Year Students

5 min readJul 23, 2024

Hey everyone! I’m excited to share a detailed roadmap for final-year students pursuing internship and full-time offers in leading software MNCs and startups, based on my experience and mentoring insights over the past two years. This guide is crafted to provide structure and direction during this crucial phase of your career journey. I’ll come up with a roadmap for students in the other year as well.

About Me

I completed my B.Tech in IT from MAIT, Delhi, and graduated in 2022. I secured offers from Walmart, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, BrowserStack, Intuit, and leading startups. All my offers were off-campus.

Why Follow This Roadmap?

This roadmap aims to streamline your preparation efforts, offering a structured approach that you can adapt to your pace and needs. It serves as a roadmap to monitor and enhance your progress effectively.

Assumptions

Assuming you have a foundational understanding of Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) and have made a few good projects. If not, don’t worry — I’ll share some resources at the end of this article.

Immediate Focus

Since the placement season has started and companies are actively hiring, your focus should be on interview preparation and applying for 6-month internships and full-time jobs.

Resume Preparation:

Template: Use Overleaf to make your resume and get it reviewed by mentors or industry professionals. Check your ATS score since to reach the OA or interview stage your resume should be shortlisted.
Quantify Achievements: Include quantifiable results (e.g., increased efficiency by 20%, led a team of 5 members, reduced server downtime by 30%) to showcase tangible contributions.
Keyword Optimization: Use relevant keywords from job descriptions to enhance ATS compatibility and increase the chances of your resume getting noticed.
Include your GitHub link, coding profiles, and portfolio (optional).

You should keep applying to all the job and internship openings while preparing for interviews. Both will go in parallel.

Interview Preparation

Key areas to Focus On:

1. Leetcode Practice:

Focus on solving famous easy and medium-level problems. Firstly, you can focus on topic-wise problems and then mixed problems.
Avoid hard problems unless you’re comfortable with medium-level questions, as those are less frequently asked in interviews. Since you might not have lots of time to spend on hard-level questions.
Familiarize yourself with common coding patterns (e.g., sliding window, two pointers) used in algorithmic problems to solve questions efficiently.
Keep a Pomodoro timer to solve questions within the time limit.
Practice smartly and focus on quality more than quantity. Do not spend too much time struggling with a single question rather mark it and revisit it.

2. Computer Fundamentals:

Prepare DBMS, Computer Networks, Operating Systems, OOP, and language fundamentals (C++, Java, and Python-related questions).
Don’t ignore these subjects as for freshers these are focused extensively.

3. Mock Interviews:

Practice mock interviews and articulate your thought process while solving DSA questions.
These will help you eliminate any silly mistakes and also gain confidence.

4. Regular Practice:

Participate in LeetCode contests weekly to stay in touch and practice for Online Assessments (OAs).
Do not compare yourself with anyone else or your rank, focus on improving yourself daily.

5. Interview Experiences:

Read through interview experiences on platforms like LeetCode, Medium, and LinkedIn.
It will give you a good idea of interview patterns and also prepare you in the correct direction since the focus on different topics depends on the companies.

6. Behavioral Interview:

Do not neglect this and before the interview go through the HR interview questions to get familiar.
Make sure to have some situations in the STAR technique in mind of what you have done in the past to answer related questions.

How to Apply:

Maximize your chances by:

Profiles on Job Portals:

Create and regularly update profiles on job portals like Naukri.com, Instahyre, and LinkedIn to stay informed about new opportunities.

2. Job Updates:

Follow those who post job updates on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, Telegram channels for job updates. Search in the job section on LinkedIn.

3. Apply Broadly:

Apply to all relevant positions.
Do not self-reject yourself, you will never be 100% prepared so apply to all the job openings even if JD matches 50% of your skill set.
If you also have skills, consider applying for data analyst and data science positions.

4. Networking and Referrals:

Network with industry professionals and seek referrals before applying directly to the job openings.
Follow the right people to get information about openings in their firm.

5. Active Presence:

Maintain an engaging LinkedIn profile to attract recruiters and stay updated on industry trends.

6. Internships:

Focus on landing a 6-month internship as it significantly increases your chances of a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO).

7. Diversity Hiring:

Apply to female-specific drives, if you are eligible and submit your resume to the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) database as companies reach out from that referral source.
Join communities that are women-specific so that you can participate in diversity hiring and hackathons.

Not Confident About DSA or Projects?

I highly recommend starting with foundational learning:
1. Understand different data structures and Algorithms.
2. Solve at least easy-level questions.
3. Simultaneously build projects to showcase in your resume.
Once confident, follow the above path.

Resources:

Resources that I followed in my final year 👇🏻

30-Day SDE Sheet: Solve this 1–2 months before your interview.
OOPs Concepts Video: Great for last-minute preparation.
Computer Fundamentals: Study from Gate Smashers and refer to Last Minute Notes from GFG a day before your interview.
Mock Interviews: Practice on http://Pramp.com.
Book I referred to: Cracking the Coding Interview

Key Advice:

Don’t get overwhelmed by the plethora of resources. Stick to what you find comfortable and focus on problem-solving and interview-specific preparation.

Final Words:

Keep preparing and remember that rejections are stepping stones to success. Don’t be afraid of failure.

Stay Connected:

I post the latest job openings on my Instagram stories. Also, I post tech industry trending stuff and various resources for preparation.
For tech and career tips, follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Good Luck with your interviews! ❤️

Keep learning and growing — your dream job awaits 🚀

Do comment and clap if you liked the article. In case of any queries, feel free to reach out to me. I would be more than happy to help you 🙂