r/cscareerquestionsOCE

many of them don't even read as if they are written by a human? and often have kind of wild takes?

despite it literally being a lifelong passion and the thing i am probably best at, i felt incredibly dissuaded from this field by such posts and comments earlier this year. i'm thankful that i got over this, because i persisted and now have offers for the summer. perhaps this is survivorship bias but i really do not feel like my peers in commerce or other degrees are having an easier time in their respective job markets.

also: haven't we learnt that the government or media saying "we need more jobs in this area" is often not at all reflective of how easy it is to get into said area? jobs change, job markets change. taking a gamble and spending additional years training to become an electrician or hvac technician because it is 'in demand' does not seem wise at all. it does not seem to be all sunshine and roses in trades, either.

outside of reddit doomerism, it is hard to find people that truly believe that despite computing set to be an even bigger part of our lives, having people who understand software or computers on some level is completely worthless.

if you are young and passionate, i think you should absolutely pursue cs. ai or not, "computers being economically valuable" seems an unbelievably safe bet. the idea that humans won't capture *any* of that value seems pretty crazy to me.

call me an optimist or a sweet summer child, but this widely held doomerism does not seem justified at all. and where there are widespread irrational views, there are generational opportunities to act on (what you believe) to be a slightly more correct vision of the future. im super excited about the next generation of au/nz tech!

Currently, I’m a mid-level SWE doing mostly feature development, though I also have DevOps experience. I’m starting to get a bit bored with feature development and am more interested in SRE, DevOps, Production Engineering, and Infrastructure Engineering.

I have an offer for a Trade Support Engineer role supporting trading systems, incidents, Linux, monitoring, etc.

Can anyone please explain more about what this type of role typically involves? From the JD, it looks a bit like SRE but with less automation and coding.

Would this be a good transition into roles like Google SRE-SE, AWS Systems Development Engineer, or SRE/Production Engineering roles at HFT firms?

I finished my IT program before the business part of my degree. And came up with some immediate and less immediate goals I want to achieve before applying for SWE jobs more frequently, currently I mainly apply for help desk jobs and grad roles. I'm interested in either full stack engineering back end or low level performant code. I'm really curious about what I should prioritise and what I can put off.

Achieved

- Explore front end with my first 2 ever projects: JS, HTML/CSS, Node, React, Motion, Vite, Git and Bash.

-Learn DSA from beginner leetcode to 2D Dynamic Programming and Greedy Algorithms as well as more advanced graph theory. I did well in this class with marks in the 90s and have comprehensive notes.

---

These goals I would say the top 3 and 4 would make me really confident and totally achievable. The latter are aspirational for now.

Goals (higher is sooner)

-Master SQL with a real life postgressSQL of an organisation I know and understand.

-Use that postgress SQL in a POS system project.

-Finish all or most of Neetcode150 with selective nows for each main category.

-Comperehensive notes and cheat sheet for C++ and Python interviews. Perhaps post videos for networking.

-Implement CI/CD in existing projects and in future. Report on usage.

-Explore distributed systems by creating an API and using it on my own service.

-Explore concurrency and multi threading with a pet project.

-Complete books I have on operating systems, networking, hardware, concurrency. Produce notes and anki flashclards along the way.

Hello,

I've applied to a bunch of internships this time around, however got no luck. It's a ghost town right here in Brisbane. I am still working on finishing up a product by next week, while I aim to work on another one in a few weeks time. I've got an AWS CCP cert exam in a month's time. I have got a couple of AI Cloud Certifications under my belt as well. I am making Open-Source contributions here and there too. I feel pretty shit as I extended my degree by 2 years, yet I am getting no luck.

How do I maximise my chances of getting a grad role or an entry-level SWE job? F me.

I've heard entry-level government roles are not too bad to just get a foot in the door. I applied to an entry level customer service specialist role at a bank, they told me to apply it next year as my uni commitment was getting in the way. So, it's not like I can't show my skills the right way to be employed, but I want to maximise chances of breaking into corporate for now.

Those who were in my shoes few years ago or those with more insights into the market, how'd you go about breaking into tech? What else do I need to add to my body of work to get a job in 2026/2027?

Cheers,

Hey everyone,

I’m a technical recruiter based in Australia working directly with US based companies that are actively hiring Australian software engineers. This would involve a relocation to the US.

I currently have multiple open roles but wanted to share a few insights into what this actually involves and the timelines involved.

The Compensation Breakdown (Base Salaries)

• AU Senior SWE (Syd/Melb): ~AUD $160k – $210k (~USD $105k – $140k)
• US Senior SWE (Tier 2/Remote): USD $170k – $220k base + equity
• US Senior SWE (NYC/SF/Seattle): USD $200k – $280k+ base + equity
• Partner Perk: Spouses on the E-3D visa get unrestricted US work authorisation immediately. You must be married as de-facto is not recognised.

Why Founders in the US Love the E-3 Right Now Unlike the H-1B lottery (which is a mess with a <15% selection rate), the E-3 visa is exclusive to Australian citizens. There is no lottery, total processing takes 3 to 4 weeks, employer legal fees are negligible, and the cap is rarely filled. From an employer's perspective, hiring an Aussie is almost as frictionless as a domestic hire.

The main issue is that many Founders simply don't know about the details of this Visa and automatically hear the words Visa & Sponsorship and assume it is too hard.

Core Requirements for Eligbility:

• Australian Citizenship (E-3 requirement).
• Bachelor’s degree in CS, Software Engineering, or related STEM field (or 12+ years of equivalent documented experience).
• Legitimate offer from US Employer with LCA

How to Connect: If you want to bypass ATS resume black holes, drop me a DM with your LinkedIn/GitHub and primary tech stack, or leave a comment if you have questions about E-3 timelines, cost of living, or relocation packages. I reply to everyone directly.

Hey everyone, could use some real guidance here.

I'm a CS major at ABC, currently a junior, and I still don't have any internship experience. I'm on an F1 visa, which adds its own pressure. Honestly starting to feel pretty hopeless about it.

Summer 2027 is my last shot, so I'm trying to figure out what my next move should be. I've been grinding LeetCode but it's rough. I can get through some problems but I'm nowhere near confident. I've done a bunch of OAs and never once gotten to an interview. And part of me is scared that if I do land one, I'll freeze and not solve anything.

What I don't get is how everyone else is pulling it off. I know people who I'm pretty sure code at the same level as me, and they're landing Microsoft. I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything, I just don't understand what they're doing differently.

What actually is networking? Do I have to know someone who knows someone? And if that happens and I do land an interview, I feel like I won't be able to solve the live coding session. Please help me out.

what should I be focusing on for the next few months? Anything that actually moved the needle for you?

I have some internship offers/final rounds that were targeted at penultimate students. At the time of applying for the internships months ago, I was certain I was finishing next year. However, I somehow managed to handle this trimester without dropping any courses, so I am able to either do 1 course next year and graduate may, but it’s now possible for me to graduate this year.
Family want me to graduate this year, I didn’t care either way until very recently when I realised it might be nice to have that time off or working at my other job.

Problem is I haven’t communicated this yet out of fear that it would hurt my chances of moving through. I’m worried that now even asking if it’s allowed for me to take the opportunity to graduate this year is going to make them think I was lying so far and make me ineligible, why didn’t I mention this in the first round etc.

On one hand I don’t see how it makes any difference to them whether I’m a student graduating in 5 months or a recent grad at the time of the internship. That being said, it seems like a very awkward conversation to have with a lot on the line for not much benefit. Should I mention it in upcoming final rounds?

Suppose your company has four performance ratings:

1. Below expectations
2. Meets expectations
3. Pushed above expectations
4. Superstar / significantly exceeded expectations

During your EOFY self-review, how often would you actually give yourself a 3 (pushed above expectations) rather than a 2?

For context, I’m a mid-level SWE. I feel like I can point to a few concrete examples this year where I went beyond my normal remit, took on additional responsibility, or delivered more than what was expected at my level. But I still gave myself Meets Expectations.

My thinking was that meets expectations is a perfectly good rating and I didn’t want to come across as arrogant or as someone trying to inflate their own performance.

Now I’m wondering if I sold myself short. Maybe the whole point of a self-review is to advocate for yourself, and if you can genuinely back up a 3 with examples, you should select it and let your manager/calibration process decide whether they agree.

What do you all do? Do you rate yourself conservatively, or would you give yourself a 3 if you have evidence to support it?

Also curious to hear from managers: does an employee rating themselves a 3 come across as self-aware/ambitious, or can it hurt them if you ultimately think they’re a 2?

What trends do you currently see? At your company and others.

Is it just that there is a lower number required of software/fullstack engineers?

Or fullstack roles will now be more like a merge between developer+cloud+platform?

From one side I see that soon we might not need to write code anymore. But at the same time people still need to have knowledge of how code works and quite often a quite deep understanding.

I was wondering if anyone has recently been through the recruiting process on TikTok.

They had two internships posted on the site -- Revenue Product Operations Intern (TikTok LIVE-Revenue) - 2027 Start and Agency Operation & Content Support Project Intern (TikTok LIVE) - 2026 Start (BS/MS), which I applied for both yesterday.

I then got an email today from a recruiter from the TikTok Overseas Campus Recruitment Team (APAC), with the email ending in @ bytedance.com asking if I can add them on WeChat or WhatsApp for further communication. I was wondering if this is legitimate and if anyone here was asked this before?

If anyone was wondering both of the roles that I have found was via https://lifeattiktok.com/ and their FAQ regarding recruitment did clarify that the emails should either end in tiktok.com or bytedance.com

The type of companies and work available overseas look a lot more attractive overseas (US, UK, EU, SG etc)

I'm wondering which country is the easiest to migrate to (not settle down in) and find a job relatively in this current market? Considering the whole geo-political/economic status of the world.

I want to try living and working outside and just experience and learn the world beyond AU/NZ.

Looking at enrolling in a Master of CS at UniMelb or Monash. Half the people I talk to say a Master's degree gives you zero advantage over a Bachelor's in technical interviews and is 90% international students using it for post-study work visas. Does having a Master's actually help you pass resume screens at top-tier Aussie tech firms, or is relevant work experience/projects all that matters?

The graduate market is tough but a hundred applications with zero responses suggests something specific is broken rather than just bad luck with timing. Whether it's the resume format, the way the applications are being targeted, the absence of portfolio work or projects that demonstrate practical ability, or something about the way they're approaching the search entirely - would love to know from people here who've either been through that experience or hired graduates what the most common reasons are for that pattern and what the specific things are that would change the outcome if addressed.

My last company had a strict policy of economy only for company events (e.g. Sales Kickoff, Customer conferences). One of my colleagues who's very tall, was able to get business class in his contract. I'm curious:

• How many companies expect you to fly economy?
• How likely is it to be able to negotiate this in contracts?

I was able to fly PE in my last job over 7 hours as I have back problems and my physio gave me a letter stating I couldn't travel long distances in economy, but would rather have it in contract. I just don't know how common this is as a request and if it's easy for them to accommodate or not.

Thanks.

I’ve seen people move every couple of years and end up with better pay, better roles, and more interesting work, while others stay at the same place and build a really solid experience over time. I’m interested in hearing from people who’ve done both. Sometimes moving feels like the fastest way to grow, but staying somewhere good probably has its own advantages too. Would be good to hear what actually made a difference for people here.

Any idea on how defence company internships are set up in Aus? Like what type of skills and qualifications do you need, do they take many interns, etc?
Any info would be appreciated

We all know what AI and offshoring have done to office based jobs in general and tech jobs in particular, especially for anyone who isn't a senior. The most common 'solution' that is often mentioned is to just 'pick up a trade'.

What about those of us who started a tech career late, and still not yet 'senior' in our 40s? I know people in this situation are a minority, but I am just wondering what to do about this. If one has only worked in office jobs, how can their body even cope with starting over with a physical job in their 40s? Not to mention the difficulty of finding apprenticeships at this age.

Also, how practical would it be to relocate to countries where tech jobs are being outsourced to - Vietnam, India, the Philippines etc. Would love to hear from those of you who actually did something like this, and how you managed to get work permits in their 40s and beyond.

Apologies if this sounds like a rant. I am just trying to figure this out, just like many others.