From Tier-3 College to Amazon : Struggle was Real

I couldn’t make it to IIT in JEE 2012. I was depressed. I could have got NIT Delhi(Having Home state Quota in Delhi), but I didn’t try . So, I took a drop year, went to Kota with an IIT dream. Again Couldn’t make it to IIT. I was very positive about getting NIT Delhi. Sadly, I couldn’t get NIT Delhi too. It was very late after Counseling results were declared. With a fear of not getting an engineering college so late, I landed up in a private college in Bhubneshwar.

Anudeep Nekkanti-An Inspiration

I was depressed because I couldn’t make it big. A depressing feeling of being a loser haunts you when you see your friends in Premium Engineering Colleges. I desperately wanted to make it big. But can a private college student make it big????

Anudeep Nekkanti came as a hero. A guy from an unknown college in Visakhapatnam went to ICPC WORLD FINALS and then got hired by GOOGLE. How? Competitive Programming. A beautiful world of Logic,Data-structure and Algorithms. Within 6 months he was the best coder in country starting from Zero.

Competitive Programming

Although this new world was quite fascinating but it was daunting at the same time. Having a lack of Coding environment or guidance in college, I was facing difficulty or can say my learning curve was very slow. But whatever it was, I was loving it. Codechef, Hackerearth, Hackerrank were my new friends. Since I was a slow learner and Competitive Programming demands huge time, I couldn’t learn any technologies like web development, android development or other things. But I don’t have regret about that, because I was focusing to make my Data-Structure and Algorithms strong, which are the heart of Computer Science. Before the end of college, I was having a good control over DSA. I went for ACM-ICPC regionals twice and won many inter/intra college coding events.

The Real Struggle

Placement season arrived. I was placed into a product based company in campus placement with 3.5 lpa package but had 2 years of bond. Family and relatives were happy with my new job. But when Joining time came, I refused to join. Their happiness soon turned into worry due to Job insecurity. I said I deserve something better. I started to apply for big dream companies. I started dropping my resume into their job portal. Three months later I realized, they don’t work, especially for freshers and more especially if your are not from a premium college. I had some school seniors from IIT and asked them to refer me. They referred me wherever they could. Schlumberger, Flipkart, Uber, Amazon. But my resume didn’t get screened from anywhere. I started contacting HR on linkedin, tried to grow my connection. Asked them to refer me. But I wasn’t getting any response. I was preparing for interviews on Leetcode and Interviewbit even though I hadn’t any interview scheduled in future. I came to Banglore where two of my friends were also going through same phase. We were trying our best to get our resume screened in our dream companies. We all three had not joined our campus placement companies. We were having family pressure to join them. It was somewhat difficult to explain them that we are not getting what we deserve. Some of my friends suggested that those dream companies are only for premium college students. If you wanna join them you need to gain some experience and then try for them. It was the only one way because no matter what your coding skills are, no matter what your achievements are, your resume will get screened on basis of your college reputation. We were having a very hard time. Cracking interview wasn’t that much tough as getting our resume screened for the interview. Even though knowing these things I was again trying my best to make my resume get screened for interview somehow. I tried so much that every day on average I was getting one rejection email saying we can’t proceed with you. Getting rejected without your skills tested feels bad. I tried to work for some good start-ups, but they also needed students from only premium colleges. Dream company recruiters always try to hire students from premium college. It is kind of unfair but they have their own reasons. It’s true that most of the students in random private college don’t fit as per their skills and requirement, but it’s also true that few who deserves to be there suffer a lot due to this discrimination. Now, Not being from a premium college was the real obstacle. To overcome this problem once I had thoughts to appear for GATE and prepare hard and get into IIT. But later I dropped this idea beacuse I had love for coding and GATE exam was mostly theoretical.

It was october of 2018-six months after College, everyone had joined their company whatever they got through Campus Placement. And here We were Jobless and frustrated. Now the job pressure was getting real. So, I appeared for Elitmus test and fortunately got into a very good company(Barracuda Networks) with 6lpa package. It was kind of relief for that time. But I knew I haven’t got what I deserve. But at the same time It was looking nearly impossible to get my resume screened from my dream companies. So, I joined the company and stopped looking for my dream companies because I had accepted my fate. I had mostly given up.

Year-2019: Achhe din aa gye

It was year 2019. I was happy with my current company and had stopped chasing my dream companies.

But One day My school senior who was working in Amazon (Anant bhaiya) and who had earlier referred me at various companies asked for my resume. There was hiring going on in Amazon for SDE-1. But this didn’t excite me. I gave him my resume but I knew that I’ll not get an interview call because he had earlier referred me two times but I wasn’t getting any interview call.

One week after referral, Fortunately I got a form to fill up. Again I was doubtful. But after some days, Finally I got a Coding test link and now this surprised me. Some hope revived all of sudden.

One Shot One Kill

Now things were getting real. Amazon had given me a golden opportunity to show my talent. And I didn’t want to lose it anyhow. I was waiting for this moment for very long. Such opportunities come very rarely. So, It was like One Shot One Kill. But I hadn’t practiced interview questions for last 3–4 months. I was out of touch. But anyhow I managed to practice them in morning from 7am to 10am before going to office.

There were 2 online coding round on Hackerearth and 3 onsite interviews and one Bar raiser interview. Fortunately everything went so well, I couldn’t believe. I was able to solve every interview questions. Hiring process was long. From Jan 25 to April 25, it took 3 months.

And Finally On April 26, I got an offer from Amazon. I couldn’t believe I made it.