How I grabbed an International Offer as a Fresher
I am a 2023 engineering graduate majored in ECE.
In this blog, I will share how I was able to grab a Software Development Job offer at an MNC in European Union.
Let’s start with bursting some myths,
1. CS Degree — No, you don’t need a Computer Science degree to be able to crack a high paying job in Software Development
2. Top Tier College — Failing to join premium institutes like IITs/NITs/BITS doesn’t mean you can’t crack high paying tech jobs
3. High Grades — Maintaining high grades is a good thing, but it’s not necessary to get a high paying tech job
There are mainly 2 things in the checklist that makes you job ready
1. Data Structures and Algorithms
2. Projects in Software Development Domain
Let’s discuss each of them in-depth
Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA)
DSA is one of the most important skills that a person must possess to get a tech job.
DSA changes you from a good software engineer to a great software engineer.
To learn DSA, first you need to be familiar with any one popular object-oriented programming language such as Java / C++ / Python.
Once you got familiar with the language, next step is to learn about Big O notation, basic data structures and algorithms. Then you need to learn advanced topics like graphs, trees, traversals, Dynamic Programming, etc.
Along with this, you need to practice rigorously on Leetcode, Hackerrank, Codechef, Codeforces, GFG, etc.
Hackerrank is beginner friendly.
But you need to practice lot of questions on Leetcode.
Codechef and Codeforces are Competitive Programming Hubs.
If you are good with CP, you can participate in contests conducted by Codechef and Codeforces and increase your ratings (Companies like Codenation, DE Shaw, Google, Meta give high weightage to codeforces and codechef ratings).
Leetcode consists of problems which are interview oriented and Leetcode also conducts contests every sunday and every alternate saturday. Participating and increasing your rating in Leetcode will also help you a lot during interview and also during online assessments.
Resources to follow —
Websites: Geeksforgeeks, Neetcode.io
Youtube channels: Neetcode, Takeuforward, Abdul Bari
Projects
Having good Projects in your resume is as important as having good DSA skills.
Projects will make your resume outstand amongst other applicants and increases your chances of getting shortlisted for the interviews.
Before starting with projects, you need to be familiar with git and github.
You can do projects in mainly 3 domains of Software Development.
1. Web Development
2. Android / iOS Development
3. Machine Learning and Data Science
Note: It takes 3–6 months to excel in any of the domain and additionally takes 1–3 months on each projects depending on the complexity.
You need to have 2–3 good level projects in any one of the domain.
Web Development: You need to start with HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
Then you go with frontend frameworks like ReactJS, Angular, VueJS. ThenAPI fetching, backend coding and serverside coding. You can go for advanced projects like cross-platform applications, native applications, etc.
Resources to follow-
Websites: w3school, freecodecamp, stackoverflow
Youtube channels: Clever Programmer, Code with harry, Sonny Sangha, freecodecamp
Paid Resources: Courses of Andrie Neagoie on Udemy
Android Development: You need to have excellent understanding of Java Programming for Android Development. You need to learn Android Studio and Kotlin.
For cross platform, dart and Flutter.
For iOS development, swift.
Machine Learning: ML is very vast and toughest amongst all the domains. But ML is really on high-demand and is worth the learning.
To start with ML, You need to have excellent understanding of Python Programming Language.
Then you need to be familiar with theoretical concepts like statistics and algebra and python libraries like pandas, numpy, matplotlib.
Then you need to learn scikit-learn, tensorflow and understand how to setup and run the enviroment with anaconda, jupyter notebook, google colab.
Once you are familiar with all of these, you need to pick datasets from websites like Kaggle.com and design your ML algorithm on it.
For ML and Data Science, I couldn’t find a well-structured free resource on internet (If you know any, do write in the comments), so I went for paid courses on udemy from Andrie neagoie (Zero to Mastery) and Andrew NG.
Extras
Along with the things mentioned above, you can explore additional things which will add great value to your resume, like Open Source Contribution, Internships, Research Publications.
Also, you need to possess good communication skills so that the interviewer can understand your thought process during the interview.
