Insights from my undergrad life

With my thesis defence done, almost all the academic work of my undergrad life is coming to an end soon. I would like to share a few words about things I have observed and followed during my university years for the people pursuing a career in BD tech companies as a fresher.

Firstly, this is a short result of how I ended up after 4 years.

- Joined as an Associate Software Engineer at Cefalo Bangladesh Ltd.
- Got a full-time offer from RoBenDevs after completing their internship.
- Passed 2 technical rounds for the Software Engineer position at Enosis Solutions (didn't attend HR round as I had already given confirmation).
- Passed MCQ and 1st technical round for the Trainee Software Engineer position at WellDev (didn't attend the third as I had given confirmation already).
- Passed the MCQ and onsite coding round for the Star Coder Program at Brain Station 23 (didn't attend the third round due to schedule mismatch).

This list doesn't include the companies that rejected my resume (that's a long one).

Choosing the path early gives benefits.
I tried out a lot of stuff, which took a significant amount of time for me to narrow down the path and find my interest. But gladly this was the first thing I did. Once done with this part, I tried to level up my skills and tried to do the things that interested me. Like I participated in competitions, made small projects, and delved into problem solving.

Paying opportunity cost
You don't always create all the opportunities for yourself; sometimes they are just there. It's your decision what opportunity to take and what to not take, and everything comes at a cost. For example, I had the chance to tutor several international CS students, which gave me an opportunity to learn more at the cost of a large amount of my time and energy. So later on I stopped it to get more free time to focus on myself.

Talking to experienced people
Throughout my university years, I found many amazing seniors and friends who taught me in different ways. Each of them had their own way of guiding. But I am glad that I sought help from them, and they always extended their hands. I am grateful to each of them for their contributions to my life.

Narrowing the path further
I shortlisted a few companies based on my preferences and collected details, like work culture, learning environment, locations, and recruitment process, about each of them to keep myself updated about their openings.

Interview process
Before applying to any of them, I kept track of my details on when I am applying and how I am applying. I tried Google Sheets at first and then moved to Notion later on. The most common questions of the interview process were OOP, DBMS, and problem solving. Having a decent problem-solving background helped me a lot during this phase. For the questions, I tried to check out Glassdoor to see if there were any previous examples available and practiced problem solving on LeetCode and HackerRank. I kept track of my mistakes that I made during the interviews to not repeat them. Sometimes maybe they were not mistakes from the interviewer's perspective, but just my feelings that I could do better.

Referrals
Getting referred gives you an edge in the initial phase amongst the large candidate pool. I mostly reached out to my seniors to get insights, and they shared their valuable insights. This network of connections made a significant difference in my journey.

These reflections are a summary of my experiences and observations during my university life. I hope they serve as helpful insights for anyone pursuing a similar path.