Stand Out for SWE Jobs: What Students Need to Do in Addition to Coursework | Reid Buzby ’19, Software Engineer, Stripe
Published on June 18, 2026
Reid offered a number of suggestions for students who want to increase their probability of getting interviews and offers, including:
- Doing a number of things outside your coursework to augment your technical competencies and level of sophistication in the hiring process:
- Undertake personal projects where you are writing code to create software that can be used by others
- Prepare for technical interviews by reviewing technical interview books like Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell;
- practicing technical interviews on your own using LeetCode (turns out that many tech firms use LeetCode problems for these interviews);
- reaching out to SWE alums through the TCC group to inquire if they would do practice technical interviews with you (Reid is open to these sessions so reach out to him in the group and there are others in the group as well).
- Practice behavioral interviews – your non-technical skills and “story” can shine, allowing you to supplement your competency, motivation, and fit credentials and differentiate you from other candidates.
- Talk to people doing the roles in which you are interested and/or work for the organizations to which you are applying to get great intel to upgrade the quality of your applications and begin the advocacy process for that organization’s hiring process (referrals are a great way to get into the interview process). Your personal networks are your first stop in this process, alumni in the TCC group are your second stop to connect, alumni in the broader Midd2Midd MiddConnect directory are the third stop, then LinkedIn.
Reid also used his experience in both start-ups and big tech to offer a few points about the pros and cons of working in each environment. For those interested in working in start-ups, he suggested two start-up job boards you may want to check out in order to find opportunities:
