Software Engineering Intern
My experience
Overview
Don't know how much of it I can describe without violating NDA or revealing myself, but basically I built a full stack web app microservice for one of Two Sigma's databases. The technical challenges were making it scalable and reliable, as I had to use multithreading and horizontal scaling to support a large volume of requests per second.
Work is honestly not much different from tech companies (except you can't touch ML here as a SWE whereas in tech companies you may get the chance to work in ML). Note that I say I got the offer but declined it, but I haven't declined it (there was no option for got offer but haven't accepted yet). In fact, I'll likely be taking the offer unless a better one comes up :) For those curious, the return offer is 165 base, 85 guaranteed annual bonus, 75k sign on (plus relo)
Pros
I learned a lot about scalability and large scale system design. My manager was really helpful in answering questions and treated me like a peer rather than a college student, and I had a say in critical design decisions. Overall pace and impact was much faster/better than my previous FAANG internship. The intern TC was obscene and the new grad return offer was even more obscene :)
Cons
Remote work and lack of social interactions kinda sucked. SWE is pretty distanced from quant/ML roles, and so the work you do may be less interesting than at tech companies. I found myself working longer hours to meet what I though were expectations (ie the timeline your manager drafts at the beginning of the internship), but in the end my manager told me those were stretch goals for exceeds expectations and the actual expectations were a lot lower.
Impact of work
Time spent working
How did working remote affect your experience?
It was socially pretty isolating, just sitting in my room staring at a screen all day. All my meetings were really formal, and I didn't get much of a chance to just have fun and hangout with other interns. The intern events weren't really that great either simply because it was remote.
Interview advice
How did you find the job / apply?
Interview Rounds
Interview type
Interview questions
LC med-hard, deep dive into your previous work experience and technologies you used. A leetcode phone interview, and then a 4 hour technical onsite (all LC) and a second 4 hour behavioral onsite (mix of technical and behavioral questions).
Advice on how to prepare
Grind LC and know the technologies you listed on your resume very well. You'll only be tested on what you put on your resume, but you have to know them really well.
More questions? Send the reviewer a message!