SWE Accelerator Podcast

He sent 500 applications junior year and heard back from almost nobody. No internship. Just rejection while his friends posted Meta and Amazon offers on LinkedIn. One year later: DoorDash, Apple, final rounds at Nvidia. $200K+ as a new grad. No big tech internship on his resume. Pranav breaks down the exact system that flipped everything, the timing window most students miss, research maxing from...

Sourish walked away from a $250K TikTok ML job with no plan, self-studied AI, and landed at one of Silicon Valley's hottest AI labs.  Now he interviews candidates himself and he's exposing exactly what it takes to get in. Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream software engineering job or internship? Click here 👉https://www.amanmanazir.com/coaching/?ut...

NeetCode just invested in the company trying to kill LeetCode.  Aman sits down with Rounds founder Fardeen Khimani to break down why tech hiring is broken, which companies are ditching LeetCode, what's replacing it, and what every engineer needs to do to get hired in 2026. Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream software engineering job or internship? C...

She made $1.2M at Google, then quit with 4 offers in the worst market ever. Ex-Google Senior Engineer Maddy Zhang breaks down how she escaped golden handcuffs, landed offers at OpenAI, Meta and Databricks, and what every engineer needs to know about promotions, AI engineering and surviving the AI takeover of SWE. Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream...

"Engineers are doing everything they can to look indispensable, because they're terrified." A Google senior engineer and top tech comedian breaks down what's really happening inside big tech right now. Nobody is saying this out loud. Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream software engineering job or internship? Click here 👉https://www.amanmanazir.com/...

From a village in Pakistan to Microsoft engineer and chapter one of the LinkedIn CEO's book, Ume's path broke every rule. She dropped her CS degree, scored a 12% on an exam, and still landed 7 internships without a single personal project. In this episode she and Aman break down toxic CS culture, why GPA doesn't matter, how LinkedIn got her a Cisco internship she never applied for, and why soft sk...

He got an Amazon internship before he even took data structures. Here's how. Sajjaad Khader — Georgia Tech BS + MS by age 20, former Amazon and Splunk engineer, and the guy who interviewed Satya Nadella — breaks down exactly how to break into top tech in 2026. From freshman internships to LinkedIn referrals to the future of software engineering interviews, this one is packed. Computer science stud...

Nina had an MIT CS degree, a growing online presence, and still called her job hunt the most stressful time of her life. In this episode she breaks down consulting burnout, back to back rejections, and how she finally landed at Apple as a PM — plus exactly how a software engineer can make the same pivot. Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream software...

Most people have never heard of him. But he's built something that trades 24/7, got backed by YC and PG Angel, and walked away from one of the most secretive industries on earth to do it. Annanay pulls back the curtain on quant trading, the firms nobody talks about, why the golden era is ending, and exactly where the smartest people are moving next. If you're building a career in tech — this is re...

Today I sit down with Ben Chen: a former Tesla AI recruiter who helped build the Optimus robotics team and has seen thousands of engineering applications from the inside. We break down why the job market is cooked for some but wide open for others, how ATS systems actually work, the GPA scam no one talks about, and the exact psychological game most candidates don't know they're losing. If you're a...

Today I sit down with Ritesh: a former Capital One engineer who made $180K from side hustles as a CS student—more than his six-figure salary. We break down how he built profitable AI agents, landed a $15K client from one Reddit post, and the exact 30-day blueprint any CS student can follow. We also unpack his Reddit marketing system, the minimal-code tech stack he uses, why he quit after Amazon cu...

Today I sit down with Shreyas Kulkarni: a Senior Software Engineer at Oracle who came from India and turned his US Master's into a $10K profit instead of debt. We break down how he paid just $12K total through TA hacks, his LinkedIn spam strategy for referrals, and the interview system that got him through 80-100+ interviews at Netflix, Meta, Amazon, and Google—including Meta's brand-new AI coding...

Today I sit down with Ray: a former Meta software engineer who went from pre-med with a failing AP Comp Sci score to making $500K a year. We break down how he landed tech internships without a CS degree, used referrals to get offers from Google, Amazon, and Uber, and built an interview system after getting rejected by Microsoft. We also unpack why you don't need full software skills to get hired a...

Today I sit down with Morgan: a networking strategist who landed six internships, saved over $100K before graduating, and built her entire college trajectory around efficiency, not prestige. We break down how she negotiated scholarships, used social platforms to create career leverage, and built visibility that led to competitive offers most students never access. We also unpack why GPA matters fa...

Today I sit down with Kevin Zhu — former Citadel quant and Palantir developer, to unpack how he built an unconventional, accelerated career in tech. We break down the systems he used to go from a struggling freshman to landing top-tier quant offers, what Citadel was actually like, why he walked away, and how he’s now pivoting toward meaningful AI research. We also dive into whether CS is still wor...

Today, I talk with Kelly — a former BCG Project Leader who worked at Goldman Sachs and BCG before walking away at 25 after managing teams most people don't lead until their mid-30s. We dive into the strategies that helped her break into elite consulting: from leveraging coffee chats to land accelerated offers, to the communication frameworks and interview techniques that separate candidates who ge...

Today, I talk with Angel — a LinkedIn engineer who landed a $100K+ offer when almost everyone else was getting rejected. We dive into the five strategies that helped her stand out: from securing return offers and mastering brutal honesty, to building a powerful network and winning the mindset game. We also break down what separates candidates who actually get offers from those who don’t, the reali...

Meet Helen, a 24-year-old quant who’s earned over $900K and is here to reveal what life is really like inside the quant world. We dive into how she landed Meta as her first internship, exposed the company publicly, why she walked away from an S-tier job, and the exact systems that helped her build a seven-figure career. If you’ve ever wondered what ‘quant’ really means, how to break in, or what it...

Today, I talk with Steve from A Life Engineered ( @ALifeEngineered ) — a software engineering YouTuber with over 170,000+ subscribers who quit his job at Amazon after nearly 18 years to help others in their career journeys. We dive deep into how the field is evolving, what most engineers get wrong about interviews, and how to actually use AI as a superpower (instead of seeing it as a threat). If y...

Computer science students, new graduates, and bootcamp grads…want to land your dream software engineering job or internship? Click here 👉 https://www.amanmanazir.com/coaching/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast_description&utm_campaign=neetcode Today, I talk with NeetCode ( @NeetCode ) — a software engineering YouTuber with over a million subscribers who completely changed how the worl...

Today, I talk with Amy Wang (  @wamyy5  ) a Caltech graduate with a degree in arguably the hardest major, Chemical Engineering. Learn how she got a 4.0 at one of the hardest universities in the world while battling severe migraines, balancing a social life and starting a YouTube channel with 600k+ subscribers. She shares her tips and tricks on how to succeed academically and socially on this episo...

 Today, I talk with my brother Aadil who landed a $600,000 quant offer and decided to turn it down. We talk about why he made that decision, what got him there, and what a day in the life of a quant trader is actually like. Hope you enjoy! Computer science students, new graduates, and bootcamp graduates...want to land your dream software engineering job/internship? Click here 👉 https://www.amanma...

Today, I talk to my best friend from college, Vithi Peters. We talk about how to make friends in college, red flags in friendships, and if Vithi secretly hates me. Enjoy! Computer science students, new graduates, and bootcamp graduates…want to land your dream software engineering job/internship? Click here 👉 https://www.amanmanazir.com/coaching/ 🧠 Get my free LeetCode Roadmap - https://www.amanm...

Today, I talk to Karen Bello. We discuss how she started as a personal assistant making minimum wage to starting her own Air BnB empire with millions in revenue. Enjoy! 💌 Free weekly productivity insights/advice - https://amanmanazir.com/newsletter 📕 Get all my free Notion templates discussed here - https://www.amanmanazir.com/notion 📄 Get my free resume template - https://www.amanmanazir.com/r...

In episode 4 of Lift Off with Aman Manazir, I talk to Sourish Kundu. We discuss how he landed a machine learning systems engineer job at TikTok, what it's like to work there, and how AI will transform the software engineering industry. Enjoy! If you're a dedicated programmer who wants to land your dream internship or job in 2024 without spamming LeetCode, spending hours at career fairs, or buildin...