Tech Mentorship From SWE @Meta, 8 Essentials to Bring to An Interview

Read time: 3.5 minutes

Welcome back, Mentee 🐼

You’re reading Tech Path - your weekly dose of mentorship. We help students find their pathway to their dream career in tech through optimized mentorship from pros, peers and events.

Meet this week's mentor who journeyed from Nigeria to the US, won the AmazonNEXT Design Challenge, and secured internships at Meta and Microsoft. Get inspired by her story, discover top resources, and dive into exclusive tips for landing tech internships and acing interviews.

Today’s Menu

• Meet Your Tech Mentor: Pearl Wogu

• Optimized Mentorship: SWE Intern @ Microsoft

• Level Up: Pearl’s Recommended Resources

• The Tech Breakdown: Microsoft SWE Internship

• Instagram Reels: Tech careers if you don’t have a STEM degree

• LinkedIn: 8 Essentials to bring to an interview

TECH MENTOR
Meet This Week’s Mentor: Pearl Wogu

Name: Pearl Wogu

Career Level: Internship

University: Philander Smith University

Major: Computer Science

Job Title: SWE Intern @ Microsoft

OPTIMIZED MENTORSHIP
💎 Mentor Advice from Pearl 💎 

• Landing Big Tech Internships: Figure out when internship applications are open. As soon as they are open, you’ll want to apply as soon as possible.

• Advice to Students: Seize every opportunity, work hard, and focus on your own journey without comparing yourself to others, because unfortunately, no one is coming to save you.

• Ask for help: During Pearl’s application, she had a mentor who helped her prepare for the online assessments. Don’t be afraid to ask your seniors for some guidance!

LEVEL UP
📚️ Pearl’s Recommended Resources 

1. Geek for Geeks – Computer Science portal for geeks

2. ColorStack – Helps Black and Latinx Computer Science graduates get tech jobs

3. Codepath – Helps college students get into tech

4. Algoexpert – Resource for technical coding interview

5. JobPulse – Job board for students to find tech jobs

MENTOR CONNECT

Want to connect with this week’s mentor Pearl?

🎉 Shout Out to our Lucky Readers Christian & Jennifer Who Were Selected to Connect With Mentor Arinola Mordi 🎉 

THE TECH BREAKDOWN
Microsoft SWE Internship

Landing an internship at Microsoft is a dream, but it doesn’t have to be when you have all the right information and networking opportunities with people who work there (wink wink).

• 💰️ Pay: $52.27 per hour (Or $9,060 per month)

• 🤩 Benefits: $3,333/ Month housing, $5k sign-on bonus

• 🌆 Where: New York City, NY

INSTAGRAM REELS
Tech careers if you don’t have a STEM degree

meglovesdata

View more on Instagram

LINKEDIN TIPS
8 Essentials to Bring to An Interview

Here’s what Adam would bring to an interview for a $150k+ job:

1. Examples of ‘value’ you added for a business

   The examples will do two things; 1) highlight achievements relevant to the job description, and 2) showcase your ability to create value where it wasn’t before (innovate).

2. A list of metrics of your results

   Always have numbers to quantify your impact.

3. Research on the company culture and beliefs

   This includes a copy of the job description, plus other reference materials (culture, performance management, compensation strategy).

4. A list of ‘hard’ questions for the hiring team

   • Explain what you like and dislike about the compensation approach at this company?

   • How do you collect feedback from your employees; give me an example of how you addressed a difficult piece of feedback?

   • What’s your approach for dealing with failures or mistakes when they occur?

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