Credibility note: Everyone on our team has landed internships and full-time roles at most big tech companies. Here's the advice that got us there, no generic stuff you'll hear at a career fair.

Applying for Software Engineering Internships

When to Start

Summer internship postings begin opening in July and August of the year before. If you want a Summer 2027 internship, you should start submitting applications by the end of Summer 2026.

Many companies use rolling admissions, they fill spots as applications come in. Wait until October and some roles will already be closed. Check for new postings every day during peak season.

Also consider Fall and Spring internships or co-ops as they can be less competitive.

Finding Software Engineering Internship Openings

When companies review on a rolling basis, knowing about an opening quickly helps. Applying early matters. It only takes a few minutes to apply per day and almost no brain power. If you found an application that is a few weeks old it is still worth it to shoot your shot.

GitHub Repos Updated Daily:‍‍

• ‍SimplifyJobs/Summer2026-Internships: One of the most popular internship trackers in CS.‍
• speedyapply/2026-SWE-College-Jobs: Thousands of internship and new grad postings organized by FAANG+, quant, and more.
• Just look up Github software engineer internships for any others.

Social Media:

• zero2sudo on Instagram shares new internship drops, deadlines, and insider tips on interview processes at specific companies.

Application Volume Matters

In the first recruiting cycle, a few of us sent out over 500 applications. Without a big-name company on your resume, your response rate will be in the single digits. After landing that first solid internship, the next cycle will be dramatically easier with only a couple hundred applications.

Use the Simplify Copilot browser extension to autofill your information across Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and most major application portals. It's free, everyone uses it, you need to use it. It turns a ten-minute application into a minute.

Most of us never spent more than a minute or two on cover letters, and some stopped writing them entirely. Unless a company specifically requires one, your time is better spent submitting more applications.

Quantity matters. Only be selective once you have more experience on your resume.

How to Build a Software Engineering Resume That Gets Interviews

Lead with your strongest experience. Big tech companies care primarily about your most recent relevant internship. Some interviews we’ve had the entire conversation is about the previous internship, not projects, not coursework, not older roles. Make sure that top entry is detailed and polished.

Be strategic about your GPA. Above a 3.6/3.7? Include it. Your major GPA is higher? List that. Neither helps? Leave it off.

Emphasize your contributions. Just make sure you can speak to everything on your resume confidently in an interview.

Projects are not necessary. Many of us put no personal projects on our resume. Do them for your own learning and to maybe speak about in interviews, but they're not going to contribute a ton to getting the interviews.

Software Engineering Interviews

How to Prepare for Technical Interviews and LeetCode

Use company-tagged questions. LeetCode Premium gives you access to company-specific problem sets, which is very helpful for interviews at specific big companies.

Don't over-invest in advanced topics. Segment trees and bit manipulation rarely show up in interviews. Focus on arrays, strings, hashmaps, trees, graphs, BFS/DFS, DP, linked lists, and basic sorting.

Watch for the OOP shift. More companies are moving toward problems that test class design and object-oriented principles rather than pure algorithmic questions.

Know the realistic difficulty range. You probably won't see hards, but attempt a few so you're not blindsided.

How To Ace Behavioral Interviews for Software Engineering Roles

Write or think of 3-4 scripts based on your most relevant work experience, each tied to a common prompt: conflict with a team, leadership, dealing with ambiguity, going above and beyond. Look them up, they’re almost always the same. The STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) can help until they feel natural.

You can map almost any behavioral question back to one of your prepared stories with minor adjustments. Disagreed with a teammate? Conflict script. Had to learn something fast? Leadership story. A small set of well-rehearsed stories beats improvising every time.

Know your audience. Rounds with non-technical recruiters are straightforward. Rounds with engineering managers are not, they'll push back, ask follow-ups, and probe the technical depth of your decisions. We saw multiple people fail final-round manager interviews at top companies because they underestimated this.

Tips for Freshmen and Sophomores Applying to SWE Internships

Target underclassmen programs. Google STEP, Microsoft Explore, Meta University, and others are designed specifically for freshmen and sophomores. Smaller applicant pools, still great experience.

Consider how you present your timeline. Some applicant tracking systems filter out non-juniors automatically. Listing an earlier expected graduation date can be necessary for these roles.

Even if you don't land anything right away, going through the cycle, applications, phone screens, technical interviews, is invaluable practice. They get less scary every time.

Final Thoughts

The end goal of your degree is a career. The skills you learn in school are dramatically more valuable when paired with real industry experience.

Treat recruiting like a class. The assignments are very straightforward: resume, LeetCode, applications, interview prep. The students who land the best internships are often not the ones who try the hardest in their classes, they're the ones who took the process seriously.

Recruiting is a numbers game, especially early on. The first big internship is the hardest to get, once you have it, the next cycle gets significantly easier.

‍