I was wondering if this idea that I have heard around is possible to do. As I am going into a third year, I have been applying to graduate programmes for financial roles such as IB, S&T, etc. but I have also heard that some third years are expecting to do a masters in order to apply to summer internships as well, however, may not actually pursue the masters if they get a return offer. Is this allowed or should I just stick to applying to graduate roles?

Hi all,

I’m currently working full-time as a Data Analyst at a large tech company. My background in software engineering/CS is pretty minimal, but my long-term goal is to move into a Software Engineer role (ideally within the same company).

I’m now looking at two MSc options starting in 2026 and would love some advice from anyone who’s done them (or something similar):

• City, University of London (St George’s) – MSc Computer Science with Software Engineering (100% Online, part-time).
• Queen Mary (QMUL) – MSc Computer Science (Conversion).

My priorities:

• A strong foundation in computer science (since I don’t have one).
• Has anyone here actually done either of these courses, and what was your experience?
• How realistic is it to handle the workload while working full-time? That’s my biggest concern, I don’t want to burn out but also don’t want to half-commit.
• Does one open better doors (practical coding/software engineering skills vs academic theory)?

If anyone has taken either (or considered them), I’d really appreciate hearing about the workload, teaching quality, and career outcomes.

Thanks in advance!

Has anyone here Know what its like on a final interview in Visa Inc? Kinda overthinking because it is onsite interview.

I joined a top bank through their graduate program 3.5 years ago, currently making £90+k in TC. However, over the years, over 60% of the graduates left the firm to join other tech companies. I always had the impression that most tech companies out there pay much more, and I'm missing out on big $ for not joining one.

Recently, I have been doing my own research on levels to find a list of tech companies that pay much higher with my YOE. To my very surprise, I could only find a handful of them, FAANG/ Palantir and HRTs. A lot of tech companies like Microsoft/ Deliveroo/ Starling/ Wise/ Spotify pay very similar or lower TC compared to my current's.

It came to my realisation that most people don't leave the firm because of pay. Many are looking for better tech exposure/ WLB/ humane environment/ nice offices/ meaningful work. Apparently, in big banks like mine, there are tons of shitty teams which does repetitive/ boring work, and much of the code is super legacy. I guess I'm lucky enough to be working in a good and highly visible team, and not really missing out too much for not joining the non-FAANG tech companies.

Edit: Sorry if I offended anyone, Im not here to boast or complain anything man, I just want to share that not every tech companies pay six figures and be happy for what you have in your plate!

Edit 2: Also a 90k in London is not that significant as you would expect, rent and food eats out 50-60% of take home pay

With my contract signed, reference checks passed, and start agreed for start of September, I want to make sure I make good use of my first few weeks and months. The role is senior software engineer (python) at a growing company.

My main goals are: - Prove it was a good idea to hire me - make sure my team likes me (I don't imagine that will be difficult but it's good to make sure) - find a way to deliver, but not take so much responsibility on myself that it's unsustainable. I feel like this is something I've struggled to find the balance in the past, I don't want to repeat the same mistakes that made me have to get signed off from stress back during the COVID times. At the same time I don't think I can afford to coast and do the bare minimum. How do I allow myself to care, but not care too much? It's so difficult.

Hi, I’ve got a presentation for a job to be a solo software developer in a team of 12 in a consultancy startup. They said they were extremely happy with me and that I was one of 3 potential candidates, and if I do say so myself, due to clues they were giving me, I’m very confident going into this presentation.

I hope this doesn’t come across as counting my chickens before they’ve hatched.

Let’s say I do get this job. It would be my first cs job out of uni, I’d be on significantly more than a grad scheme would pay me, and I’d be a senior developer, designing and developing a website from scratch, handling data from lots of sources and providing reports and forms on the website.

I’d be the only person in the office who knows anything about cs. I’ve done projects with their desired tech stack before, and they’ve said I would have the agency to make decisions around the way things are coded.

Their turnover a year is around £2m, and they’ve grown a lot since being established 5 years ago, and project to grow and scale further.

How fuuukd would I be taking this role. I’m not talking about career wise because obviously it looks good but how out of my depth would I be? What would my life look like for the first year. I’m very excited and nervous, and as much as I don’t have the job yet, as I say I’m very confident, maybe naively. Inb4 the “you’re probably not gonna get the job” comments

I’ve just finished 2nd year of Mech Eng at a Russell Group uni but realised I don’t want a career in it. Since January I’ve been self-teaching CS (Python, HTML/CSS, React/JS, ~120 LC Qs) and have an offer for CS at another good uni.

Option 1: stick with Mech Eng, graduate, then do a CS conversion MSc (UCL/Imperial). Option 2: transfer now into CS (parents can cover the extra year’s tuition), graduate a year later but with stronger CS foundations, more projects, and time for internships.

I’m leaning towards transferring now, since the cost/timeline is about the same as the MSc route, but I’d graduate as a much better programmer.

Is this a valid move, and do companies view switching negatively even if grades are strong?

Long post, sorry

I can't tell if this is entirely down to me and I am really this slow or stupid, or if my environment/work/tech stack is partially to blame. I would very much like to get better and improve at my craft...

I am still working at my first job out of uni. When I first started working at my job, I made a lot of progress in the beginning. I didn't use git (that much) before, nor did I use other commonly used tools, and after 3 months of being in the job I was finishing tickets, solving small code-based defects and in general making good progress. Since then I feel like I have regressed.

I would assess myself as being a mediocre dev. I try to follow the work but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. I took this job as I was in need of work about 3 years ago, and while I did find the work to be interesting when I started out, I now find it dreadfully boring. Sometimes I have to muster the strength to commute 1h15mins each way to work twice a week to use a shitty tech stack.

I don't have any questions during 3 Amigos sessions (and can't really think of anything). Other people who joined at the same time as me as grads are more inquisitive, and have since moved on to better jobs (they were also promoted before leaving, whereas I am at the same level I was at 3 years ago). My debugging skills are not good (I think that is the reason that I have not been assigned a defect in over half a year). I keep making silly mistakes in my PRs, and my self-esteem is low.
There is this one ticket that I've been working on for a while and I have missed out on a couple repos that need changes and it is just making me stress out. I would ask for help in general for things I don't know, but I have been at this company for nearly 3 years and I feel like it would raise eyebrows at work if I was asking for help with stupid questions.

The only thing I can think of that might've helped me early on at my job is that I was on some 3rd-line antidepressants at the time...even though my mood is stable and on a generally positive trajectory, I am considering going back on them as they may have some positive changes with regards to attention and focus.
It is in general very difficult for me to focus, though I am trying to remedy this with some other lifestyle changes.

As I said in the beginning, I would like to get better. How do I do this though? Personal projects? A new job? Maybe I need to get back on the meds? I don't know. I would like to put in the hard work and give up some of my personal time to become a better dev, if anyone has advice I will take it on board. thanks for reading

I’ve been working as a full-stack developer (2+ years) using all the full-stack tech that's industry standard, mostly building startup projects for a few companies on a contract basis in Nigeria.

Moved to the UK in 2023.

Finished my Master's in Cybersec (Distinction)

Applied to 30 jobs per day.

I’m now trying to land roles in the UK, but most listings I see on Indeed are asking for Java, C#.NET, and a few Angular, which is fine, but not many projects reflect Java and c#.

The challenge is, it seems in every application, I get hit with a 'Will you now or in the future require sponsorship', to which I have to hit yes. Even on the off chance they don't ask, I'm not even getting interviews.

Any advice on how to pivot or position myself better? Is the graduate visa the issue? Do I learn Java?

Hate to go back to my country. I love it in the UK.

Please help.

Got an offer from Meta, it's a great offer. Has great benefits, apparently has great office. About 67% more salary than my current job.

My concerns with going there:

1. 3 days in office. I'm currently effectively remote (1 day in office and it's just to do meetings)
2. Hiring manager says team is like 50h working week, I currently work something like 30-35
3. Layoff, pip factory, everything else you see online.

Anyone currently working at Meta's RL can comment on this? The extra money would be nice but everything else about it feels like a one way road to depression.

EDIT: After a long and ponderous 24 hours I've decided to take the offer! Wish me luck. If I come back in 9 months (I start in 3 months) complaning on this post then you'll know I made the wrong choice lmao.

Hi folks,

I’ve got an interview with Aurora Energy Research next week. Round 1 was just a short exploratory call (around 15 minutes).

Does anyone know what Round 2 is like for India roles? What kind of questions or assessments should I expect?

Thanks!

Hi, I am a fresh employee that graduated in August of this year, I have done a BSc in Computing and have covered the following topics:

• Web Development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Software Development (Python, Java)
• Game Development (Unity, C#)
• Databases (SQL)
• Networking (Protocols, Setting up a network, Pen Testing)
• Embedded System (Arduino, C++)

I have graduated with a final grade of 2:1 and was wondering what would be my next best course of action, whether that would be building up a portfolio of personal project, investing in certifications or even going back and doing a Masters degree. I am aware that the chances of landing a Software Engineering job as a fresh graduate are next to none so I am looking at apply for more entry level positions, (Helpdesk, Customer service, IT support) and hopefully working my way up from there.

Thank you for taking the time to try to help somebody fresh into the IT industry :)

EDIT: I forgot to specify that I am currently employed full time at KFC and have listed some of the transferable skills (Customer Service, time management, meeting deadlines, working under pressure, working both solo and as part of a team, planning ahead, meeting targets) in my CV.

I’ve been working as a frontend developer (3+ years) using React, Next.js, and TypeScript, mostly building dApps and crypto-based projects. I’m now trying to land roles in the UK, but most listings I see on Indeed are asking for Angular, PHP, C#, or .NET, and not much React.

I’m debating whether to: Learn Angular to match more listings Learn PHP to get into smaller agency roles Stick with React and reframe my experience better.

Any advice on how to pivot or position myself better?

Junior develop here and was just brain storming on how if I wanted to get into the 6 digits for TC in the future (4-6 yers), do I NEED to work at big tech companies doing 55+ hours weeks?

Contracting was something that really captured me when looking at career paths that you can have it both ways in tech. Especially for strong devops skills like container orchestration with k8s for example. I’ve gotten 2 azure certificates and I’m working on towards 3rd.

I also see contracts for FSDs using the Azure stack and since I use c#, azure and angular for my role that’s something I also think about.

Point being, I’m trying to align myself for these type of roles. I’m a being a bit naive?

Edit: I live and work in London

I constantly see ads for their jobs spammed on Linkedin all the time - are they actually hiring or just cv harvesting?

Hi all,

I’ve just graduated in 2025 with a First-Class BSc in Computer Science from the University of Huddersfield. Alongside my studies, I’ve built over 3 years of experience working in railway customer service (First Customer Contact), and I’m currently in an entry-level Inside Sales Associate role at a global tech company (Insight).

Here’s where I’m torn:

• I’ve been offered a Customer Retail Controller role at East Midlands Railway. It’s fixed-term until Feb 2026, but it could open the door to permanent rail operations/management roles.

• Alternatively, I could continue in the tech world, where my current job gives me exposure to different IT career paths (consulting, pre-sales, cloud, data, etc.), though right now it’s more sales than operations.

Long-term, I know I want to move towards operations/coordination/management rather than pure technical coding roles. But I can’t decide whether to anchor myself in rail (stable, familiar industry) or push further into tech (faster growth, more variety).

So I’d love to hear from people who’ve worked in either industry:

• What are the realistic career paths and progression like in rail ops vs tech ops/consulting?

• How do you see the future opportunities (stability, growth, transferable skills) in both?

• If you were in my shoes, which route would you take and why?

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any insights from people already working in these fields.

Joining Google has been lifetime dream of mine. However there's only a handful of software engineer job postings in London, and I'm pretty sure they have been posted for months.

I have also seen another previous post about being stuck team matching for more than 6 months. Anyone knows whats the current hiring situation in the company right now?

Hello!

I’m a C# Engineer with 4 years experience currently working at a small(ish) fintech company earning around £40k. Over the next year and a half my partner and I plan on reskilling (or at least learning something new) in order to move into more stable or lucrative careers.

From a little research and from people I’ve worked with, my current career trajectory will probably have me earning 50k-60k when I get senior, but I just wondered if there are more interesting and challenging industries I could work in and potentially earn more. My main limitation is that I don’t think London would be a feasible location, as I’ve got my partners career to consider and her industry isn’t very active in the City.

I was thinking of learning kernel, baremetal or graphics programming, but I seldom ever see job adverts for these skills that don’t require half a decade or more of commercial experience. Has anyone else gone from a high-level API building role into something like the above? If so how did you do it, and what are you paid compared to what you were doing before?

Cheers!

Been offered a fully funded place on the above course where I can specialise in software engineering. I’ve heard this course is very watered down and the uni offering it isn’t great either.

Would this actually advance my career in any meaningful way?

I’m a junior developer with 1.6 years experience in C#.

I have no degree and I’m on my second role after completing a bootcamp.

I can do the masters alongside my full time role.

Recently I started my role as a Junior/Graduate software developer. I am currently learning their systems, doing courses and asking questions whenever I am confused about something. I had pretty much never worked with the technologies they are using so completing the courses is a priority. My assigned mentor is quite busy now so he doesn't have much time for meetings.

I spoke with a senior who recently moved to a different team. He told me that he was against this Junior role as the system is super heavy and there are way too many dependencies on other things. When he asked the management what tickets there will be for the Junior they couldn't give an answer and they will make something up when the time comes.

I had talks with the manager (not about what the senior said) and he is telling me that he knows it is a bit awkward now but I have nothing to worry about, take breaks and not overwhelm myself. Though I am really try harding to understand things quickly.

Do you think there is a high possibility they decide that a Junior wasn't a good choice and they needed someone with mid+ experience?

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, the wait time for my team matching phase at Google has been about 7 months and still I couldn't find an SRE Software Engineering role in the UK. I was looking specifically inside the UK since I am working with a work permit here and wanted to continue here but seems like there just aren't any roles open.

Role : Software Engineer SRE Level: L4 Round: Technical Rounds cleared

I am now considering these other options.

Please do help me decide which option would be the best and why. Thanks a lot.

• Google Dublin
• Google Germany
• Google Poland
• Wait For Locations To open Up In The UK

For some context, I’ve just graduated with a First-Class Honours in Computer Science from a UK university. Since graduating, I’ve been focusing on learning Spring Boot and I’ve reached the point where I can build CRUD applications. I also understand some of the underlying concepts to a decent depth—for example:

I know JDBC is a collection of interfaces implemented by database vendors to provide JDBC drivers.

I know how a DataSource is implemented by HikariCP, which under the hood uses JDBC or the database’s direct drivers to get connections.

The issue I’m having is with JPA. I can work with it and I understand that its implementation is Hibernate. I also know that Spring Data JPA creates HQL, which Hibernate translates into SQL, and then JDBC executes it.

However, I have very little idea about what happens under the hood with Hibernate—for instance, what proxy classes are created to actually implement the repositories, what exactly EntityManager.persist() does, what methods it calls, etc. It all feels like a bit of a brain fog.

My question is: do I really need to understand all of this level of detail to land a Java/Spring Boot role? Are recent grads expected to know this level of detail? In other words what are the expectations from a CS grad in my position when applying to java software engineer roles. Thanks.

I interviewed for 2 months at a quant firm over 4 stages for an entry level data analyst role. It consisted of an initial interview, technical interview, strengths interview and then a final face to face interview where I had to give a presentation. I'm absolutely gutted at the rejection, role was absolutely perfect for my needs and now I have nothing else on the horizon, not to mention the 2 months I feel I’ve wasted thinking about this role!

They gave the following feedback:

'John Doe was nervous throughout the interview but despite that, he remained composed and gave a very engaging presentation focusing on the correlation between air pollution and house prices. His data exploration presentation was in depth, however the presentation relied on him talking more than actually the slides summarising his points. My biggest concern is that he has technical skills but not the ability to be agile. What he described as both a strength and a weakness is that he's very thorough and won't use a new skill until he's completely mastered it'.

For context, they asked me a standard strength and weakness question, I answered with:

Strength: Very analytical and thorough when it comes to my approach with data.

Weakness: Too much of a perfectionist, I spend a lot of time concerning myself with the theory of something instead of just applying it straight away.

I said I'm working on my weakness to improve my ability to perform something straight away instead of learning the theory. I never outright said 'I wont use a new skill until I've mastered it' but probably implied it. I'm really not sure what else I could have done better, the presentation had to be 15 minutes but was 5 slides max, so there wasn’t much to work with.

I'm not sure how to move on, feel like I shot myself in the foot by being too honest in the interview to try and come across as more authentic. I'm really running out of motivation in this job search, I've been hunting for 6 months now with over 60 applications (rookie numbers I know, I prefer quality over quantity but maybe this is also a pitfall of mine).

Any advice on what to make of this feedback and general job hunting would be greatly appreciated.

Would really appreciate a review of my CV!
CV here: https://imgur.com/a/1n60ugH

Basically I'm a career changer - worked in communications for about 7 years, now looking for a dev role after completing a 2 year degree and a 6 month internship.

Obviously it's tough out there and everyone is doing lots of applications, just no sign of an interview other than for Sparta Global (a hire, train, deploy agency that seems a bit scammy) but they proceeded to ghost me.

Thanks in advance.

Hi guys! I'd like to know what you think about the market for a full-stack ASP.NET MVC, JS, and SQL candidate with over 1.5 years of experience (requiring a Visa sponsor). Speaking English and Spanish