Software Engineering Resources

Many Olin College alumni work as Software Engineers or Product Managers at software firms.

Interviews for Software Engineering jobs often ask questions to assess knowledge of Computer Science. Compared to many Computer Science programs, Olin students tend to take more hands on software engineering classes, but fewer classes that go in depth about algorithms and data structures. Your experience working in teams to build Android apps and write simulations is super relevant, but you'll also be asked to figure out the algorithmic complexity of some algorithm. Here are some compiled resources to help you prep for these types of interviews.

Helpful Links

Olin Writeups

• Technical Interviews: A Survival Guide by Allen Downey. Excellent guide to technical interviews for Olin students.
• Notes on Interviews by Jialiya Huang. Thoughts compiled from doing many interviews.
• Software Interview Guide by Bill Dvorak. Bill interviewed over 200 engineers for Google and Karat. He also acts as a mentor for SWEs practicing interviews.

Other Writeups

• The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing by Joel Spolsky. A guide written from the perspective of an interviewer that helps you understand what people tend to look for.

Talk to Alumni

Reach out to some alumni to ask questions! LinkedIn and Facebook are great places to search for Olin Alumni at companies you’re applying at, and it is usually better to submit a referred application via an alumni you know than to apply directly on a careers page.

Interested in a mock interview?

These alumni have volunteered to give you mock interviews for software engineering roles.

• Rachael Stedman - schedule
• Bill Dvorak - schedule

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By the Olin Alumni Association. Contact Greg Marra. Code on GitHub.