At some point, I started believing my career was already written for me.
No prestigious undergrad in India. No top-tier master’s program in the US. No brand-name internships. No fast-track offers.
Each decision felt quietly connected to the next, like one “average” choice had permanently capped everything that could come after. I wasn’t failing exactly, but I wasn’t breaking through either. And the longer it went on, the more it felt like this was just… how things were going to be.
I was studying computer science, doing what I was “supposed” to do. But nothing seemed to move. The people landing the best internships and jobs all had something I didn’t – pedigree, access, timing, luck. Maybe all of it.
I didn’t know it then, but this would end up being the long way around. From an “average” academic background to roles at Amazon and Microsoft, and now Salesforce.
The paradox no one prepares you for
Early on, I ran straight into this paradox: no experience meant no internships, and no internships meant no experience.
So I did what everyone said to do. Built a GitHub profile. Wrote blog posts. Made a personal website. Applied everywhere.
Nothing landed.
There’s something exhausting about doing “all the right things” and still being invisible. It wasn’t even the rejection that got to me – it was that my effort just… didn’t translate. That disconnect killed my confidence faster than any outright failure could have.
The uncomfortable truth about “merit”
Eventually I had to face something that isn’t talked about enough: merit alone wasn’t going to unlock doors for me.
My first real opportunities came through people, not application portals. One internship came from an email a friend from UC San Diego forwarded to me. Another came from attending some local entrepreneurship event as my then-boyfriend’s plus-one. Seniors helped me rewrite my resume and taught me how to talk about my work in language recruiters actually cared about.
At the time, this felt… uncomfortable. Shouldn’t hard work be enough?
What I learned later: networking doesn’t replace merit. It reveals it. For those of us without built-in access, relationships bridge the gap that pedigree creates.
Finding what I was actually good at
My first real role was an unpaid internship. Exhausting, and it didn’t feel like progress at the time. But it taught me something important.
I’d been forcing myself into front-end work because it felt “employable,” but I was miserable at it. Scripting, though? That felt natural. Once I leaned into it, things finally started clicking.
My next internship was in machine learning – anomaly detection for medical instruments. The data was terrible. Cleaning it, shaping it, understanding it using Python and pandas took way more effort than building the actual model. And I loved it.
That experience gave me something I hadn’t had before: confidence that came from capability, not credentials.
Becoming an “actual” engineer
My third internship was at a startup called Housecall Pro. This opportunity came through something simple: staying in touch.
I kept checking in with a CTO I had met at the local entrepreneurship event. Not aggressively. Just consistently. When they were ready to hire, I was top of mind.
This was the first time I was exposed to real production systems, real processes, and real expectations.
Stand-ups, sprint boards, code reviews, context switching – these weren’t abstract concepts anymore. They were daily reality. As a student, it was intimidating. Everyone else seemed fluent in a language I’d only learned in theory.
So I did what most early-career engineers do: showed up, asked questions, kept going.
By the time I graduated, I finally had industry context.
The missing piece: telling my story
After graduation, interviews were still hard. Having experience didn’t automatically translate into success.
Around this time, I crossed paths with a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. She became this unexpected mentor and taught me what behavioral interviews never explain – how to tell a coherent career story. How to craft an elevator pitch. How to frame experience clearly.
This wasn’t about exaggeration. It was about clarity.
When preparation finally met opportunity
There was a stretch when I spent months studying algorithms while friends worked full-time jobs. It felt isolating.
But this time, I wasn’t just grinding LeetCode. I had:
- Production experience
- A clearer narrative
- Mentors
- Technical depth
Eventually, things clicked.
I interviewed with Amazon, Google, Meta, Bloomberg, Asana, and others. Joined Amazon. Not because I was the smartest in the room, but because I’d finally learned how to translate my effort, my experience, my growth into something interviewers could actually see.
There was no dramatic moment. Just quiet relief.
What this journey taught me
If you miss a station early on, it doesn’t mean you’re stuck on the same train forever. Sometimes you have to get off, rebuild momentum, and re-enter later. Stronger.
Looking back, these were the things that actually moved the needle:
1. Pedigree is a starting block, not the finish line. Prestigious degrees give you a head start, sure. But in tech, proof of work compounds. A GitHub repository that demonstrates real problem-solving can outweigh a name-brand credential – especially if your technical skills are strong enough when opportunity finally comes. Hard work matters. But it has to be visible and defensible in an interview.
2. Take strategic roles, even if they don’t look impressive. My unpaid internship didn’t boost my ego. It boosted my credibility. It gave me experience I could point to instead of just potential. Early in your career, optimization isn’t about prestige. It’s about momentum.
3. Networking is about curiosity, not transactions. The most valuable connections I made came from genuine interest in how others worked and thought – not from asking for referrals. I stayed in touch. I followed up. I was ready when they were ready. Lead with curiosity. Opportunities follow.
4. Find mentors who have already crossed the gap. Mentors don’t just give advice – they compress time. Learning from someone who understands how hiring systems work changed how I presented myself. One good mentor can shorten your learning curve by years.
5. Learn to frame your work the way companies evaluate it. Building something isn’t the same as explaining its impact. I had to learn to talk about deployment, ownership, trade-offs, and results – not just effort. The work didn’t change. The framing did.
6. Progress happens in phases. You don’t jump from “no-name college” to “Big Tech” in one leap. You move through stages: skill-building, then credibility-building, then network-leveraging, and finally opportunity capture. Respect the process. The destination becomes achievable.
