Mrinal Ahlawat

I know people without a CS degree working at Amazon. I know people without a CS degree working at top startups. They had no formal education, self-taught devs with raw skill and hustle. Then there's Dhravya Shah. 20 years old. Flew to the USA. Got a visa. Raised millions. Building a cutting-edge AI Memory layer startup. But there's also the other side. I also know people who took the traditional path. Got their CS degree. Cracked the same companies. Built amazing careers. Both routes work. The question is: which one fits you? Yes, you can build skills without a degree today. The resources are everywhere. People are breaking into blockchain, Web3, AI, and niches we don't even know exist yet. But college is more than just about learning to code. My time at DTU taught me that. The best thing wasn't the curriculum. It was the peer network. The friends who pushed me. The late-night conversations. The 4 years of space to experiment and bet on myself. Skills? You learn those yourself anyway. But finding great peers for life? That's harder to replicate. And let's be real. In India, 90% of CSE students enroll for one reason: the security of campus placements. That's the culture. That's the reality. It's not wrong. It's practical. So what's the answer? Both options exist. Both can work. If you're committed enough to take the leap without a degree, do it. If you value the structure, network, and safety net of college, that's valid too. The path matters less than the commitment you bring to it.

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One thing your manager will never tell you Your promotion depends less on your performance and more on whether your team is actually growing. When I joined Amazon as an SDE-1, my team had 25 people. By the time I became Senior, it had 120+. Looking back, my “fast promotion” wasn’t magic. The org was expanding like crazy and growth creates opportunity. Here is the part people don’t like hearing: ❌ If your team hasn’t grown in years, your career won’t either. ❌ It doesn’t matter how good you are. There is nowhere to go. ❌ The only real path up becomes waiting for someone above you to leave. So if you want to grow faster: Choose teams that are growing. Not teams that are comfortable. Skills matter. Environment matters more.

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In the last 8 years of my career, I’ve worked and interviewed at Amazon, Cars24, and Nielsen. I’ve switched companies 4 times. If you’re an SDE thinking of making a move in India, never make these mistakes: → Wait for the written offer before you resign. Don’t put in your notice based on a phone call, an email, or someone saying “we’re excited to have you.” Only move forward when you have the official offer letter in hand, with your job title, salary, start date, and location clearly mentioned. → If someone asks you to resign before sending an official offer, it’s okay to take your time. You can always ask for clarity or politely request the offer letter first. It’s perfectly reasonable to make sure everything is confirmed before making a big decision. → Document important details over email. Whenever you agree on joining dates, reporting manager, or location, try to get these details confirmed in writing. Clear communication helps avoid confusion later for everyone. → Pay attention to how the company communicates during the hiring process. If they are transparent, share clear timelines, and answer your questions, it’s usually a good sign about the company’s culture. → Make sure your notice period matches up. If you need a little extra time to transition or serve your notice, talk to the company. If there’s pressure to rush or skip important steps, it’s okay to pause and have a conversation about it. → Trust your instincts if something feels off. If the process seems unclear or you’re unsure about expectations, it’s better to take a step back and ask more questions. It’s always better to join when you feel confident, rather than rushing and regretting it later. → Learn about the team and leaders you’ll be working with. You’ll spend a lot of time with your team every day, so try to find out about your manager and the work culture. Ask about team dynamics during interviews, and do some research on the company’s leadership. Working with a positive and supportive team can make a huge difference in your career. Switching jobs is already stressful. Don’t make it riskier by trusting promises or assumptions. ✅ Get the offer letter, always. ✅ Double-check your CTC, start date, and notice period details. ✅ Walk away if you feel pushed, pressured, or disrespected. Sometimes, it’s not about right or wrong. It’s about people-fit. You might not be the right fit for a company, and they may not be the right fit for you. And that’s okay. Trust your gut it usually knows before your mind does.

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Amazon puts over 50 LPA+ on the table for the SDE II role in India. Imagine you are interviewing for SDE-II role @ Amazon and in your system design round, the interviewer asks: "When I pause a movie on my phone and later open it on my TV, Netflix/Prime Video starts from the exact second I left. How would you design a system so a user can always resume from where they stopped, across all their devices?" Btw, if you’re preparing for system design/coding interviews, check out our mock interview tool. You can use it for free here: https://lnkd.in/gpCn7t2T [1] What a naive design would do Idea: Store progress only on the device. Flow - The player keeps the current timestamp in local storage. - When you reopen the app on the same device, it reads that value and seeks to that point. Why this breaks down? - You switch from mobile to TV and the TV has no idea where you stopped. - If you uninstall the app or clear data, progress is gone. - There is no single source of truth when you have many devices. Just local storage is not enough for a company like Amazon or Netflix. [2] What real systems do: server-side progress service Idea: Keep playback state on the server, and let every device sync to it. Core pieces - A "watch progress" service with an API like  POST /progress and GET /progress. - A table or key value store keyed by user_id + profile_id + title_id (+ episode_id). - Fields like position_seconds, duration_seconds, device_id, updated_at, status (in_progress, finished). What happens while you watch - The video player sends progress updates every N seconds or on key events  (play, pause, seek, stop, app background). - These are small API calls that update the row for that title. - If position crosses a threshold like 90 percent, the backend can mark the episode as "watched" and maybe reset resume point to 0. What happens when you open the app on another device? - The app calls GET /progress for the current title when you land on the details page or hit play. - The server returns the last known position. - The player seeks to that timestamp and starts from there, often with a "Resume from 37:12" prompt. Extra details you can add - Store a small history, not only one row, in case of bugs or rolling back state. - Use write behind or batching so heartbeats do not overload the backend. - Use TTL or cleanup jobs to remove very old partial watches. [3] Handling tricky cases Multiple devices at once - Two devices might send updates at the same time. - The service should keep the latest updated_at, or prefer the active device id. Offline viewing - For downloads, the device tracks progress locally while offline. - When it reconnects, it pushes a final progress event that updates the server. Privacy and size - Progress data is small but grows with millions of users. - A key value store or a simple sharded relational table is usually enough, since the access pattern is "get by key, update by key".

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A Senior Engineer at Amazon in India (L6) can make 1Cr+ A Senior Engineer at Microsoft in India (L64) can make 1Cr+ A Senior Engineer at Google in India (L5) can make 1Cr+ Tech salaries are high, but so is the constant pressure of the job. The hardest part of the job begins after the work. It’s turning your mind off and so many people struggle with this. Cutting vegetables → replaying the morning outage Dinner with family → rewriting a design doc in your head Driving home → simulating on-call failures at 3 a.m. At some point, ambition fades into something else, a nervous system that no longer knows how to switch off. Your kids are talking. Your partner is sharing their day. You are nodding, but your brain is still inside a code review. High compensation with a constantly spinning mind is just a well-paid burnout path. Here’s one simple ritual that creates a hard stop. Before you log off, take five minutes. Write down three things. 1. What I finished today –One or two lines. Shipped a feature, fixed a bug, unblocked a team mate, clarified a design. 2. Where I stopped and what is blocking me –Be specific. “Latency spike in X API when Y flag is enabled” is better than “performance issue”. 3. The first small step I will take tomorrow –Not a big plan. Just the next move. “Add logs around this path”, “Reproduce issue in staging”, “Write outline of design doc”. Then actually close the laptop. Put the phone away for a while. Tell yourself: “This problem is parked. I know exactly where to resume.” Let the systems run all night if they have to. Your brain is allowed to rest.

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🍀 6 months at Google.... Today I have completed 6 months at Google after having joined back in January 27th, 2025. These 6 months have been a rollercoaster of learning, exploration, meeting some exceptionally skilled people, and growth. Summarizing my journey at Google, here's the top 6 learnings for me over the period of the last 6 months... 1️⃣. Imposter Syndrome is real - Working at a place like Google, the talent density is the real deal. With being surrounded by some the smartest folks in the industry and working alongside them, its easy to feel lost and out of place. 2 things kept me going here - a. The support from the team in my rampup. b. The confidence that I've done harder things in the past - this too shall pass. 2️⃣. Ownership matters - At a place like Google, with highly skilled people all around, its kinda obvious that people like to own their work and expect you to do the same. How to own your work end to end, and to deliver it with the highest quality is something I've greatly learnt in the past few months. 3️⃣. Communication >>> Code - At a place, where any code change you make affects billions, communication and alignment regarding the same becomes something of utmost nessecity. Skillful communication within the team, cross teams, and with multiple stakeholders to effectively deliver work is something I've seen matter more than ever here. 4️⃣. Asking for help is a strength - In companies like Google and Microsoft, asking for help is looked on as a strength, not a weakness. The culture fosters that. However, to get help, you've to ask for it. Getting over the thought of judgment, to reach out for help, is a key learning which helped me a lot in the journey. 5️⃣. Make meaningful connections - Walking in any journey, what makes it worthwhile are the friends you make along the way. Making intentional connections, and going out of the way to help others move ahead in their journey, is the way to move ahead in the journey. This is something I also try to incorporate in my Linkedin journey by trying to give back to the community. 6️⃣. You're never too good at something, Keep learning - Tech is a fast moving space. The thought of "I already know enough" becomes obsolete as fast as the tech of today. Its a journey of constant of learning and upskilling. Parallely, make your basics stronger, that's what allows you to keep up the learning pace, with the industry. The last 6 months have been really exciting, fun, full of learnings and challenges all along the way. As its said in Google, being a Noogler is like "trying to drink from a firehose". Really excited for what the next 6 months unfolds. Stay tuned for more such content!!✌🏻🚀

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I recently had a chance to connect with a Sr. Software Engineer who cracked Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon in the last 10 years of his career. He started at Amazon in 2015 and is now working at Facebook. I asked him one question: How should one start Leetcode in 2025? and got some pointers that I think would benefit everyone.  [1] Stop trying to “cover” Leetcode → The real game is not in “solving 1000 problems.” It’s in identifying patterns behind the questions (sliding window, backtracking, tree traversals, etc.) and understanding when and why to use each. → Each pattern unlocks 10–15 problems. Your goal: See a question and immediately recognize the pattern behind it. [2] Build a rock-solid DSA foundation → Before you even open Leetcode, deeply understand how and why core data structures (arrays, hashmaps, trees, heaps, graphs) work internally. → Don’t just learn how to use them, know their weaknesses, edge cases, and which real-world scenarios they solve best. → For every new topic, write your own implementation (e.g., your own LinkedList, your own Stack, your own Trie) from scratch once, just to internalize the mechanics. [3] Train yourself to break down problems, not just solve them → When you see a new problem, never code immediately. → Spend 5–10 minutes analyzing constraints, drawing diagrams, and “talking out” your approach. → Ask: “What are the edge cases?” “What would brute force look like?” “Can I spot an early optimization?” → In interviews, your ability to explain and reason before coding matters more than racing to a solution. [4] Use problem selection as a learning tool, not a confidence booster → Don’t just grind easy questions to feel “productive.” → Each session, choose a mix: 1 comfort-zone problem to warm up, 2–3 new pattern-based mediums, and 1 “stretch” hard problem, even if you know you’ll struggle. → Log why you struggled and what new pattern or trick you learned (keep a mistake log; review it every week). [5] Build mental maps of tradeoffs and “when to use what” → For every pattern you learn (e.g., sliding window vs. prefix sum, hash set vs. sorting for duplicates), write down:   → What’s the time and space complexity?   → When does this pattern break down?   → When is an alternative more efficient? → Building these comparison instincts is what sets apart those who “grind” Leetcode vs. those who think like strong engineers. Continued In Comments ↓ --- P.S: If you’re currently preparing for DSA, HLD, and LLD. Check out my one-stop resource guide: → https://lnkd.in/eYHSjbys ( 750+ students are already using it) This guide will help you with: - DSA, HLD, and LLD for interviews - good resources that I used personally - lots of problems and case studies for DSA and system design

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From SDE to ML Engineer at Intuit Recently, my friend transitioned to a Data Scientist role and shared how tough it was to feel confident in the beginning. —> He often feared "not being good enough," especially in a fast-changing field like data science. What inspired me was how he pushed through those doubts. —> He started celebrating small wins, understanding a complex concept, completing a project, or solving a tough problem. —> He also reached out for help, leaning on mentors and peers who reassured him that no one knows everything. Hearing his journey reminded me that self-doubt isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a sign of growth. His years of hardwork and consistent efforts finally paid off. He is expecting another offer from Atlassian. if you too want to transition to Data Science, make sure you have the right mentor & support to avoid missing out on oppourtunities. Learn from industry experts and from courses designed for experienced individuals. One platform I’d suggest checking out is Bosscoder Academy. Check their complete program here: https://bit.ly/4jwL8VQ They have helped 800+ working professionals get placed in top companies. The right approach can change everything. #sql #Datascience #interviewpreparation #brandpartnership

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During my 3 years at Paytm as a Software Engineer, I got promoted once, got two hikes (both 30%+), and honestly? It wasn’t because I was the smartest engineer. It was because I took on the problems no one else wanted to touch. Once, we were asked to prepare deep cohort insights for an urgent investor meeting. The catch? → Our analytics infra was crumbling. → There was no Redshift or Spark set up. → We had 0 budget and a tight deadline. → And all we had was just a MySQL server on the office floor and some hacked-together Python scripts. Yet, the expectation was clear: “Get it done.” So a few of us huddled together. We connected 5 spare laptops via LAN cables. Spun up a mini-Hadoop cluster right inside the office. Ran Hive queries overnight and delivered everything the next morning. It wasn’t elegant, mind you. It was duct-tape engineering, but it worked better than anyone expected. That scrappy fix changed how leadership saw our team. It got us real infra, real budget, and trust. Sometimes your career changes not because you shipped something shiny, but because you stepped up when things were messy. If you’re early in your journey: → Look for the ugly, unclear, thankless problems. → That’s where the real leverage is. Because the engineers who fix what’s broken, end up building what’s next. Have you ever stepped up with a scrappy fix and saved the day?

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If you’re an SDE switching companies in India, Never resign without a concrete offer letter in hand. Not a verbal confirmation. Not a “we’re excited to have you.” A formal letter with role, salary, start date, and location clearly mentioned. I've been a developer since 2011. Switched 7 companies in 14 years. And here's the pattern I follow every time I’ve made a move: If the HR says “Congratulations!” but doesn’t attach an offer letter → Politely thank them, but wait. No documents, no resignation. If they ask for salary slips, increment letters, or your current offer → Share only after you get a formal offer in writing. If you’re pressured to resign before getting confirmation → That’s a red flag. Step back. No matter how exciting the role is. If they refuse to give you a few days beyond notice to join → Think hard. Do they respect your boundaries? If you feel uncertain or uncomfortable during early conversations → Trust your gut. It only gets worse once you're inside. Switching jobs is stressful. Don’t add risk by making assumptions. ✅ Always get the offer letter. ✅ Always confirm your CTC, start date, and notice alignment. ✅ Always walk away from disrespect; no job is worth your dignity and mental health. 

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It has been 2+ years since I switched to Qualcomm as an SDE. 🙌 I won’t say it was easy preparing for the transition while working 9 to 5. Yes, there were sleepless nights, endless study sessions daily. I realized that I had to work harder than everyone else. And I knew one thing: Consistency beats everything. Here are 3 lessons I learnt during this phase: 👉 I focused on targeted problem-solving. I categorized problems by techniques - sliding window, monotonic stacks, tries- so I could apply them intuitively in real interviews. 👉 I practiced by designing real services like a distributed rate limiter or an event-driven notification system; this helped me improve my System Design concepts significantly. 👉 I started coding under pressure. Practicing mock interviews forced me to explain my logic clearly and refine my approach to writing bug-free code in a limited time. Yes, now I can proudly say that switching to a top PBC isn’t about luck; it’s all about the grit you have. 🏆 All you need is to work relentlessly with a structured plan, get a deep technical understanding, and build real-world problem-solving skills. If you struggle with building a preparation routine, I would personally recommend that you check out Bosscoder Academy for their structured guidance. Check them here: https://bit.ly/4cnNxQv They’ve helped 2200+ SDEs land roles at top PBCs, and here’s how they can help you, too: 💡 A well-structured curriculum for DSA, System Design, and Full Stack Development. 💡 1:1 mentorship from industry experts. 💡 24/7 doubt support and interactive live classes. 💡 Real-world project building and job switch assistance #SDE #linkedincommunity #collab #tech #advertisement

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I sat down for 2 hours and recalled every coding interview I’ve given in the last 8 years of my career at Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Hotstar, Dunzo and many other companies... Here are the topics that I was asked about (in order of fundamentals): 1// Category 0 – Absolutely Fundamentals These topics are non-negotiable. If you skip these, you’re setting yourself up for a tough time in every interview, no matter the company. - Dynamic Arrays - String Manipulation - Two Pointers - Grids & Matrices - Binary Search - Sets & Maps - Stacks & Queues - Recursion - Sorting - Linked Lists - Trees - Graphs Master these inside out before touching anything else. 2// Category 1 – Fundamentals+ Once you’re solid on the basics, double down here. These topics show up a lot in interviews, and depth here will help you stand out: - Heaps - Sliding Windows - Backtracking - Prefix Sums - Dynamic Programming - Greedy Algorithms - Topological Sort This is where you move from “can solve problems” to “can solve tough problems quickly.” 3// Category 2 – Going Above and Beyond If you want to really separate yourself, go above and beyond, tackle these topics.  - Monotonic Stacks & Queues - Union-Find - Data Structure Design - Set & Map Implementations - Tries - Graphs (Advanced) - Dynamic Programming (Advanced) - Bit Manipulation - Math Don’t chase 100 topics at once. Start from the core, then build up. When you master the right order, you’ll never feel lost in an interview again.

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When you join a new org or switch teams in the same, it is quite an unsettling and borderline anxious experience. Here are a few things that I did to ramp up faster. 1. I consciously made an effort to remain unblocked 2. I read a ton of code and its history, sometimes even unrelated 3. I asked questions about the past, the present, and the future 4. I took up relatively mundane tasks - cross-team work, tests, and docs 5. I extended a helping hand in whatever capacity I could 6. I proactively met skip-level leaders and managers to understand the vision Some companies do have a culture of pairing up with someone existing in the team, but even if you do not get a mentor, it is important that you still navigate the situation and ramp up as quickly as you can. The above list is not exhaustive, by any means, and hence you can always add things that you find helpful in your context. but the lowest common denominator is to show extreme intent and interest to get output and drive outcomes. Hope this helps.

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I am a Software Engineer at Meta with almost 2 decades of experience. Here’re the 5 learnings if you want to grow faster as a SWE: 1. Know the next level before promotion After you are performing well at your current role expectations, start approaching the next level. - Learn from seniors, understand their perspective - Look for areas you can help & can get noticed In short, prove that you deserve the promotion before you ask for it. 2. Become your own user - go on reddit or twitter threads - read through the users feedbacks and conversations - be empathetic & maybe have a conversation with few users This shift helped me move beyond just shipping features to actually improving the experience. 3. Data is your saviour Start diving into logs, events, and exceptions more deeply. - Where are users spending the most time?  - What’s making them drop off? - What are the most common exceptions?  - Which workflows are unintuitive? You can make better engineering decisions if you spend some time consuming the data 4. Every problem is not yours to solve Ask yourself: - Is this issue truly high-impact, or am I just trying to get it off my plate? - Is this a problem I should solve, or is it better to guide someone else to take it on? - Delegating was tough at first. But it’s crucial to identify your problems and delegate rest. The best engineers I’ve worked with aren’t the ones who take on the most work—they’re the ones who ensure the right work gets done by the right people. 5. Be a force multiplier - document more to save others time - build tools and scripts that automate tedious tasks - Guide others to help achieve their goals   Your team will move faster, and you will become more valuable—not just as an engineer but as a force multiplier. => Final Thought: The biggest shifts in my career didn’t come from just writing better code—they came from these small shifts. If you’re looking to grow as an engineer, try incorporating some of these steps into your own journey. Raman Walia

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There are multiple reasons why Verification is performed through SystemVerilog / UVM instead of Verilog. But among them, one of the prime reasons is that, Verilog used as a Static testbench and SV used in Dynamic testbenches that is based on OOP concept. There are range of concepts that are required to understand OOP and some of them are noted below: [1] What is Class and Object? Difference between handle and Object. [2] How memory allocation and deallocation is performed in Class. Difference b/w C pointer and SV object handle. [3] What is the use of constructor and how does constructor chaining is achieved. [4] How accidental overriding of base class methods are avoided. [5] Difference between Shallow copy and Deep copy. What are the things can be copied in Shallow Copy. [6] What is this construct in Class. What are Static methods in Class. [7] What is Inheritance. Difference between Multilevel and Multiple Inheritance. How does Data hiding property in Class is achieved. [8] How does Class extension can be restricted so that no subclass can inherit a parent class. [9] Difference b/w Static and Dynamic Casting. Application of casting in subclass and Superclass. [10] How a Class can be made read only. What are Virtual methods in Class. [11] Concept of Polymorphism and Abstract Class. What is an Interface Class and what it is used for. [12] How scope resolution operator is useful in accessing the static variables in the class. [13] Use of parameterised classes and when it is used. Default value of class constructor and its purpose. [14] How does Class allows access to the object during automatic garbage collection and what method needs to be used during that time. [15] Interface class and how it helps in multiple inheritance. [16] Diamond problem and how to solve the issue. [17] Concept of composition and aggregation in class. What is a Singleton class. ******** [18] Different Design pattern in class: a. Builder Method Design Pattern b. Factory Method Pattern c. Singleton Pattern d. Observer Pattern e. Prototype Pattern ****** [19] Difference between static and dynamic casting. [20] Memory Management in OOP. Objects reachability - Strongly reachable and Weakly reachable. [21] Use of super keyword in a class. How to override members of class. [22] What are local and protected members of class. Use of static methods. #vlsi #asic #electricalengineering #semiconductorindustry

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Most CS engineers in India are effectively useless for Day 1 impact. — One of the biggest reasons we started Polaris School of Technology was to solve a problem that we ourselves faced internally at Classplus Back in 2018, we were building SaaS, and needed software devs, obviously. Easiest call was to go for fresher CS grads - they are young energy + agile learning + early stage cos can afford only them But the shock of our lives, almost no fresher we hired could push live code on day 1. And the simplest explanation - "we didn’t learn how to do this in college."   And on asking why did they not - "Nobody exactly told us how to do so."    And max kids just prepared some puzzles on internet to crack campus placements. Funny max! — And this was not just with us, almost every tech founder we know was facing the same.    Resulting in two options: One, abandon and only go for senior talent, but non-feasible for the costs + org structure involved Two, train and upskill the fresh talent and make them industry-relevant over 6-9 months and see them contribute meaningfully post that. Each, every, and 100% of the founders I know in life opted for the second one, and the first jobs for most software engineers became the playground where they learnt all their coding skills. The bar was so low to be honest, that anyone who had done a couple of good internships / built some functional products / written actual code during college times was getting 2x CTCs than others. The sad part: All of this is still true in most cases. Most CS grads actually learn real coding / software development on the go, gradually rising through the skills + payscale. And this pushes back everyone - startups lose time in building products / engineers lose some of their sharpest years / the ecosystem moves slower than it should. — And that’s why we built Polaris with a lot of heart. Not just coz we find it worthy, but also because the industry needs this. Young CS grads who interact with real companies while studying, build live products, do a few internships, network with existing devs, participate in a few hackathons, and have enough confidence / clarity before they step in full-time. No training wheels. No "6-month ramp-up." Just Day 1 ready :)

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