On Technical Interviews

What topics do I need to know in order to pass common technical interviews at top tech companies for internships or as a new college graduate?

Technical internships or new college graduate roles often have the following:

• Technical coding interviews (data structures and algorithms)

• Past experience interviews (“what have you done”)

• Domain-specific interviews (“what do you know”)

Check out this internship interview guide here for a look at all the details on how to prepare and what to expect.

What courses on campus should I be taking while I am in college that are most important after I graduate?

There are many foundational courses which are important as you go through your CS program. In particular, here are some classes and topics you’ll be glad you paid extra attention to:

• Data Structures and Algorithms. Used in various ways and for technical interviews.

• Object-oriented programming. Used almost everywhere.

• Functional programming. Concepts such as callbacks and closures.

• Databases. Any class on schema design and databases or SQL.

• Data Science / Machine Learning (for data science roles)

• Regular expressions (useful all the time)

• Compilers (good foundational parser knowledge)

• Network security. Buffer overflows, XSS, SQL injection, etc.

• Operating Systems. This includes memory management, schedulers, etc.

• Project Management. Anything related to managing technical projects.

What kind of qualifications, qualities, skills, or knowledge, do companies look for in interns/prospective employees?

Much of this is already covered in the other answers. It is important to know at least one language really well and to have applied this language in a context outside of class. Companies love finding interns and college hires who are excited about working there and that have side projects or previous software experience.