Sounds like he thinks engineering or at least a mixed curriculum that’s CS + is a better way to go - between him and the UCB Prof who is saying CS kids are struggling.
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My son had a bachelors in Aero with a minor in CS and a master in Mechanical. His experience is that CS needs to be a minor for all engineering fields… he needed it much more than he thought he would and is still using it way more than he ever thought in real life work experience. He couldn’t have done any of his jobs after college without the CS knowledge.
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My son is opposite - does a little programming but had only the ME classes and doesn’t see a CS (or even ME) need. So it’s likely job specific.
I was just noting what the article said - made it seem like maybe CS wasn’t math intensive enough. Their words. Not mine.
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D24’s boyfriend is a senior and he landed a software engineer job. She didnt give the exact amount but said it was over $100k. It’s remote so that’s a nice perk.
Sounds like that’s the avg starting salary for CS majors?
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The salary is highly dependent on a) firm/industry, b) location and c) skill set.
Congrats to your D’s boyfriend.
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Looks like 2025 CS grads had a much better time of it than 2024 grads.
With all of the data in for 2025, the % of Berkeley CS/EECS grads still looking for employment was at 12% compared to 23% in 2024.
Anecdata is telling me that 2026 may be doing even better than 2025 grads but the competition is definitely fiercer as well.
Hopefully the interest rate cuts will also help with the macro trends.
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From the article …
“ Key Takeaways:
Developments in Santa jobs this year mirror trends in the overall workforce, with job listings down and pay rising for workers with in-demand characteristics, in this case, real beards.
Real-bearded Santas make $9 an hour more than their fake-whiskered counterparts, one analysis found.
Job listings for Santa have plummeted 35% since 2024 due to dying malls and a shift to online sales.”
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I may have inadvertently secured a $40k side hustle for soccer son after graduation. He’ll be an assistant coach for his college team this spring. He’s warming to the idea of coaching. I texted a friend that knows soccer son very well, and recently partnered to purchase a youth soccer club, to ask what type of certifications our son should get. He asked if soccer son wanted to be one of the club’s directors. LOL!
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I consolidated the Berkeley data from 2022-2025. Looks like Amazon bailed out the 2025 grads big time although I wonder what the impact of the subsequent layoffs have been on these survey #s. Its also looks like the hiring levels have substantial volatility year to year and are not based on some stable trend.
| All Majors | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working | 50% | 53% | 53% | 59% |
| Looking for Employment | 24% | 25% | 22% | 14% |
| Grad School | 20% | 17% | 21% | 22% |
| Other/Looking for Grad School | 6% | 4% | 5% | 5% |
| Median Salary | $87,000 | $94,000 | $95,000 | $100,000 |
| COE | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working | 52% | 57% | 54% | 59% |
| Looking for Employment | 18% | 16% | 22% | 13% |
| Grad School | 26% | 23% | 20% | 26% |
| Other/Looking for Grad School | 4% | 3% | 4% | 2% |
| Median Salary | $120,000 | $120,000 | $120,000 | $125,000 |
| EECS | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working | 63% | 62% | 57% | 66% |
| Looking for Employment | 18% | 14% | 24% | 13% |
| Grad School | 17% | 22% | 15% | 19% |
| Other/Looking for Grad School | 3% | 2% | 4% | 2% |
| Median Salary | $129,000 | $128,000 | $134,000 | $135,000 |
| CDSS (CS + DS) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working | 62% | 63% | 54% | 65% |
| Looking for Employment | 19% | 21% | 27% | 16% |
| Grad School | 16% | 14% | 17% | 16% |
| Other/Looking for Grad School | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% |
| Median Salary | $125,000 | $129,000 | $120,000 | $125,000 |
| Employer | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 70 | 100 | 61 | 138 |
| Apple | 24 | 22 | 24 | 26 |
| AWS | 8 | 23 | 19 | 7 |
| Databricks | 11 | 18 | 12 | |
| 64 | 36 | 21 | 39 | |
| Meta | 43 | <5 | 20 | 42 |
| Microsoft | 34 | 30 | 11 | 16 |
| NVIDIA | 6 | 8 | 10 | |
| Open AI | <5 | 6 | ||
| JS/Citadel/HRT | <5 | 10-15 | 16-21 | <10 |
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As touched on earlier, a key limitation of the Berkeley stats are sampling seniors prior to graduating, then giving seniors the option to update their responses 6 months after graduating. A good portion fill out the survey while seniors, but do not update their responses after graduating. This leads to Berkeley stats showing a larger % seeking than any other comparable college I am aware of.
With that qualifier, it will be interesting to see if the sharp changes in trends are Berkeley specific or also occur at other colleges. It’s been >6 months since 2025 graduation, so we should start seeing similar class of 2025 post-grad stats from other colleges relatively soon.
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D22 has a ‘25 friend who was laid off after three months into his employment at Amazon when they announced the cuts in the fall.
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yep - personally know a couple of instances with aws.
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I was speaking to someone who is hiring a summer intern for a large company. Some kids get auto rejected based on where they live. For example, if the company wont pay for summer housing, they reject anyone who doesnt live locally.
Eliminates kids who may still have been interested for the experience (and resume builder) and could have found cheap dorm living at a local university.
A little HR nugget that some kids may not be aware of when applying for internships and why they get rejected.
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Interesting article from this past summer: Good suggestions for what to do and what not to do in this job market:
" 
Key Takeaways
- The average job seeker needs 32-200 applications to land one job offer, with most studies pointing to 100+ applications for typical searchers — but referred candidates need far fewer
- Only 0.1-2% of cold online applications result in job offers, while referrals have a 30% success rate and sourced candidates are 5× more likely to be hired
- Companies now conduct 42% more interviews per hire than in 2021 (averaging 20 interviews per position), contributing to longer hiring timelines and increased candidate burnout
- Smart job seekers should spend 80% of their time networking and only 20% on applications, since 85% of jobs are filled through connections and 44% of hires come from candidates already in company databases"
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This is how my daughter got her current job and will likely be how she gets her jobs moving forward.
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Definitely true.
So S22 is grateful that 1 San Francisco company did read his cover letter. The job posting stated they prefer local applicants.
In S22’s cover letter discussing his SF summer internship project, he shared his excitement to returning to SF. He made it to Round 1 technical interview. They may still reject him, favoring someone local.
On the flip-side, he’s also grateful when companies do NOT read the cover letter: he had erroneously saved the cover letter for Company A with Company B’s name all over the letter. Oops. He still made it to automatic Online Assessment coding.
–
That networking is still elusive for S22.
He’s doing all the right things, but no one has ever said ‘let me connect you with the hiring manager for that job’, or ‘I can speak with the person who makes the hiring decision and put in a good word for you’.
S22 is connecting with all sorts of alums, fraternity brothers, mentors, friend’s friend’s friend who works in that company, networking events, hours on Linkedin and his college alum directory,
and these connections do share tips and suggestions, but he has not made any connections that gets him anywhere near the person making the decision.
We as parents have reached out to our network: “I can help him more if he was hardware”, “our companies aren’t hiring newbies”, “my company is still not done w/ layoffs”…
In my OLD days, my 1st full-time job out of college (BS), my graduate classmate was a VP who told one of the hiring managers to find me a spot.
During my MBA, I attended a networking event where I met a person hiring interns, and he gave me his card to schedule an interview (because I was getting my MBA at his alma mater) and I got the job.
Is there a thread on how to network?
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I think the generic rules of networking - be courteous, patient, and thankful - are pretty helpful in any setting BUT recruiting for new grad/intern cs roles require lateral thinking and targeted outreach.
Let’s say you want to target quant - the traditional approach might be to mass apply and go to career fairs but it rarely works. Many firms care more about invite only events rather than generic fairs. Instead one might target going to cppcon and pycon if possible, solve js puzzles consistently to get noticed, do well in quant trading contests etc. Essentially you need to earn the chance or put in high effort. These are done best in a targeted manner.
Similar approach for CS roles but they are even harder to pull off. With FAANG or any very large tech firm, there are 1000s of employees and 1000s of applicants to these roles. So its best to think of this as a marketing project - there is a rule in marketing called the seven touch rule which says a prospect engages with a brand 7 times before deciding to buy.
So, one way to think about the problem is if I have to engage win 7 high quality touches with a prospective employer how big can my target list be and if I have a specific bandwidth then realistically how many companies can I actually do this effectively at.
The next question might be if I am spending so much time reaching out, I better reach out to the decision makers, and if so can I identify this person at each target company or should I shape my target list only to include companies where I can get to a clear decision-maker (CTO, CEO etc.)
This process might lead one down a path where you really start thinking about clear interests in verticals or geography etc. as a way to filter down the list. S22 has a list of 10 companies he has targeted from freshman year and has built 1-1 relationships with various CEOs, primarily by interacting with their posts, highly targeted DMs, consistent updates on his progress, and thoughtful questions about company strategy.
Again, there is no winning formula or one size all fits strategy but marketing is about message repetition, consistency and laser focus targeting.
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However, it is likely common for job seekers to “use up” their social network without success because those they know who are familiar with their work are not in a position to get them hired or on an inside track to getting hired (e.g. the people they know are in companies not hiring anyone, common in economic or industry downturns).
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The post above yours does an excellent job of describing networking strategies, as does the one above it! Even if they haven’t yet paid off, it only takes one, as they say. @huango, sounds like your kiddo is doing good networking, but be sure they also use academic/faculty contacts too. And @ucscuuw - excellent post! Maybe consider hackathon too, if in the tech field.
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wrong thread