What Big Tech Like Microsoft Looks for in Software Engineers | Simplilearn

Great. All right. So, uh for everyone who has joined us now, uh please go ahead and introduce yourselves in the chat. Hello, I can see a few responses but uh hi Gori from Behrradun Utra. Hi Krishna, solutions architect industrial automation and digitization. Wonderful to have you with us. Um hi Fu. Hi Karan Warma. Hi Nidita, thank you for joining us. Hi Mr from California. Manisha Chowri from Basti. Wonderful. Uh great to see all of you join us. It would be great if you could also tell us what you do. Are you all software engineers? Are you transitioning to this field? Uh so that would give us great context. Good evening Akash. Hi Vani from Nigeria. Wonderful to have you with us. We have a mix of audience joining us today. That's that's great. Um hi Karan from Japur. Hi Aish from Ranchi. Hi Akash from Bangalore. So there is a software engineer from Infosys. there is learning software engineering. Okay, great. Great to know that for anyone joining us from YouTube and LinkedIn, all of you can share your responses with us as well. You can go ahead and uh share your responses in the comment section and we will be more than happy to see that as well. Uh so without taking much of your time, I think it's time for us to start today's webinar. Uh like you all know the topic for today's session is what big tech companies like Microsoft look for in software engineers and insiders view. So this is going to be an extremely insightful session and we are really excited to see so many aspiring engineers, developers and also tech professionals joining us from across the world today. Um and we know that the software field is undergoing a lot of changes and to talk about it and give you an insidider view. We also have Deep joining us. I will give his introduction in the coming slides. Uh so you will get to know about his journey what he has done uh in this webinar. So I hope all of you are as excited as we are and uh so with that I think we can move on to the ground rules. Thank you all for all the introductions. Unfortunately, I'm not able to read out all of your uh chats. Um and I would also like to introduce myself. I'm Schwatha and I will be your host for today's webinar. And let's get started everyone. So uh the ground rules for today's webinar are pretty simple. I'm sure all of you must have a few of you at least would have attended our webinars before and would have been um you know familiar with this. So if you have any questions, please put your questions only in the Q&A box because we get a high volume of responses in the chat. We might not be able to keep a track of all of your questions if you share them in the chat and uh we might not answer your question as and when it comes but we will definitely take up your questions in the quest uh Q&A section which we have towards the end of the webinar and please use the chat box effectively. Let's keep today's conversation related to the topic and I request all of you not to share any external links in the uh chat. And finally for your certificate of participation, this is a question we get asked a lot. Uh we will be sharing a poll towards the end of the webinar and you will you can fill up the form and then you will be able to get your certificate of participation. However, uh it will be shared to uh by the end of the webinar. So you will have to stay with us till the end for that as well. Uh so before we move ahead I just want to quickly take two minutes of your time. I want to understand how many of you have attended simply learn webinars before. Is this your first time or are you someone who have who has attended any of our webinars? Please let me know in the chat. If it's your first time you can mention first time. Okay. Pum says first time. Great to know. Attended earlier first time attended first time. So I think it's a very interesting mix of audience here. Uh some who have attended webinars before and some who are here with us for the first time. For anyone who is joining us for the second or third time, great to have you over here. I'm sure you have context of simply learn. But for all the others here, I just want to take two minutes and tell them what we do at Simply Learn and what we are trying to achieve through this webinar. So at simply learn we help learners transform their lives by empowering them through digital skills and we do these through different courses across different fields and we have uh helped over 15 million learners advance their careers across 150 plus countries and we do these through global partnerships. So on the screen right now you can see some of our key partners. So so these are some of our key university and industry partners. So you can see Google, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, uh and universities like Michigan, uh University of um Calpali University, Virginia Tech and a lot more. So these are some of just a few of our partners. You can definitely move on to go to our website and take a look at all of the courses that we provide for more context. And uh now uh these are just some of the numbers that we wanted to highlight. So most of our learners have reported a 50% salary hike on completion of courses with us and we have also been rated 4.8 out of five by most of our learners. So this clearly talks about the kind of experience that you can expect with us through webinars and also if you decide to join us for any of the courses right with that I think I will move on to the agenda for today's webinar. Uh so I will quickly walk everyone through what we're going to cover. Uh so we will start by understanding the new reality of the big tech hiring in 2026. What's changing? Why the hiring bar is rising and what's creating this massive shift in the industry. From there we'll break down what top companies actually evaluate in engineers today beyond coding skills. And then we will also decode the big tech interview process and the hidden scoring rules that most candidates never realize are behind are being evaluated during interviews. Then we will move into the practical side and we have a 90-day road map to crack top SD roles strategies to build industry ready full stack and AI skills and a lot more for all of you here. And finally we will also share some powerful AI tools towards the end and this is going to be a bonus segment. So if you stay with us till the very end, we are going to help you with some tips which you can use to create very impactful resumes. With that I think I'm coming to the most exciting part for me as a host uh to introduce our guest speaker for today's webinar. So joining us is Deep Achara and he's currently a software engineer at Microsoft with previous experience at Cisco and Oracle. Deep works extensively in areas like backend engineering, distributed systems, AI, augmented development workflows and also developer productivity which makes his perspective incredibly relevant in today's uh webinar. And what I really appreciate about Deep's journey is that it reflects what modern engineering excellence actually looks like today. Not just the coding skills but uh systems thinking, adaptability and a lot more. And I think the right person to talk about this is Deep. Uh it's wonderful to know about his journey and I'm sure all of you are waiting to hear more from him. So Deep could you please introduce yourself to everyone and tell us a little bit about your journey? How you got to Microsoft? I'm sure everyone's waiting to hear. Hi uh hi good to be here actually. I'll just start with a small introduction about myself. So so I have around six years of experience. I had an opportunity to work with companies like Cisco, Oracle and one few of the startups and currently I'm working in Microsoft where I'm more focused on building scalable distributed systems along with I also had an opportunity to work on many AI automations and learn a lot about AI and how the thing how things are changing along with the industry. So yeah. Yes. Uh thank you so much uh Deep. It's wonderful to have you with us. I'm sure a lot of you have questions also around uh what work is like at Microsoft. This is something that we get a lot but we will definitely go into that. So uh let's start with something that's actually defining the tech industry in 2026. So we are seeing a massive surge in software engineering demand like for fortune 500 companies alone are reporting a 27% year-on-year growth in hiring for software engineers. uh and at the very same time acceptance rate uh at elite companies have also dropped below 1%. And maybe most importantly out of all of this uh there's 74% of hiring managers now say that they prioritize engineers who can effectively work with AI and AI augmented development workforce. So uh while opportunities are increasing the page the expectations from engineers are evolving even faster. So they're not just asking can you code but they are thinking about can you build think and adapt and leverage AI effectively as well. So um uh from your perspective can you talk to us about the hiring paradox what people can expect is especially people who are transitioning into this field and also for people who are trying to get into companies what does the hiring look like now. So usually when we think about hiring right what we think is that if the number of openings is greater in the market that means it is easier to get a company but and if if the number of openings is less then it's very difficult the hiring bar must be very high. I although I agree it changes with the demand which is there but it's not like that if the there are too many openings which are there with a company the company's going to lower their bar they are never going to lower their bar they want they'll keep on looking they'll even stop uh filling that position rather than filling it with someone who doesn't meet their criteria so what I see is we should not always try to correlate the number of openings with the bar that a company is going to ask it it is always better to do your due diligence and research about the company's bar and understand what kind of engineer they they're looking for and rightly like you said that the expectations have shifted a lot right now it's not just about whether you can code or not because coding AI agents are able to do I I feel at at least at par with what a beginner level engineer or even a mid-level experience guy is going to do right so the expectation is how well you are able to understand with the business scenarios which are out there with the which the customers are seeing which your customers who are going to use your software are going to uh get into and how well you are able to cater to their needs. So it's more about your role has shifted from just coding to designing a system which actually will bring impact to your customers right um those are some great insights and I think like you mentioned it's a lot of other aspects as well and because of that there is also a divide um a lot of uh new roles are coming up uh the demand is also high but in elite companies you see that only 1% is probably getting selected even though there are openings So uh can you talk to us about how the market has bifocated into these two dimensions and how one can probably cross from a midair company to an elite company and uh what the differences are also between both. Yeah. So when when we are usually looking for a mid-tier company or uh like I'll not call them midtier or high tier because every company is a good company but uh that way if you're looking at it but in that sense what they are looking for is someone who can you know code or you can uh who can work on things when they are directed well right but what other companies or the bigger bigger companies or the big tier companies are looking for they are looking for someone who can drive things who doesn't need a lot of interaction or lot of uh you know handholding they can work on their own they can create stuff they can think if uh they are designing something so for example let's say you're designing a system and you are told that okay you have to write this this this code then that anyone can write that that that is not their expectation their expectation is when you're designing it you should be able to think of some what can go wrong right what what can be the new things that we can introduce so that our customers uh are enriched they they are actually feeling yeah yeah yeah we are getting something out of it right something like that and it's not just about using AI it's about you how well you use AI AI is nothing but at the end of the day it's nothing just a tool right at the end if if you look at it from the beginning right computers had came computers were there it it was very impactful but the one who used computer well was in demand not just someone who knew okay I can click here I can click that it's more You you can use AI anyone can give a prompt but how well you can give a prompt how well you can utilize all the features that it has and how well you're able to think of injecting it somewhere that is what makes you more valuable at yes um thank you for that and thank you for also giving us perspective on to how AI makes a difference because like you said it's not just being AI is a tool it's also about how effectively you use it. Uh that also brings me uh to the very next segment that we wanted to cover uh and that is the interview decoded what to expect in a big tech SD interview and I'm sure this question you would have received it from your friends as well. This is something we hear a lot commonly with people. Uh so could you explain the interview process to all of our participants here? What can they expect? How does it usually go? Sure. So first of all there's a recruiter screening call. So the recruiter if they if you're res resume gets shortlisted right so all this happens when your resume is shortlisted so first stage is that is stage zero right that you you have to create your resume such that it meets the expect job level expectations and you are able to portray the skills that yes I will be good fit for this role okay once your resume gets shortlisted then you get a recruiter training call so this is a standard process in almost every company it's not just any company specific so whatever we are covering is not just only specific to one company it is going to be specific to almost every big company which is out there. Right? So it's like they will call you, they'll try to understand the recruiter is like a gatekeeper. They are trying to understand hey what is what are the skills that you have whether they are fit for us or not because they know what is the requirement. So then only you will proceed to the next round right. So then after that is done they send usually send an u online assessment oar round we call it and uh in that you are asked for u you can so it's a little divided okay again that depends on the company to company and it can that that is where your due diligence pays off right so you can get more information what type of question gets asked in which round like in online assessment some question some companies only ask DSA questions some might ask DSA plus SQL some might ask MCQ Q type of things plus DSA or something like that some combination of questions might be there right so that is where your online assessment gets completed once you clear that then there is a technical phone screening like the name is technical phone screening but it doesn't happen on phone it happens like on a Google meet or any kind of uh video conferencing tool where they ask you to solve a problem right now this shift had I I've seen that shift happening like even in the other companies that are there that it's not just about DSA so they might even you know take a longer phone screen round where they can uh start asking you like okay I I've given you this code right how can you review it I've given you this um how do I put it uh a system that you have to build like a low-level system how do you create that it can be a machine coding round as well so again that depends on company to company then there is a system design earlier system design was not expected from a fresher so there was a very low expectation from pressure but that expectation has gone up a lot. I mean now system design is one of the most important and critical stages of interview because without that they will definitely not hire any company will not hire because if you cannot understand your system it's very difficult for you to interact because coding AI will be able to do but you should be know knowing how system is working right so that is where your system design comes into picture then there is your uh behavioral round or managerial round where they want to see whether you're a good fit for the team or not because let's say if you're a great engineer, you can build stuff, you can use AI, you can create uh awesome stuff, but you cannot work with a team. Then that all of that is uh useless. You'll not be able to you you're bringing down the culture of the team. So that that is one of important rounds. Many people think that okay this is just a name sake of round but it's not actually it's important even that uh even Google is very particular about these rounds. They call it googliness round right and they are very particular about this round and they reject candidates for this round and Amazon also does the same. They have their bar razor round which is almost like a behavioral round behavior round plus technical but it's very important for them. They have rejected candidates who have cleared five rounds of interview and uh failed on bar razor. So that can happen right it so it's very uh important and say so bar razor and behavioral can collide it can be separated so things like that can happen it depends on the company what process they want to follow at that time also your research if because if you research properly you'll know what type of rounds the company is going to ask and what you can expect from that and that way if you're unprepared for something and you go into that you have a very high chance of fumbling out you will be uh confused. You will take some time. There will be a lot of buffer. But if you're prepared for it, it's going to go smooth, right? Um thank you so much for helping us understand all the steps that are involved in an interview and how one can also prepare for the same. Uh but there's a lot more that goes behind this interview and also especially when it comes to the evaluation of a candidate. uh so mostly the difference is how uh candidates communicate how they structure their thinking handle trade-offs and also respond under pressure like you mentioned it's not just about the technical aspects of an interview so uh deep can you help us unpack some of these hidden scoring rules that are out there that most candidates completely miss and they don't think about it while preparing for the interview sure uh so what happens is when you have a recruiter's training you try to be as polite as you can. You just try to put okay you you'll give very generic answer. You do not want to give any answers that might be taken in wrong direction. But that is not the right approach. If you're just saying that I want to grow then there's a good chance that they might think okay you are not giving the right answers and if you you're if you're trying to sugarcoat something that why you are trying to leave a company and you're just trying to sugarcoat that uh by giving a very generic answers then they they can catch that right. So always be honest first of all first most important thing is being honest and this is for all all the rounds. If you do not know something, you should feel free to say okay I do not know it but I feel this is the way that it might work right and the second is communication and your technical skills are there definitely but if you are not if you're let's say giving a very good solution but you're not explaining what why that solution works why you're doing something that way then it is not bringing any clarity because the thing is they are not just trying to look for a candidate who can do stuff. They are also looking for someone who is going to work with the team and in your day-to-day life you're not just going to work alone that there's a whole team right so you have to communicate with people that is one of the main parts of your job description. So you should always have clarify clarify clarify whenever you're making any decision clarify why you are doing that you you should keep people in the loop right you should think out loud why I'm doing something and uh one one more thing that I've seen is that when people are solving DSA or any problem for that matter they always try to solve it in the most optimal way to begin with but if you're trying to solve it in the most optimal way then one thing is you have broken the pattern in which things should have gone I mean if you give a working solution in the beginning then optimize on top of that then that basically means that you have already solved the problem but you're just optimizing on top of that but if you're just uh focusing a lot on solving that in the most optimal way and not giving any solution working solution at the end that's a big no no because you have to have a working solution at hand right and similar things apply for almost every other interview when you are giving a behavioral round you should try to be honest and you should try to use that star method like you are putting a situation which is actually which you have already faced and then you're trying to reason that okay this happened this this is what I did this is how I solved it this is how I overcame it right and stuff like that so that is true for almost every round so you you have to be honest and clarify every decision that you're taking why you're doing something like that right um thank you for pointing out all of these um aspects deep I'm sure a lot of us would have not thought about these aspects also and it doesn't always come because you think that technical aspects are what matter but like you mentioned a lot of other things that we have to keep in mind and I think that brings us uh to the next very important segment what big tech really evaluates you did mention a few points in the previous slide but it would be great if you could go into depth about how interviewers actually score candidates and could could to just give uh some pointers that they can keep in mind while they are preparing for their next interview. Sure. So let's start with uh system design only right actually let's start with DSA. So when you're solving some because that is the flow in which your interviews are going to progress. So if you're solving a DSA question then uh so let's say your your your problem requires Q's right. So if you just start using Q's without explaining why you are using Q without explaining uh how that is going to benefit and how what problem it is going to solve. I'm not saying that okay focus all your time in explaining stuff you you can explain while you're coding right so keep on uh letting people keeping people in the loop okay I'm doing this this is going to solve that and once you are able to solve it you can they they can ask questions like what if there are some edge cases how are you going to answer that so you should be thinking of the edge cases which might occur in your code you should understand your code first right that so Since you you have written it then you understand it but you should be also be able to explain okay this might break here and this is how I'm going to fix it or if you have already fixed it you can just say hey hey there was a problem that I noticed would have happened in this code that is why I've added this check so that it doesn't fail right that basically gives uh the understanding that you know your stuff right then uh let's come to system den that that that is the most ne most probable next round which might come in terms of the hierarchy so if are uh let's say designing some system which require which does not require a cache but since you are following a framework hey I I have seen that in a video that uh almost every system uses a cache I'm just going to add it there that doesn't make any sense you uh when you were discussing the requirements with your interviewer you saw that okay according to the numbers which were given to me I do not require a cache or I do not require to scale then also if you're doing Then the interviewer gets the understanding. Okay. So this candidate is just following a um pre-recorded or pre map uh scenario that he had in mind. He has not actually spent time to understand the system because whatever you do is has one or other trade-off. Okay. If you are introducing some new thing that is going to involve cost and if you're without understanding the stuff you're just introducing for the name sake then you are basically breaking the cost which is not going to apply in a actual environment or an actual production environment right so keeping all these things in mind is definitely going to help and there are many other things which are which are related to like clarifying the requirements to begin with do not start directly jump into uh you know solving stuff so that I'll just start creating the design and I'll clarify my requirements later that that's not going to work because you'll have to do a rework which is more expensive and if you follow this uh pattern in an actual uh environment when you are actually in a company then that is that is going to be very expensive because you are a resource who is getting paid in in an interview it is okay but what they are seeing is if you can do this in an interview that means you're going to do do the same in an actual environment that should not give that signal right and there is already uh one related to communication. I think I've uh said a lot about communication that we need to clarify clarify clarify. So I'm not going to go much deeper into this communication part and uh when it comes to AI uh just saying that hey I have built something using AI is not going to fly you have to explain what was the problem that you're going to solve what was the issue that you u solved with it what were the decisions that you took why why was an AI actually needed there because what happens is because AI is now a buzz word what what we try to do is we just try to push AI into everything. Now that that is not right you AI should AI is like a tool if you need it then only use it because it has a cost associated again right so if you do not need it it is not solving any purpose then do not push it because someone or other is going to understand he let's say I was building a system which was just calculating some numbers it was doing some operation on numbers and I'm saying hey I have inserted AI AI is doing that now that doesn't make sense That thing you could have easily handled with code but you're pushing AI unnecessarily. So something like that when you're creating projects do not use AI just for the name sake of it. Use it when it is required when it when it actually adds some value to it right and then if you are actually building some product projects then try to build some AI related projects because I think they are much in demand and they are going to help you in your resume as well. Now when culture from culture aspects they might ask questions like uh how have you seen this kind of scenario happen before and all these things right? So you can just use star methods and basically try to be as polite as you can and uh but polite but honest I mean honesty is not gone. You have to be honest that okay but you should not come off as uh someone who is you know rude or arrogant something like that. So you have to keep your keep that also in mind or you have to balance out balance out things right um that was this was an incredible framework deep I think there were some very important insights that you shared I'm sure it's extremely valuable and one aspect I noticed clearly is um more than how they put it across it's also how they think during an interview and even post the interview uh that uh affects a lot of them during the hiring and even after that in the for their growth in organization. So when you watch candidates approach a design problem or when you are hiring someone, what are some of the thinking patterns or behaviors that immediately signal to you or anybody else who's interviewing that this person can operate at a very high engineering level or can handle this task? So uh how how does that work? Could you talk to us about that? Sure. So let let's just uh say when you are designing a system, right? If you are able to in order to understand anything new you need clarification questions. If you're not asking questions that means you are not trying to understand the problem. If you're understanding the problem then you know pitching in with your solutions. Hey can should we also consider this scenario? Should we also consider that if something like this happens then what we are going to do? So these are not just questions that you're asking. You're also giving the interview an insight key. Hey what if this happens? How are we going to handle or should we even handle it? Even if the interviewer says no, you do not need to handle it right now. But that signals that hey, you can think at a product level. You can think of a bigger picture, right? So it's not just you're not just doing what is directed to you. You're also thinking of things holistically. That is what is very important in the system designs. And when you're pro solving any problems the again the whole thing is you should not directly jump to the question you should not just start coding and then you know backtrack have a clear pathway okay I'm going to do this this this and this way it is going to say solve not that okay I will start doing it and then oh I I faced a problem here let me backtrack now backtracking is not good backtracking I mean not the BSA concept but backtracking as a as in uh reworking yourself so that is not good So you should always have a proper flow in mind and follow that flow and that clearly you follow always every system or anything that you design or anything that you do is always going to have some trade-offs. So anything in life right anything in life is going to have a trade-off actually. So you should be clear that okay this is this is the pros of this approach and these are some of the cons but I feel these cons will not be a problem for us because we can live with it right. So things like that if we do then that is going to help a lot right right um and I think all of these points are equally relevant and what it uh signifies is about the clarity of thought the decision making that's involved and how people operate under uncertainty that that could be the thing that impacts the most uh another aspect that we spoke about previously and you also emphasized on it quite a lot is communication and you did mention some points but I have a follow-up question to you on So why has communication become such a critical differentiator in technical interviews uh today and what do top candidates do differently when they're thinking out loud during high pressure rounds? Could you uh talk to us about that? Sure. So communication is a lot important because so interview is not just for selecting a candidate. It is a way of a company judging whether you'll be able to work in an actual environment. Right? So when you come in come in an actual environment, you're not going to work alone, right? You are going to work with a team. A team is usually larger audience. It it has more than at least two people, right? So you are going to work with someone. If you're working with someone and you're not able to properly defend your idea or you're not properly able to convey that why I'm doing something the way I'm doing it, right? Then what what is going to happen is there will be a lot of confusion in the team. Nobody knows what is happening. Nobody understands what is happening. And then someone might be expecting that you are doing X but you're doing Y. And then when that goes into production X doesn't Y doesn't work. X X X uh was not implemented. Now everybody's confused what happened. You you will be saying okay I said that I'm going to do Y but you did not properly communicate it. you the person who was in front of you does did not understand right. So that's uh going to be a big problem. So that is why communication is lot more important in interviews nowadays because earlier it was okay you were working on a small feature and you were given a small task and all your job was to do the coding and code can be reviewed using code reviews but if now your job description has grown you you're not just working on a code you're working on a segment you're working on a feature you're developing it end to end you're making it work with other components so that has changed because of because since that expectation ation has changed. So now your communication has become a lot more important. Now you want someone who can you know uh properly clarify things who can take a st stand or who can uh make people understand why they are doing something the way they are doing it. Right? So the best way of doing it is uh in in a system design interview is to have a clear uh chat in the beginning that okay these are some of the things that I'm going to do. these are some of the things that I'm going to consider while I'm while I'm designing and when you're designing it uh say okay hey these were the things that we had planned now my system is actually able to do the these these things there are few things that we are not able to do it right now but this is what we are going to change in my system so that I am able to uh do that in future not in future I'm going to change this so that we can accommodate the other things which are not working right these things we we can do it in case of a system design and let's say if we are introducing some new resource we are just going to say hey this resource I'm just not introducing if I say hey I'm going to add radius right that's just me saying that I'm going to do it I'm not going to clarify why I'm doing it I'm just going to do it that's not something which should be done I should make someone understand that hey I'm I'm adding this because this is the benefit that this is going to bring this is the problem that it is going to solve and this is the best way of doing it we can give them some few more options. Hey, instead of using this, we could have used this. We could have used that. Right? That way we could and but at the end we are defending. Okay, the why the reason why I'm choosing the this over other options is because this is the best one. This is the most suitable for our needs, right? And if you look at uh problem solving or uh you know any other round, the same thing applies there as well. You're just defending the choices that you're making. So there are multiple ways of doing something there. So even if you're you have a DSA problem there's a brute force way there is an optimal version one there is an optim optimal version two all these things are there right but the way which option ch suits best for your need the the way you communicate that hey this is an option this is this might be lesser than uh less optimal than option two which is out there but why I'm choosing this is because it is the most suited for getting implemented in the timebound environment that we are in. No. Now the uh the if you had tried implementing option two without giving any proper justification and it was the best code which is out there then you then also you cannot guarantee but if you're doing an option one with proper justification hey this is my thinking that that is why I'm doing something like this then you have a much higher chances than doing something which was way optimal without any proper clarification. So yeah yeah those were some great points I'm sure that they learned a lot about how they can structure their answers and communicate effectively during their interview process and why it is such a very crucial aspect uh for anyone in this field. That leads me uh to the one of the other most important segments for today's webinar that's the AI skills and the new hiring bar. So like you mentioned earlier AI is definitely a tool but now uh most engineers are required to collaborate and work with it effectively. So could you talk to us about how the hiring landscape is changing with AI and the impact of AI and how they can use this in how can they uh effectively mention how how skilled they are in AI during an interview or even at their works. Okay. So uh like you have mentioned right four stages of AI or uh let's say just four stages that you can be when using AI. So first is that you're AI dependent you're just u doing all the task using AI you even do not understand how that code is working. So when someone ask you hey how was that feature implemented you are saying oh I do not know I'll have to check AI I'll have to check the code or even I'll have to ask uh AI to explain me that now that is something which is making you u a lot dependent if tomorrow let's say cloud goes down or any of the AI tool which you are using goes down then you will be stuck you'll not be able to deliver anything even you let's let's even not take the delivery right now that is a smaller problem. The bigger problem is let's say if that feature goes into production and it starts breaking now you have to resolve it otherwise the customers are stuck you'll not be able to resolve it because AI is down you do not know what it did now you have to first understand okay what had what had happened what I had done and you are just blindly trusting it now blind trust is not good that is why even when AI was not there we had a hierarchy of humans right we had some senior level folks who reviewing what the junior poke is doing. It's not like uh they do not trust them. It was just a gate gate gatekeeping kind of thing that they are making sure that nothing bad gets shipped. Right? So the same thing you have to do with AI. Now you have to be the gatekeeper. You have to understand what it is doing. Right? Now the second stage is now let's just say okay now I understand what AI is doing. I understand what the code is writing. I'm able to use copilot to or any any tool which is out there not just specifically copilot I'm using that tool to enhance my productivity I'm just writing code using that that is good that is good but it's not the best way of using it right there are so many things that you can do it's u the whole AI landscape is progressing so fast that you have to keep up you have to to today it is only scenario X that you can do tomorrow not and I'm not I'm not just saying tomorrow as if in few years it is just tomorrow literally tomorrow the scenario X might get changed to scenario X and Y and Z I don't know what you can do right so you have to keep on learning you have to keep on uh understanding what more you can do you can build skills on top of it you can you know build new systems subsystems new dev tools on on top of that so that it can help others as well and at the last stage you are now building full-fledged features which features as it's not just have it does not have to be something which grows in production. It has it can be something that is actually resolving something that you the issue that you are facing some mundane task that you were doing and you feel that hey I I I feel drained by doing this task why can't I just make three four AI agents do it one that issue the other is going to verify it the next one is going to you know publish it or do what it needs to needs to be done so that is where now you have uh not you're not just using AI for your personal use you're also making it such that it is going to impact others in your team it is going to impact their the way they are working in uh in they are working and the way it has uh helped them resolve some of the or resolve some of the mundane task that they do not want to do or you do not want to do right if if you are feeling that task is a mundane then someone someone else also might be doing that so that is the right way of using it right Thank you for sharing that framework with us about AI fluency and how one can get to this stage. Uh but I think for most engineers watching this today and understanding your perspective on AI, another question that would probably uh cross their mind would be how do they demonstrate their AI skills in an interview or a project and in rums to get them shortlisted for companies like Microsoft. uh so could you talk to us on how they can effectively show this or display this in their interview or uh in their resume? Sure. So it's not just about Microsoft. It is about all the companies, right? So we can say that now AI is a buzz word. It's not just one company is looking for an AI engineer or someone who can work with AI. All the companies are looking for someone who can use it at some level. Right? So the best way to showcase it in your resumes is that you build a good project out of it and not just a project which just puts AI for the main sake of it. You're using uh it so that it actually solves some problem. It it doesn't have to be a problem that everyone is facing. It has to be something which you are facing which you are uh which you were doing and you feel felt that oh this can be automated this can be done using some of the AI tools even that is good enough right so using that is good and if you're uh in an interview and let's say you have AI interview round um so in that case what you can do is let's say there are some machine coding rounds in which the company has started allowing the use of because they want to keep it as close as the actual work that you're going to uh so what you can do is when you are generating stuff using AI I'm not saying that generating code using AI is bad it's great that is the value ad right you have to use that but you have to also understand what has happened you have to understand because AI is not a god it's it's at the end of the day it's a machine it might give you bad suggestions it might say it might say things that are good from its context but it doesn't understand the whole picture. That is where having your fundamentals clear is going to help. If you do not have your fundamentals clear, then you'll not be able to catch the problems that AI is actually generating. You'll not be able to properly review what AI has generated. So having your fundamentals clear is definitely going to help. And having said that, you need to understand that not everything that comes out of AI is good. You have to, you know, uh segregate stuff. You have to make sure that everything uh that is getting shipped not just generated is um secure. It's secure and actually good. So you have to be the gatekeeper. That is the main thing that everyone is looking for. Now not that whether you are able to gateep stuff or not. If you're just blindly trusting it then that can be dangerous. So that that is one thing that I I feel that we can keep things in mind. Yes. U Thank you. Thank you for that. argument does clarify how they can potentially use this in an interview. Um, another very important part of hiring that often gets overlooked is the cultural side of evaluation because beyond technical skills and AI fluency that we spoke about, top companies are also constantly asking will this person rise raise the standard of the team? How does he fit into the team? Uh, so how does that work? So could you talk to us about how important the cultural aspect is and how they can prepare themselves for the cultural round during their interview? Sure. So uh almost every company has their own set of values that they uh you know that they promote or that they think is actually needed. So I feel you can find the values on any company's website like even Atlassian has that, Google has that, every company has it and they uh directly portray that okay these are some of the things that we value the most. So some some companies might be looking for engineers who can uh you know rapidly build stuff. Some might be looking uh someone who is not a jerk. Not a jerk means you should not make people feel bad about the decisions that they are making. So all these things they they are looking for you should first understand what is the thing that the company is actually looking for and then try to portray those skills that uh not skills those qualities quality is the right word there those qualities are in within you you should find uh some opportunities to portray that so let's say uh if someone is asking uh you some question related to your previous experience you can showcase hey uh I was doing this in my previous experience and I feel that is the one good way in which I handled and I feel it resonates with your company's culture. It resonates with the values that your company promotes. So that that is giving two signals. First you have researched about the company which is all anyway every time it's a good thing because without knowing the company if you're just giving an interview that doesn't give a good signal. The second is you are actually showcasing how you are going to fit into the bigger picture. How you're going to fit in the team. So keeping all these things in mind is a good thing I think. Yes. Uh so thank you for breaking down these aspects so clearly Tesh. I think this gives everyone a much clear clearer picture of what big companies actually value beyond coding skills. We covered a lot of aspects now and I think everyone has a fairly good idea of what they can expect how they can prepare themselves. Uh that brings me to the next segment that's a 90-day action plan to position yourself for a big tech SDA role. So we have a lot of uh developers here who are working in multiple companies and I've also received a few questions on YouTube as well about how uh they can position themselves and how they can move if there's an action plan that they can effectively use. So could you uh walk them through that what can they do in the next 90 days to change uh their currents? Sure. So uh I think what has been mentioned is actually correct way of doing stuff. So first way is the foundations. We need to have a very good foundation because uh like I said with AI and other tools coming in the foundation is the core which is going to save you right. It is this one thing that will make sure that yes even after using uh even with AI you are actually understanding what is there and you're shipping which is which is actually good only you're not just shipping anything because if you do not understand fundamentals even if you try to review it you'll not be able to catch problems you'll just say okay this looks good to me let's ship it but if you have fundamentals you'll understand hey this might break okay this is where it is wrong all these things will help right so start solving lead code questions because lead code it's not just about uh you know DSA it's also about opening your mind if you are solving something some problem then you understand okay I might you I might need this data structure okay so I need to understand how this data structure works so stuff like that comes into your mind and that is going to help you a lot and since uh AI is something which is upcoming so you should understand how it is actually working I'm not saying go deep into the system design of AI I'm that at least understand what it is doing in order to generate stuff or what it is doing uh in order to get things to you right. What are some of the core uh things that or context that it requires? What is the best way of context uh talking to it? It's not like just talking to a human because humans have a way of understanding stuff even when things are unsaid. We can get it from the how do I put it the tone and from many many smaller things we can understand from the context which is given to us even if it is smaller but that is not the case for AI you have to be very clear we have you have to be very specific so things like that you can uh start doing first then you can uh you know start uh working on the system design aspects you can you know um try try to get more and more information about how you can do stuff and mock interviews and all are the best way of preparing because it's a time bound environment. You're actually getting the actual feel of an interview. So because let's say if I prepare for something and I do not have a time management skill which I have acquired because I have not actually given that then what will happen is when the first time I give it I will I do know how to solve that. I do know the best approach. I do know the best way of doing it but I'm not able to do it within that specific amount of time. Now that is not going to get me selected right so that is something that I think we can focus and the last part is you we can give uh full-on mock interviews practice the stuff that we have done already you know start researching so research actually is not just a phase three thing research is also good for phase two because phase one is where you're not targeting something you're not targeting a specific company phase two is you have a clear goal in mind okay I'm going to give this this this company's interview then research is going to help you a lot there. So have a proper research and all these things so that you can you know get a proper understanding of what all you need to actually focus on. So these are all the things that I think we can do that would be great. All right. Now thank you for explaining the road map very clearly. So uh now all of you know what you can possibly do in the next 90 days to effectively uh upgrade your resume or uh increase your chances of getting an interview. Right now we also got a lot of questions uh from a lot of participants from today's webinar. A few of them who are not from uh a software engineering background. So if they're completely new to this field uh how can they effectively transition uh could you share some tips for them as well? Okay. So let's say uh you are completely transitioning from a different industry altogether. Then first the foundations are definitely the first thing that you'll have to target because without that you'll not be able to understand anything which is above that. So first thing is that you need to start with the foundation. You can you know um get some courses which are going to guide you into the guided preparation. I think one of the courses that uh we are also uh the that is going to get pitch uh that is going to get talked about in the upcoming things are going to help. So because a structured plan is anyways going to help because if you just start picking things randomly hey I'm going to start DSA I'm going to start uh looking into this data structure. I'm going to start system design. You do not have a proper structure in mind. You're just hitting all the stones and it's not going to land on land on anything. So you need to have a structured map in front of you. Okay. For uh for properly understanding Y, I need to have a proper understanding of X. Without X, I'll never be able to understand Y. You'll be able to memorize Y but memorizing and understanding are two different aspects. So having a proper road map that after X I'll do Y, I'll do Zed, then I'll do something else that is going to help. So having that proper road map is definitely going to help that is the key thing. Yeah. Yes. Um all right. Uh so I think with that we have covered most of the aspects in today's webinar. We have a bonus segment waiting for you. But before that we just wanted to quickly take you through uh the course that we are providing on how to become a fullstack developer. Um and this is an AI powered fullstack developer program. So I'll just quickly walk you through what makes this program relevant in today's hiring market. Uh so first as you can see on the screen this is built in collaboration with Microsoft Azure which means that the curriculum is aligned with industry expectations. So these are not just academic concepts and that's important because companies today are hiring developers who can actually build and deploy modern applications like Deep spoke about in the previous slides. Uh one of the biggest advantages here is also the project uh focused learning approach that we have at Sentry Learn. So you're not just going to be watching tutorials. You will be working on capstone projects and 60 plus hands-on projects across different industries. So this kind of practical exposure is what helps learners move from um I've learned it to I can confidently build with it. I think that's the kind of confidence that you would need to get into a role in one of the top tech companies out there. Another key area is the portfolio building approach that we have. So in today's market, résumés alone are not enough. Recruiters and and hiring managers want proof of skill and this program helps learners build a strong GitHub portfolio with dynamic applications that can actually showcase during interviews. And of course, one of the most relevant aspects for 2026 hiring is the focus on AI powered development skills and that is also covered in our program. So uh you'll learn how to work with tools like charging PT, GitHub copilot, code whisperer, hugging face which is uh becoming increasingly important as companies expect developers to work effectively with AI assisted workflows these days. And uh finally if I have to talk about the program uh we have 100 plus hours of live online training. Uh so like I mentioned this is not going to be recorded session. So you can be in class with a lot of peers, get all of your uh questions clarified. Uh so overall the goal of this program is not just to teach you coding but to learn industry relevant full stack developer skills with uh AI right and that is going to give you a uh an advantage over others who don't have have that skill. So when it comes to the learning path of the program um it this is designed in a very logical industry relevant progression. So if you take a uh take a look at the screen you can see that you will start with fundamentals of front-end development and core programming concepts. Then you will gradually move into react backend development with uh NodeJS and express databases uh which are all essential skills for modern full stack rules. Uh but what makes the stand out is the integration of generative AI throughout the journey. So from AI fundamentals to using generative AI for coding optimization and even for software testing and finally everything comes together through a capstone project. So like I mentioned earlier we focus a lot on your projects. So this is where you are going to apply your learning in a real world project environment and this is something that you are going to show uh during your uh interviews as well. Uh so overall this is not just a teaching isolate it's not just about teaching some technology it's helping learners build a complete modern pullstack developer skill set that is relevant in today's market and can get you hired in uh some of the top tech companies out there. So uh these are some of the skills that are covered as a part of this program. I'm definitely not going to go deep into any of these aspects. you will get more details about this the uh learning path what is covered all the pointers and the skills and tools um in our course page. So I will also share the QR code for the course page in the coming slides. So you can scan the QR or we will also be sharing the deck with all of you. So you can scan the QR and go to our website and take a look at the course what we provide uh how your learning path looks like and uh the impact it would have on your career as well. Uh so from that with that I'm going to move on to the program investment uh for this course. So for in uh Indian learners the course fee is 53,999 rupees and you have the option to pay this in installments as low as 2,418 per month and for US learners uh the course fee is $1,449 and uh you also have the option to pay this in installments. uh so consider this as an investment and uh you will be able to be an AI powered full stack developer in the coming months. So it's a great opportunity and if you are someone who would like to know more about this and you would want more details um uh because this is a webinar we can't go into depth on those aspects. So I'm going to quickly launch a poll and you can click on a yes if you would like to get more details about the program. our program advisor will reach out to you um by tomorrow morning. Uh so please click on a yes if you are interested. Uh so yeah I hope all of you are able to see the poll. Great. Um and I can see a few questions. How about people starting again after a career break? You can either upskill using uh courses like this AI powered full stack developer program or uh you can also follow the 90day path that uh deep mentioned some time back. Uh so yeah there are multiple ways and I can also ask pass this question on to deep in the Q&A section. So I'm just going to keep this poll live for another minute and then we will move on to the very next segment and that is how you can build an effective resume that is going to help you get an interview in these top 10 tech companies. In the meantime, if you guys have any other questions, please feel free to uh share your questions in the Q&A section. We will in the Q&A box. We will take this up in the next five minutes. So we won't be extending this more than that. All right. So this there's this QR code as well. So please feel free to scan this QR. This will take you to the course page. Um or you can go to Simply Learn website and search for the course. There will be an option to talk to the advisor because I have to stop this poll right now. So if this poll is not visible to all of you or if you still want if you're thinking about it and would like more details about the program, you can definitely go to the post page. Right. Uh so with that I think we are moving on to our bonus segment for everyone who stayed back with us till the very end. uh so uh this is basically how you can build a resume that will get you an interview and uh Deep is going to share some tips with all of you and a few tools that you can probably use. So I'm just going to pass this on to Deep. Deep you can take over. Sure. Uh thanks. So one of the key things that when we are building a resume is one of the biggest problems that I see is that when we are uh submitting our resumes to the companies right we are just we just have one generic resume and we keep on submitting it for every company which is out there. There's a saying right one size does not fit all. So the same goes for a resume. Why why would one resume be relevant for all the job descript job descriptions which are out there? So you have to tailor make your resumes for each company. It's not like your one resume is going to work in every Yeah. Hello. Uh yes. Uh sorry. I think there was a problem on my side. Oh okay. Okay. I thought my internet connection was fluctuating. Okay. Uh yeah. So like I was saying so one resume is not going to work for all the companies. You need to tailor make your resumes for each job description. Right. And the other thing is when we are uh writing our experiences we usually try to say that hey this was the task I did this was the thing that I did. So that doesn't showcase your impact that that doesn't showcase that what was the problem you solved what was something which you achieved by doing that task. So always having some numbers in mind I not just saying that I improved this uh latency of my product. You can say I improved the latency of my product by doing so and so by this many percentage. You know a number backing your claim is going to have a bigger impact than just having a claim that hey I improved the latency because uh what can happen is the interviewer might think hey if you're just saying that you improved the latency then it might be the case that you just improved it by 1%. Or you improved it by 5%. Which doesn't make any sense. So you have to you know have some numbers which are backing your claim and most of the companies they uh you know re review your resumes or audit your resumes using some softwares. Nobody has that much amount of time that they are going a recruiter is not going to sit and you know audit all thousand resumes or all the all the thousand uh applications that they're getting. First your resume will go through a software it will uh you know match if you are actually matching the job description or or not and then it is going to pass you along. So having a ATS friendly resume is definitely helpful. So having a latex friendly resume or ATX resumes is something which is definitely going to give you a lot of edge. So now I can showcase one of the small AI tools that you can use. I I'll take the control. Yeah, I'm going to stop sharing my screen. Okay. Uh is my screen visible? Yes. You know, uh one of the simple ways of doing stuff is that you can open any AI tool and just provide it your resume and the job description and you know get it done. But now what happens is you're giving the same context again and again. That is where you know the AI stages that we talked about that uh the way you use AI is definitely going to impact. So this is one of the small uh project kind of thing that I had done. So there's an uh opal which is a Google's uh you know kind of uh auto AI framework or AI logic apps kind of thing that they have built. Now what this is doing is I provided all the context whatever work I have done whatever skills I have whatever some of the previous company uh experiences that I have one resume uh latex format that I have right and my current resume. Now all this information it is getting and when I say hey this is the job description for which so here I'm taking that job description as well right from the from I I'm only using it so I'm just giving it myself. So when I when I give that job description to it, it generates resume for me, right? And it it is generating this resume and all the stuff which is mentioned here that is actually coming from my experiences that is actually tailor made and selected for that company's job description. It also gives me this latex code which I can just copy paste and uh create my latex friendly resume which has a higher chances of getting shortlisted because it is at compatible by default and you can do a minor tweak in the formatting that hey the there I can add some space here I can add some space here all these things you can do right so this is the way in which you can actually use AI to uh get stuff done for you and uh make it solve an actual problem for you. So when I when I was going through this uh creation of resume for each company or each job description, it was a lot uh difficult. It it was like I I'm doing that mundane task again and again. I'm just uh going through the job description. I'm going through my experience and I'm just changing the text again and again. Why why do I need to do that? Something like this is definitely going to help me. So this has automated that whole thing. Now I do not need to uh spend a lot of time preparing my resume for that job description. Either I I would rather spend my time preparing for that job instead of that instead of preparing my job uh resume for that job description. So that saves a lot of time for me. It's actually solving my problem. So something like this we can do right. And you can normally use Gemini also. You can provide it uh your resume. You can give it the job description. You can ask it hey is there something wrong with my resume? You can do that way also. But that is something which is uh which you have to do again and again or you can build some automation on top of that which can do it for you. Right. So these things these are some of the tools that we can use in order to u get things done for us. Right. Uh thank you so much for that Deep Those were some amazing tips and I'm sure that if they use these uh tools they can definitely get ahead and get a lot more interviews uh than uh they already have. Uh so with that I think we have uh come to to the end of today's webinar and uh so I will be sharing the certificate poll right now. So for all of you who asked me for the certificate, all you have to do is fill your full name in the poll and uh you will be receiving the slide deck, the recording um and your certificates to your email ID. So please go ahead and share your responses. Um I think James asked me uh if we can share a copy of the PowerPoint. Uh yes, we will definitely do that. Please uh fill up your details in the poll and you will be receiving that within the next 48 working hours. So I just want to emphasize this to all of you that you will be receiving this in the next 48 working hours. If you don't get it in the next two days then you can mail us at [email protected] and we will be sharing all the resources with all of you. And if you uh have any other questions anybody else with uh any questions I think this is the time for you to ask and I can pass these questions on to uh to DH. So please go ahead and ask us if you have any questions. All right. So, I'm going to uh yeah, please don't share your names in the chat uh because we won't be able to the chat is not recorded and hence we won't be able to capture your details. If the poll is not visible to all of you even by chance then you can mail us at webinars simply. U all right. Uh so I'm going to keep this live for another 30 seconds and I think if we don't have any questions I can I'll move on to the next slide. So uh with that I think uh we have come to the end of today's webinar. I can see all of you are filling up the form. I think uh I would like to take this time to actually thank the pesh. Uh it was such a wonderful and insightful uh session. and I thoroughly enjoyed all the details that he shared um some great points and I hope all of you got um an equal amount of value uh from today's webinar as well. Uh and it was great having all of you in today's session. You guys were a great audience, great engagement, some amazing questions and you all shared your responses which was great. Uh so once again if you have any recommendations or if you'd want us to do any kind of webinars that uh please write to us at [email protected]. Again I saw uh some people saying uh you can't see the poll. So here the email id is mentioned webinars simply.net. So in case you haven't filled the poll yet and you want your certificates please mail us and we will make sure that you receive your certificates. I think with that I'm going to end this webinar. It was wonderful having all of you. I really hope to see all of you in the upcoming webinars as well. So I hope all of you have a wonderful evening. Thank you everyone.