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- Computer science graduates are struggling to secure jobs and internships amid increased competition from tech layoffs.
- Recent graduates told BI they have sent hundreds of job applications with little response.
- Some are choosing to pursue a “panic master’s” degree to delay their job search.
A computer science degree has become an increasingly popular choice for students seeking a six-figure job in Big Tech out of college.
However, as the tech industry took a sharp turn from the hiring sprees during the pandemic to mass layoffs, conversations with over a dozen CS majors revealed many are struggling to find full-time roles and internships despite sending out hundreds of applications — sometimes as many as 700.
Now, some are opting for a “panic master’s” instead, delaying their search by getting a graduate degree in the hopes the job market will improve in a year or two.
Samhita Parvatini, who graduated from Penn State University in May, told Business Insider that she entered college during the hiring frenzies of 2021 when computer science degrees were “highly sought out.”
“Every industry needed engineers,” she said. “Everybody said, ‘Oh, it’s one of the most valuable degrees you can get. You can earn so much money, you get a lot of success and career growth.'”
After roughly 250 to 300 applications since her graduation and little success, Parvatini said that the Big Tech landscape felt like it was “becoming the opposite” of what it was five years ago.
Software developer employment largely declined between late 2019 and early 2024, according to data from ADP Research Institute, with some spikes in the second half of 2021 and winter 2022 amid the pandemic hiring spree. Data from Indeed indicates job postings in the software development sector have largely dropped back to pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, videos showing swarms of candidates at job fairs have become an increasingly common sight on social media.
Yahya Bashir, a recent CS graduate from Gustavus Adolphus College, said that his job-hunting experience in the last year has become more arduous.
During his last application cycle in the summer of 2023, Bashir said he often heard back quickly from companies and was invited to several interviews. However, the majority of the roles he applied to this year, which he estimates to be around a hundred, didn’t reply.
“Most of them, you don’t even hear back from them,” Bashir said. “You submit your application, and there’s just nothing.”
Competing against laid-off coders with more experience
Facing low response rates and, in some cases, “ghost job” postings, software engineers fresh out of school are also having to compete with their more experienced peers.
With companies continuing to trim their staff, the tech sector has also faced two years of brutal layoffs. In 2022, over 165,000 employees were cut from a thousand tech companies, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech layoffs. In 2023, the number of layoffs increased to over 264,000. So far in 2024, nearly 150,000 employees have been cut from over 520 tech companies.
With hundreds of thousands of already established tech workers cut loose into the job market, new graduates are facing increased competition for fewer openings.
Emos Ker, a recent graduate from New York University, said that although sub-industries within computer science, like AI and LLMs, are booming as Big Tech invests heavily, these fields often require a higher level of training.
Although more universities like Carnegie Mellon and Columbia are starting to offer AI degrees and programs, Ker said that many institutions are not yet able to provide the specific education needed for more specialized fields like AI.
Looking through a stack of résumés, companies may choose to hire a seasoned Big Tech veteran over a CS graduate who would likely require more guidance.
“With all the tech firings, they’re looking for people who are like midlevel, senior engineers,” Ker said. “And unfortunately, for people like us who want to come out and work in AI, it’s not really easy to get into because you kind of need to train us from the ground up.”
Punting the hunt with a ‘panic’ master’s
Instead of risking being hung out to dry in the job market, several recent computer science graduates told BI that they or their peers have opted to return to the classroom to delay the search.
“The funny thing is, when I started my undergrad, I was very stubborn and was like, ‘Oh, I don’t need a master’s,'” Parvatini said. “‘It’s a CS degree, you know, it’s so valuable.”
A month out from graduation and without a job lined up, Parvatini said she applied for her master’s as a “last-minute decision.”
“I knew that I wasn’t going to go anywhere after graduation,” she said. “So I thought, might as well apply, and we’ll take a couple of classes, you know, do something better with my time during this period.”
Professor David Garlan, the associate dean for Carnegie Mellon’s computer science master’s program, said that while the university hasn’t seen a notable increase in CS grad enrollment, other schools with less selective and extensive programs may experience otherwise.
“It’s definitely true that when the economy has a downturn, people go back to education because they’re not able to find jobs so quickly,” he said. “So there is definitely that trend, overall.”
Enrollment in MIT’s EECS Master of Engineering program increased from 241 students for the 2023-2024 academic year to 303 this academic year — a spike compared to previous years when enrollment stayed relatively consistent in the mid-200s.
A report by the Council of Graduate Schools said that computer science was the “only field to increase in first-time enrollment (5.4%) between Fall 2021 and Fall 2022.”
Ian Hurrel, who is finishing his last semester at Georgia Institute of Technology, said enrolling in the university’s one-year master’s program was largely due to the worsening job market.
“A lot of people, including me, wanted to stay in college one more year to get an internship,” Hurrel said. “It was very much a ‘panic masters’ sort of thing.”
Although computer and information sciences often have lower numbers of graduate enrollment compared to other fields, a report by Burning Glass Institute indicated that 7% of those who earned graduate degrees in CS remained unemployed.
The extra schooling, while costly, can not only buy students time, it can potentially lead to a more employable résumé and higher salary. According to data from PayScale published last year, employees with a master of science degree make an average base salary of $112,000, compared to $72,000 for those with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
‘Perseverance and a little bit of luck’
Despite lower morale among some CS majors, others believe that the tech sector is not as dire as social media portrays it.
Sydney Bishop, a senior at UC Irvine, said despite being unable to land an internship this past summer after over 180 applications, she remains optimistic about the job market.
“I haven’t lost faith that I’ll get a job somewhere,” Bishop said. “It just might not be a cushy tech job that all of us have been raised to think about.”
While tech giants like Google and Microsoft may not be handing out as many opportunities as they did during their hiring peaks, Bishop said that the technical skills of programming are still — and will continue to be — needed within companies.
Hurrel, who was able to land an internship with Amazon this past summer, said that he disagrees with the “fear-mongering” from people online saying computer science is a dying degree.
“I don’t think it’s oversaturated to the point where it will become extremely devalued and not be a worthwhile career anymore,” he said. “I think it’s just going to be harder than it was at the peak to break into it.”
Hurrel added that there are “clearly still jobs” and that several of his peers have also been able to land internships and full-time roles. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of software developers will increase by 18% by 2033.
Samuel Onabolu is one of these newly minted engineers. After what he estimated to be over a thousand applications, he was finally able to land a full time software engineering role four months after graduating from Brock University in May.
“I’m kind of surprised I even got a job so early because there are 2023 grads, 2022 grads that are still looking,” he said. “So I would say it’s just a lot about perseverance and a little bit of luck.”
Onabolu said that while he had been “feeling really depressed” during his unsuccessful job search, he advised other new and incoming grads to prioritize internships and networking events to hopefully get their foot in the door.
“I feel like every CS major is going through the exact process I went through,” he said. “I feel like it just takes that one acceptance, that one offer, to kind of break into that career.”
