Designed for software engineers with less than three years of experience, this Early Engineering Interview course for entry-level software engineers is the boost you need to kickstart your career.
Tech Interview Prep!
Get interview-ready with lessons from FAANG+ engineers
Students who chose to uplevel with IK got placed at
Kishore Periassamy
Software Development Engineer
Harisha Chemuru
Software Engineer
Kelsi Lakey
Software Engineer
Akshay Chandrachood
Software Engineer
Akhil Raveendran
Software Engineer
Pooja Chaudhuri
Software Engineer
Pallavi Yadav
Software Engineer
Anshul Bansal
Software Engineer
Ibrahim Demidrogen
Software Engineer
Yuhuan Fan
Software Engineer
13,500+
Tech professionals trained
$1.267M
Highest offer received by an IK alum
53%
Average salary hike received by alums
Best suited for
Current College students or folks having less than three years of experience trying to get into Tier-1 Tech companies
Software Engineers who want to specialize in DSA and Problem Solving.
Why choose this course?
Program designed by FAANG+ leads
Covering data structures, algorithms, system design, interview-relevant topics, and career coaching
Individualized teaching and 1:1 help
Technical coaching, homework assistance, solutions discussion, and individual session
Mock interviews with Silicon Valley engineers
Live interview practice in real-life simulated environments with FAANG and top-tier interviewers
Personalized feedback
Constructive, structured, and actionable insights for improved interview performance
Career skills development
Resume building, LinkedIn profile optimization, personal branding, and live behavioral workshops
50% Money-Back Guarantee*
If you do well in our course but still don't land a domain-relevant job within the post-program support period, we'll refund 50% of the tuition you paid for the course.*
Our highly experienced instructors are active hiring managers and employees at FAANG+ companies and know exactly what it takes to ace tech and managerial interviews.
Omkar Deshpande
Head of Curriculum
15+ years experience
Learn more
Sanjeev Qazi
Software Engineer
9+ years experience
Learn more
Nick Camilleri
Head of Career Skills Devp. and Coaching
10+ years experience
Learn more
A typical week at Interview Kickstart
This is how we make your interview prep structured and organized. Our learners spend 10-12 hours each week on this course.
Thu
Get Foundation content
Get high-quality videos and course material for next week’s topic
Covers introduction to fundamentals, interview-relevant topics on DSA and problem solving
Attend timed test and review session
1-hour timed test covering essential interview questions on the current week's topics
1-hour timed test review session to discuss the test solution and other best practices
Sun
Attend online live sessions
Attend 5-hour sessions that cover topics from Sorting, Recursion, Trees, Graphs, and Dynamic Programming
A FAANG+ instructor will discuss various coding patterns, coding interview questions, and how to approach these questions
Mon-Wed
Solve coding problems & MCQs
Practice concepts taught in live sessions to solve assignment questions
Attempt MCQs from foundation material to brush up on your learnings
Take help from academic support for your queries related to coding problems and MCQs
Live doubt-solving with FAANG+ Software Engineers by booking a technical coaching session
Every day
1:1 access to instructors
Personalized coaching from FAANG+ Engineers
Individualized and detailed attention to your questions
UpLevel will be your all-in-one learning platform to get you FAANG-ready, with 10,000+ interview questions, timed tests, videos, mock interviews suite, and more.
Mock interviews suite
On-demand timed tests
In-browser online judge
10,000 interview questions
100,000 hours of video explanations
Class schedules & activity alerts
Real-time progress update
11 programming languages
Get upto 9 mock interviews withhiring managers
What makes our mock Interviews the best:
Hiring managers from Tier-1 companies like Google & Apple
Interview with the best. No one will prepare you better!
Domain-specific Interviews
Practice for your target domain - Early Engineering
Detailed personalized feedback
Identify and work on your improvement areas
Transparent, non-anonymous interviews
Get the most realistic experience possible
More about mock interviews
Career impact
Our engineers land high-paying and rewarding offers from the biggest tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, and Netflix.
Ian Hwang
Software Engineer
Placed at:
I attended IK and I've got a lot of knowledge that helped me get into Microsoft. Their Curriculum (algorithms and data structures) is organized very well and explanations are so helpful. And mock interviews and the feedback helped me a lot. It was worth it!
Neetika Srivastava
Software Engineer
Placed at:
I really like how the program is structured and how it caters to different domains. It is really helpful. The patterns that they teach you at Interview Kickstart are really useful because you can apply those patterns to any new problem. Knowing those patterns, you can solve basically any question because you can relate it to problems you have already solved, which gives you confidence.
Chun Wu
Senior Software Engineer
Placed at:
I joined iK after stumbling across it while reviewing some other interview prep materials after doing poorly in an interview at Linkedin. I knew that doing well in these interviews would require dedication and investment of my time - but with so many resources online I didn't have structure. This is what the IK platform provided me.
Shrey Shrivastava
Software development Engineer ll
Placed at:
The Interview Kickstart course is very structured and informative. They teach you about DS and algo fundamentals very thoroughly and also prepare you for the software engineering interview. I really like the live classes by FAANG engineers, and the homework and tests definitely help you toprepare for a real interview. If you have been looking for a bootcamp that prepares you for software engineering interviews, I would say this is definitely the right place to do it.
Sridhar Gandham
Senior Software Engineer
Placed at:
My experience at IK was extremely positive. I was preparing for FAANG companies using the standard techniques that you find on the internet. When I started preparing, there was no structure to the madness. For example, a simple quicksort can be implemented in multiple ways. So solving a medium problem would take me about 30 minutes. The biggest benefit that I got from IK was a clear, structured way of solving problems. After IK, I could solve medium problems in 10 minutes!
Akriti Bhatt
Software Engineer
Placed at:
Interview Kickstart is a great platform to perfect your basics and get a deep understanding of algorithms. These sessions helped me crack Google and several other companies.
Having struggled for a while to understand what I was doing wrong in interviews and how to behave during an interview, I took the help of 1-1 interview sessions with the mentors and the guidance provided by them helped me understand the problem with my approach.
How to enroll for the Early Engineering Interview Course?
Learn more about Interview Kickstart and the Early Engineering Interview Course by joining the free webinar hosted by Ryan Valles, co-founder of Interview Kickstart. You can also talk to our program advisors to get additional program-related details.
A Free Guide to Kickstart Your Engineering Career at FAANG+
From the interview process and career path to interview questions and salary details — learn everything you need to know about Software Engineering careers at top tech companies.
The interview process at FAANG+ and other Tier-1 companies for entry-level software engineering interviews vary a bit for each company. However, the general structure is as follows:
Initial screening:Includes a telephonic interview and may include an online assessment. These rounds also test your understanding of DSA, problem-solving, and communication skills.
On-site: 3-5 on-site rounds, which include 2-3 rounds on DSA/Problem Solving and 1-2 rounds on soft skills (behavioral).
What to Expect at an Entry-level Software Engineer Interview
1
Coding Challenge
In this particular round, the candidate may receive a list of requirements and a skeleton code and would be asked to complete the code and submit it after completing the code in their own environment.
2
Phone/ Video Interview
There may generally be 1 to 3 phone/ video interviews, typically on data structures and algorithms.
3
On-Site
The questions in the on-site interviews are similar to the phone interview questions. In this final round, you will likely be coding on a whiteboard (a few companies like Snapchat may let you bring your own laptop to code on-site).
Behavioral - Typically done over the phone with a recruiter or the hiring manager for the role. In this round, the recruiter wants to figure out if the appearing candidate would be a good fit for the role, both based on experiences as well as the ability to communicate.
Let us look at some interview questions involving data structures (arrays, linked lists, trees, hash tables, queues, strings, etc.) and algorithms (search, sort, etc.). We will also look at some behavioral interview questions below.
1
Entry-level Software Engineering Data Structures Coding Interview Questions
Find the minimum (or maximum) element of an array.
Remove duplicates from the sorted array.
Given a sorted array, return the index of a given value or -1 if the element cannot be found.
Merge two sorted lists.
Delete the node in a linked list.
Insert a node into a sorted doubly linked list.
Convert sorted array to binary search tree.
Merge two binary trees.
Given the root of a binary tree, invert the tree, and return its root.
Count the number of subarrays having a given XOR.
Implementing our Own Hash Table with Separate Chaining in Java.
Find whether an array is a subset of another array.
Implement stack using queues.
Remove all adjacent duplicates in the string.
Evaluate the value of an arithmetic expression in Reverse Polish Notation.
Compute the running median of a sequence of numbers. That is, given a stream of numbers, print out the median of the list so far after each new element.
Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return the kth largest element in the array.
So you’ve decided to be a Software Engineer. It’s important to know what’s expected of the role and what skills you need to have to excel in it. We’ll also discuss salary and levels to clear any nagging doubts you may have in those areas.
1
Entry-level Software Engineer Job Requirements: Roles and Responsibilities
An early engineer can be referred to as an entry-level engineering professional who reports to and learns from a Senior Engineer. These engineers are responsible for the execution of original/ maintenance works and maintenance of material accounts and public assets with which they are concerned.
An early engineer can also be termed as a Junior Engineer who essentially carrier out the following roles and responsibilities:
Identifying problems and discovering solutions
Working on ongoing projects based on specifications
Collaborating with teams of other engineers
Staying up to date with international engineering trends
Identifying and addressing problems
Supervising production
Making improvements to existing products and software etc.
Implementing solutions and designs
Skills that’ll help you as a Software Engineer:
Excellent verbal and written communication ability
Ability to comprehend and follow directions
DSA Skills
Coding Fluency
Problem Solving
Don’t forget to thoroughly read the Technical Program Manager job description for the specific role you’re applying for. The Technical Program Manager job description differs depending on the position, level, and the company.
2
Required qualifications to become a Software Engineer:
Basic qualifications:
B.S. in Computer Science (CS), Information Technology (IT), Information Systems (IS), Electrical Engineering (EE), Computer Engineering (CE), Informatics, or Software Engineering (SE)
Knowledge of basic computer science concepts, programming, and Information Systems
Interest and willingness to travel and relocate
Preferred qualifications:
0-2 + years of professional experience
Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills
Solid coding practices
3
Career Roadmap for a Junior Software Engineer
The typical career progression for a junior engineering role looks like the following:
Entry-level Software Engineer Salary and Levels at FAANG
The average Entry-level Engineer salary in the US is $67,503, but the salary range typically falls between $47,493 and $78,676. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education, certifications, additional skills, and professional experience.
Meta Entry-level Engineer Salary
The average Meta Entry-level Engineer earns $184,000 annually, which includes a base salary of $122,000 with a $21,000 bonus.
Entry-level Engineer at Meta
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
E3
US$184K
US$122K
US$42K
US$21K
Amazon Entry-level Engineer Salary
The average Amazon Entry-level Engineer earns $166,000 annually, which includes a base salary of $126,000 with a $20,000 bonus.
Entry-level Engineer at Amazon
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
L4
US$166K
US$126K
US$22K
US$20K
Apple Entry-level Engineer Salary
The average Apple Entry-level Engineer earns $163,000 annually, which includes a base salary of $125,000 with a $16,000 bonus.
Entry-level Engineer at Apple
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
ICT2
US$163K
US$125K
US$26K
US$16K
Netflix Entry-level Engineer Salary
The average Netflix Entry-level Engineer earns an estimated $226,000 annually, which includes an estimated base salary of $206,000 with a $20,000 bonus.
Entry-level Engineer at Netflix
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
New Grad SW. Engineer
US$226K
US$206K
US$19K
US$20K
Google Entry-level Engineer Salary
The average Google Entry-level Engineer earns $191,000 annually, which includes a base salary of $131,000 with a $21,000 bonus.
Entry-level Engineer at Google
Average compensation by level
Level name
Total
Base
Stock (/yr)
Bonus
L3
US$184K
US$122K
US$39K
US$21K
FAQs on Early Engineering Interview Course
1
What should an entry-level software engineer know?
2
What should a beginner software engineer do?
3
Which language is the best for software engineers?
4
What qualities should a programmer have?
5
What are some rules new Software Engineers should try to follow?
How to enroll for the Early Engineering Interview Course?
Learn more about Interview Kickstart and the Early Engineering Interview Course by joining the free webinar hosted by Ryan Valles, co-founder of Interview Kickstart. You can also talk to our program advisors to get additional program-related details.