Top 5 Myths About Getting a Software Engineering Job

It’s what everybody wants to know. Or wanted to know, back when the industry was all in-house baristas and nap pods, before the entire field entered a state of mild panic that LLMs will take our jobs. Until that fateful day arrives, software engineering remains a challenging, rewarding, flexible, and potentially lucrative career path.

There are a lot of ways to land a software engineering role. Anybody can do this, and you will work alongside an incredible range of people. Fresh MIT grads sit next to high school dropouts who have not had a haircut since the Bush administration and, if you have been in the industry long enough, you know the latter probably maintains an indispensable part of the Linux kernel.

Anyway, here are some of the biggest myths about getting a software engineering job.

1. You Need a Bunch of Open Source Experience

You don’t. Not really.

It certainly does not hurt. In fact, it can be a major gold star on your resume. If you have made meaningful contributions to popular frameworks or libraries that a company relies on, you are in excellent shape.

But unless you're an open source all-star (read: a maintainer of an industry standard library or framework) hiring teams start by evaluating your skills and professional experience, not your public GitHub commit count. If you don’t have professional experience, open source contributions can be a good way to demonstrate your skills, but I wouldn’t worry too much if you don’t have them.

You absolutely still need to be familiar with major open source projects and frameworks. If someone says “Kubernetes” and you respond with “Bless you,” that is not going to work.

In my experience across multiple large tech companies, open source contributions are a strong bonus. They are rarely a requirement, and lacking them will not sink your application. Exceptions apply of course, such as companies that are primarily focused on open source technologies (like Red Hat).

2. You Need an Elite Education to Break Into Big Tech

Again, you don’t. Not really.

Just like open source work, an elite degree helps, but it is far from mandatory. Big tech companies, like most Fortune 500 organizations, run large campus recruiting programs that span dozens of universities. You do not need to attend Stanford to meet recruiters. Google and Microsoft recruit heavily at NC State. Penn State sends plenty of engineers into major tech companies. These are excellent schools, but there's no invisible Ivy League requirement.

The idea that every engineer at Google is a Harvard whiz kid is mostly movie fiction. Most of the best engineers I have worked with are simply curious, motivated people who kept learning long after they finished school.

3. Side Projects Matter

Honestly, most hiring managers do not care.

Most engineers have side projects. Unless yours attracted significant users, generated real revenue, or was adopted in an interesting or meaningful way, it probably will not move the needle during hiring.

Side projects are fantastic learning tools. They let you experiment with new technologies, explore ideas, and occasionally convince yourself that one day you will turn it into a startup and escape the Monday morning Jira blues. But they are rarely the deciding factor in getting hired.

4. Coding and Systems Design Are All That Matters

Technical interviews have turned into an arms race of LeetCode problems, and it is getting absurd. As more candidates practice these problems, interviews increasingly resemble competitive speed coding rather than actual engineering work.

How many interviewers are throwing three brutal algorithm questions at candidates in forty minutes while their own daily work involves tweaking dashboards in Databricks? Probably more than we would like to admit.

Technical interviews are valuable, but they are not everything. Strong candidates can clearly explain their past projects, why those projects mattered, what impact they created, and what measurable results they delivered. Think about it. Have you ever met a staff engineer who was not a world-class coder? Of course you have. They got there by communicating clearly, influencing decisions, writing well, and navigating organizational politics. None of those skills are measured by their ability to reverse a linked list in ten minutes.

5. References Matter

In the year of our Lord in 2026, I have never once been asked to provide a reference, and I have personally conducted well over a hundred interviews and never requested one myself. Many companies don't bother anymore. And why would they? Companies already verify employment history and background information through formal checks.

At major tech companies, references have quietly faded into irrelevance.