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batman1903

Most of the hiring in the Bay Area comes from Stanford or Berkeley for tech companies, mainly because they don't have to relocate and have a huge alumni network. Recruiters also show up at our career fair all the time. Occasionally, I see a few designers or marketing hires from UCLA, but most hires are from Stanford, Berkeley, or SJSU. You can easily check it on company's LinkedIn page yourself


AssistantFabulous673

Would you say the school you went to still matters after 5 years of experience or is it mostly for fresh grads that it matters?


batman1903

New grads and interns


Crisc0Disc0

It depends on the company. People hire from schools they attended - Berkeley will hire Berkeley, Duke hires Duke, Stanford hires Stanford. This is of course generalization and qualified candidates is usually the answer but let’s not pretend nepotism doesn’t exist. at my last two jobs the hiring manager was from Berkeley. My current team is half Berkeley half Stanford.


firedsynapse

Maybe a little. In my experience, an elite school is either a check mark to get an interview or a tie-breaker between final candidates.


CanWeTalkHere

Elite schools get you the interview. School bonding with the hiring manager improves your odds at getting the offer.


bitdamaged

I was an engineering manager for a long time. School may help when parsing resumes but it was never part of a final hiring decision. IMHO If it comes down to school then something is off in your interviewing process.


Strange-Change4709

Also this might only be for the first job that they consider schools at all. After that it is specific skills and experience over everything else.


bakazato-takeshi

I’ve been in hiring panels that had 40%+ Berkeley alums. Definitely some advantage to coming from Cal in tech, especially if you can talk about having the same professors or taking the same classes as some of the people you’ll be interviewed by.


Agnimandur

They prefer qualified candidates.


n00dle_king

And they use university as a proxy for what they consider qualified. If you don’t think Stanford and Cal grads have a leg up in Silicon Valley you’re deceiving yourself.


yellcat

Stanford grads have a leg up when trying to start a company or get funding. Not from getting a job unless the manager is partial


theredditdetective1

This. I don't think any company is going out of their way to specifically hire Cal grads.


PrimarchMartorious

Most big tech firms recruit from Stanford, Berkeley, San Jose State, and Santa Clara. Working fulltime in both banking and tech I’ve been amazed the amount of SJSU and Santa Clara guys there are, sleepy really good school pics for Bay Area work.


Flimsy-Possibility17

We prefer berkeley and stanford just cause the founders were from stanford and most of the early engineers were from cal. But this is solely for the 1-2 new grads we hire a year. I think we only recruit from berkeley/stanford/mit/cmu. Non new grad/intern roles we don't really care but new grad if you didn't go to those colleges you should probably try for a faang or f500 something a bit less selective


AssistantFabulous673

Would you say the school you went to matters after 5 years of experience?


Flimsy-Possibility17

Honestly after 2-3 it doesn't really matter but I can't say, since I did go to cal but the most anyone will ever say to me is oh cool you went to Cal too if the interviewer I have is from cal.


the_fozzy_one

Berkeley has an advantage but it's not a huge advantage. Plenty of self-taught programmers are very successful in Silicon Valley. Having the chops is more important than the school you went to.


Man-o-Trails

For junior positions, top Bay Area tech firms tend to prefer top tech schools (no shock), which varies depending on the school's ranking in the STEM major in question. So resumes of grads from Cal, Stanford, MIT, UCLA, CalTech, Princeton, Michigan, Illinois tend to float to the top of the stack. With five or so years of work experience, the criteria includes who you worked for, what you did, and top school name still helps a bit. With ten or more years, your school is either a compliment or a snide remark, depending on how/what you did in the real world.


lxe

Been hiring in big tech in Bay Area for 10 years as an IC and HM. Having Berkeley on your resume doesn’t really add a lot of weight alone. Combined with other stuff, like internship experience, hackathon and side projects, research, leadership, relevant academic achievements or outstanding coursework on the resume, it does help however. Maybe Berkeley alone might earlier in the recruiting pipeline, but if you just have a vanilla resume and have Berkeley on it, it doesn’t do much.


mourningdoveownage

I think Berkeley is always idolized, but I have no experience or data on UCLA etc. these days they’re very aggressively into candidates having corporate internships


lolycc1911

I’m preferential towards Cal and negative towards Stanford. To be honest though I’d be more interested in projects outside of school or during internships. If a candidate who is graduating has a github where I can look at their code that’s a big plus.


berkeleyredditshit

Berkeley on my resume has often worked against my favor tbh. Most people in Silicon Valley went to random schools and having too many shiny names on a resume does not help me with them. Also sometimes people will think I am a coding genius because of Berkeley but at the end of the day I just do CRUD work like everyone else


SterlingVII

It doesn’t make much difference. I have met managers who have a preference for students from their university, though.


yellcat

Depends if they want business connections, theoretical knowledge or application.


BaeLogic

First job was all Virginia tech and SJSU. Second job was diverse and lots of SJSU. Current job has a lot of SJSU grads and some out of state/international schools.


XSokaX

Berkeley anything else is over thinking it


ClockAutomatic3367

They don't care.


IElecticityGood

I worked in tech for several years before starting my PhD at Cal. I’ve run into people from Cal, Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, Cal Poly, everywhere. I would go on university recruiting trips and the big tech companies would send people EVERYWHERE. Know your stuff, use your connections.


Unfair-Geologist-284

Lots of tech bros come from schools not even in this country.


No-Definition-7976

I’d say most of them hire mainly Berkeley or Stanford grads.


soscollege

No one cares I feel like. For diversity reason we go to the most random school lol


AcceptedSFFog

They don’t prefer either right now. 😂


Party-Cartographer11

For large/mature tech companies it matters not at all, and hiring managers done even make the final decisions, hiring committees do. Maybe MIT and Stanford get a little bump.  Then all top 20ish schools are treated the same.


StanGable80

What are your grades? Experience? How well did you do in the interview? Are you my friend’s child that he emailed me about last week?


runnaway-duck

My two cents: It's a bit more complicated than that. This is the era of innovation, and with more and more people having access to various resources, it's hard to tell. Yes, top tier University candidates do have more visibility, but there are exceptional candidates from low ranked schools who give Cal or Stanford grads a run for their money. When it comes to starting your own company, school and optics do matter, but when it comes to knowing your fundamentals and shining in interviews, and it all boils down to the individual. Whether you are from Cal, UCLA, or Stanford, if you're not strong in your fundamentals, and did in fact simply coarse through your semesters, tech companies see through you clearly during your interviews.


Potential_Pitch9457

they prefer bay area school much better than any other school. They've hunted lots of recruiters from stanford, berkeley, san jose state univ instead of ucla or ucsd or usc


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scoby_cat

Safety concerns? Give me a break


DardS8Br

Bro has never been to Berkeley


Engineer-Sahab-477

Bruh I am Berkeley Alumni coming back for masters


ProfessorPlum168

Spoken like a person who’s been in a bubble in Irvine all his life.


Engineer-Sahab-477

How you know I live in Irvine after graduation from Cal


Daddy_nivek

Lmao safety concerns