I'm finishing the last class of my master's degree in computer science. My bachelor's degree is in business, and I spent three years working in tech sales. My first advanced data structures and algorithms course was difficult—I failed it initially but passed when I retook it. Since then, I've completed another online DSA course and have been doing well with easy and medium LeetCode problems.
I also have several personal projects that are beginning to attract users and GitHub stars. One has even gained a paying user. The most substantial project is a Java algorithm and API for recommending pickleball matches within my local community. It also has a polished mobile app interface, and the community is actively using and enjoying it. I plan to keep expanding it.
Would this combination of a computer science master's degree, algorithm practice, and practical projects be enough to land an entry-level software engineer or developer role? Ideally, I'd like a remote position paying more than $60,000, or an in-person role paying more than $90,000, depending on the market and location.
My long-term goal is product management, so software engineering seems like it could provide useful experience while also fitting my strengths. Are there other roles—such as implementation engineering, solutions engineering, QA automation, or technical product roles—that might be a better starting point for eventually moving into software engineering or product management?
4 Answers
The master’s degree plus a real project is a much stronger profile than “LeetCode and a few projects” makes it sound. Your app has users, a paying customer, an algorithm, an API, and a mobile interface—that is useful interview material. Put the technical details, your decisions, and the results clearly on your resume and be ready to explain the architecture and tradeoffs.
That said, entry-level hiring is competitive, and an internship or co-op would still help if you can find one. Keep applying, practice explaining your projects, and don’t assume remote work or a particular salary will be immediately available for a first engineering role.
Soft skills, resume positioning, and interview performance matter a lot, but technical fundamentals still matter for engineering jobs. Your projects are valuable because they demonstrate that you can build something useful, not just solve isolated exercises. Focus on telling that story clearly and showing that you understand the code beyond the surface level.
Exactly. A portfolio project won’t replace interview preparation, but a real product with users gives you much better examples for discussing ownership, requirements, iteration, and technical decisions.
Your previous tech-sales experience could be an advantage, especially for solutions engineering, implementation engineering, developer support, QA automation, or technical customer-facing roles. Those positions may let you use both your communication skills and technical background, and they can lead toward software engineering or product management.
Still, don’t undersell yourself as only a career changer. You have a graduate CS degree and a project used by real people, so apply directly to junior engineering roles as well.
A degree and portfolio can be enough to get interviews, but they don’t guarantee an offer. Make sure your resume shows concrete technologies, deployment, testing, databases, APIs, performance considerations, and measurable usage. You’ll also need to prepare for coding interviews, debugging questions, and behavioral interviews.
Your salary targets may be realistic in some locations, but remote junior roles and higher-paying entry-level positions tend to attract a lot of applicants. Apply broadly rather than filtering too heavily by remote status or compensation at the start.
Describe the project in terms of what you built and the impact it had. Saying you created a Java recommendation algorithm and API for a real user base is far more compelling than simply calling it a personal app.