Top feeder schools for tech and Silicon Valley

[Anonymous]

The absence of THE world famous Ohio State University immediately invalidates this list...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The absence of THE world famous Ohio State University immediately invalidates this list...

I can't tell if this is sarcasm coming from a Michigan lover, but THE OH-IO State University has a very good reputation for getting its undergrads into tech, and has top tier AI program.

[Anonymous]

OH-NO

[Anonymous]

This list seems off. On the one hand companies like HubSpot, Airbnb or Dropbox are listed. None of these are on the cutting edge. They make simple websites and are more about marketing than tech. On the other hand, major cloud companies like AWS or Netflix aren't listed. Nor are the leading AI companies. This list is fairly bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Graduates of other Universities can still apply and yes, UMD Computer Science graduates make it to the FAANG companies. The key is to be so skilled they have to hire you when you interview. Keep up with the technologies and think/work like a software architect even as a new graduate.

Most people reading and replying to this thread really have no idea what getting hired as a dev for top tier software companies is like. In my limited experience, it’s not at all a matter of “keep up with new technologies” but rather “have a brain that enables you to solve LeetCode ‘hard’ problems in 30 minutes rather than the several hours that very, very smart and skilled devs take. “

I’ve been a developer/development manager for a long time, and I recently went through the interview process for one of companies on this list on a lark. I was shocked at how difficult the technical interview was, and equally shocked to be offered a fairly low level IC developer job paying just under what my current senior architect role pays. Also, the job I was offered was coding in a language I don’t know, but the company said “we know smart people can learn new technologies, we’re not worried about that.”

How about 6 interviews, each one testing and probing you. Factual problems, technical gotchas...

I agree, most here don't understand how difficult the hiring process is in SV.

I thought Google stopped doing the brain teaser questions.

When I interviewed there eons ago, those were the only types of questions they asked - yes, 6 people all asking brain teaser questions.

When I worked there a typical interview was with around 5 people over the course of a day. 80% of this was technical and 20% was fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:boston has an extremely broad based and robust tech community - Harvard MIT,
obviously - and Northeastern is closely tied with tech community with coop programs - Northeastern a hidden gem amongst tech schools..

Northeastern is not a feeder to Silicon Valley.

You do realize you are commenting on a thread with a list of the top tech feeder schools to Silicon Valley, and Northeastern is on the list?

Many of the listed companies aren't exactly top tech companies or doing anything interesting. Ascribing value to which schools they recruit from isn't all thqt meaningful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:boston has an extremely broad based and robust tech community - Harvard MIT,
obviously - and Northeastern is closely tied with tech community with coop programs - Northeastern a hidden gem amongst tech schools..

Northeastern is not a feeder to Silicon Valley.

You do realize you are commenting on a thread with a list of the top tech feeder schools to Silicon Valley, and Northeastern is on the list?

Many of the listed companies aren't exactly top tech companies or doing anything interesting. Ascribing value to which schools they recruit from isn't all thqt meaningful.

These are not meant to be exact sciences.
It a good reference among many things.
Do you have better sources?
You can ignore if you think it's not meaningful to you.

[Anonymous]

A great school name will only get you so far. You have to be smart, you have to really love to code and work on it a lot. In my family, we have one with a history degree from a school no one knows. He's very intelligent, loved to code, taught himself and worked his way into a top developer position at Microsoft. Another went to a good school, but not the top for CS. But she also is highly intelligent and worked really hard. Now going through the security clearance for the FBI where the salary will be huge. Lots of students go into CS thinking they will make all this money. The ones who do are smart and know they need to put in the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A great school name will only get you so far. You have to be smart, you have to really love to code and work on it a lot. In my family, we have one with a history degree from a school no one knows. He's very intelligent, loved to code, taught himself and worked his way into a top developer position at Microsoft. Another went to a good school, but not the top for CS. But she also is highly intelligent and worked really hard. Now going through the security clearance for the FBI where the salary will be huge. Lots of students go into CS thinking they will make all this money. The ones who do are smart and know they need to put in the time.

Yawn
Some do it without college degree.
so..
ok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Northeastern is not a feeder to Silicon Valley.

Maybe not yet, but it likely will be if you are paying attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could also argue the greater benefit of location which is why Santa Clara and SJSU are on the list, as well as Berkeley, Irvine, UCLA, USC, Stanford and UCSD.

Google has a large Pittsburgh office as well after hiring a bunch of CMU profs to start their self-driving efforts (and growing it substantially from there).

It was Uber that did that. Not Google.

[andrew01]

Anonymous wrote:Meant *NOT* surprising to see UMD on the list

UMD was at #25, the list stopped at 20. According to a new list updated in 2025, UMD is at #17, which sounds consistent with their USNews CS ranking of #16.

https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-tech

[Anonymous]

my DC landed a pre-sales role at top tech company. Wonderful job bridges technical team with sales teams - exposed to both sides. Says kids mostly undergrad hires from upper tier state schools, very very few ivy or SLAC kids - hiring manager joked to my kid that they need grads who can easily relate to all folks, and that’s what they prioritize when they schedule campus visits. The PM roles however are staffed with mostly M7 grads

[Anonymous]

ASU designed their CS program to feed Google’s needs. Very smart and successful.

[Anonymous]

University of Delhi and University of Mumbai.