<p>I graduated from University of Kentucky with a degree in business and I am almost done with my Comp Sci degree my GPA is high >3.9 I have about 2 years working as a .NET developer for HP. At some point I would like to work in Austin, Silicon Valley or Seattle in a big tech company as a Software Engineer.</p>
<p>Would my best bet, if I wanted to work for a place like Microsoft or Google or even a Silicon Valley startup, be to go to a grad school around their main campuses. I was thinking U of Washington, Stanford, UCB.</p>
<p>Or is there another way to get noticed besides going to grad school? What would give me the the edge against those in that area.</p>
<p>Going to a strong school in a location similar to what you specified is definitely the easiest way to get a shoe-in for an interview call (lower costs to the company to fly you in). However, the schools you have mentioned are all top schools for CS, and they would be visited by hundreds of top companies every year anyway (I go to a top CS school on the East Coast and at my recent career fair, there were nearly 500 companies, including all the Silicon Valley giants and Microsoft).</p>
<p>Focus on getting into a top school which has work going on in your area of interest. The rest will follow.</p>
<p>Have you tried applying for jobs at Google or Microsoft? </p>
<p>Based on what you said, it seems like you should at least be able to get an interview at one of them. The reason I ask is because I’m assuming you want to go to grad school for a masters in cs, which is probably going to be pretty expensive at most of those places. If you can already get a job, I’d say take it, work for a year or two, then if you still want to grad school for cs, see if you can get your company to pay for a masters.</p>
<p>No. I haven’t. If there is a pretty good shot for me getting in without having to shell out a lot of money for a grad degree, then I think that would be the better option. </p>
<p>I didn’t know IF Silicon Valley was like Wall Street, where they have target school and if you don’t go to one, then you are going to have a hard time getting in.</p>
<p>I guess I could rephrase my to: How hard is it to get into a Seattle/Silicon Valley company if you are not coming from a target school? (like University of Kentucky)</p>
<p>I graduated four years ago from a nothing special state school with a similar GPA as yours and degrees in CS and math. I have had no difficulty finding positions in my field, computer vision (but I am reasonably sure the same is true of all specialties). In fact, I get emails from Microsoft and Google recruiters once every month or so. Since you have two years of experience, I would bet you have a good shot at landing a position at one of those companies.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I am extremely pessimistic about my prospects of admission into schools like UCB, Stanford, and UW. Granted, I am applying for a PhD which is more competitive, but admissions into the masters programs at these schools is not easy (from what I understand, Berkeley barely offers a masters in EECS). Almost certainly, you will have better luck getting hired at Google, MS, etc. than getting admitted to UCB, Stanford, or UW. Maybe I am wrong? I don’t think I am.</p>
<p>You can always apply for both. Now is the time to get started. If you don’t get a job offer, by the time you get admissions decisions you can decide then to go to grad school.</p>
<p>I’d say your chances of getting a job are pretty good. Do you have code online anywhere like github? Employers wanna see code samples.</p>
<p>Also, I went to a small liberal arts college where you could count the number of cs majors in my class on one hand. One of them got a job at Amazon, without much difficulty. No CS companies recruited at my school.</p>
<p>In engineering it’s a bit different. Your degree of University of Kentucky won’t be looked down upon since you did well. If an job applicant performs poorly, that’s another matter.</p>
<p>I work at a tech company and there are people from a whole range of schools.</p>
<p>Given that you have a good two years of experience, you should be fine. The best way to get a job at places like Google and Microsoft is to network.</p>
<p>I have worked at Apple & IBM. Very overrated. At the end of the day its just a company, with bureaucracy, competition and politics at every turn. Unfortunately most guys in college are obsessed with the big brand names. It takes some maturity to realize there is more to life than name-dropping the company you work at.</p>
<p>I see. I don’t know why the op wants to gets a job at one of those companies, but I’m sure that some people want jobs at places like those because they actually want to work on their products. </p>
<p>For example, if you want to work on the Windows operating system itself, then there really aren’t many other places you can get a job doing that besides Microsoft. Its the same for Apple and IBM. If you want to work on iOS or OSX, or designing POWER chips, then those are the places to work.</p>
<p>JamesMadison has a good point that there’s more to life than name dropping the company you work at.</p>
<p>With that said, getting some big name on your resume early in your career does provide a good launching pad for your career and open more doors.</p>