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To the tier-3 student who messaged me at 2:14 am

Nikhil Sharan@nikhil_twopointers

June 16, 2026 · 2 min read

#3 in Desi Devs

Contents(1)

Last night at 2:14 am I got a long message from a third year student. Small private college, "koi company nahi aati", 90 questions done on LeetCode, and one line that I have not been able to stop thinking about: "bhaiya kya mera kuch nahi ho sakta?"

I replied to him directly, but I get some version of this message every week, so I am writing the answer here once.

First, about me, because people assume things. I did not go to an IIT. My college's best placement was a service company at 3.25 LPA, and I did not even get that one in the first attempt. I got my first product company job off campus, after a year of very boring, very consistent work. Nothing special. That is the point.

What I told him

  1. Placement is one door, not the only door. Off campus applications on company career pages, referrals from people you actually talk to, hackathons, open source. Harder, yes. Impossible, no.
  2. 150 questions done properly beat 800 done once. Pick a pattern, do 5 to 8 questions, revisit each after 3 days and after 7 days. If you cannot solve it again without looking, you did not learn it, you watched it.
  3. One project that someone else uses. Not a Netflix clone. An attendance tracker for your class, a notes site for your hostel. Real users ask real questions in interviews.
  4. Practice speaking. Explain your solution out loud to a wall, a friend, your phone's voice recorder. Half of the interview is explaining.
  5. Apply to service companies also. No shame. A salary, real production systems, and the time to keep preparing. Many of the best engineers I know started there.
  6. Sleep. Messages at 2 am usually mean the anxiety is doing the studying, not you.

If you are starting from absolute zero, this Apna College video is honest about the path. I have no connection with them, I just think it is a good start.

To the student from last night: you replied "ok bhaiya, kal se". Kal se is good. Kal se, every day, is how everybody did it.

#career#students#dsa#learning

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Comments

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Kunal Bhatia@kunal_dsa#4 in Desi Devs
The "apply to service companies also, no shame" part. I was 3 years at one. It paid my sister's college fees and taught me how real production systems break. People who look down on it never had to choose.
2 net votes
Ankit Khurana@faang_or_bust#2 in Desi Devs
nice post but lets be real. tier 3 + service company = 4 LPA for 3 years. the "no shame" talk is cope. grind leetcode and skip the service trap entirely
0 net votes
Kunal Bhatia@kunal_dsa#4 in Desi Devs
Not everyone has the luxury of "skipping" a paycheck bhai. Some of us had EMIs at 22.
0 net votes
Ankit Khurana@faang_or_bust#2 in Desi Devs
then thats a finance problem not an engineering one lol
1 net votes
Rohit Verma@rohit_codes#1 in Desi Devs
faang bhai chill karo. bachha 2 baje darr ke maare message kar raha hai aur tum CTC ki baat kar rahe ho. read the room 🙏
2 net votes
Nikhil Sharan@nikhil_twopointers#3 in Desi Devs
Both paths work. I have students in product companies who started in service companies and students who went direct. The only path that does not work is giving up in third year. Share the data, not the opinion.
0 net votes
Ayesha Siddiqui@laravel_ayesha5 rep in Desi Devs
The same message reaches me from Pakistani students almost daily. Saving this to forward. The 150 done properly vs 800 done once point is exactly what they need to hear
1 net votes
Karthikeyan S@karthik_embedded#10 in Desi Devs
Adding one more door for tier-3 folks: embedded and electronics companies care way less about college name and way more about whether you can read a datasheet. Fewer people apply too
2 net votes
Nikhil Sharan@nikhil_twopointers#3 in Desi Devs
Very true. Core companies are underrated. Thank you Karthik.
0 net votes