• 🎓 My Journey - From UCI student to startup founder
• 🚀 GoLinks - The product and company
• 📈 Industry Trends - AI, technology and market changes
• 💼 How to Get a Job - Perspectives from a Hiring Manager
• 🎯 Key Takeaways - Actions you can take today
• ❓ Q&A - Questions and answers

Academic & Organizations

• 🎓 Double Major:
• ⚡ Electrical Engineering
• 💼 Business Information Management
• 🏛️ Engineering Student Council
• ΣΝ Sigma Nu
• 🏠 Resident Advisor in Middle Earth
• 💼 MAISS (Management Information Science Society)
• 💻 HACK@UCI
• 🔨 Participated in hackathons and enjoyed building

• ❌ Failed interviews (Microsoft, Facebook, Broadcom, Skyworks and many others)
• 🤔 The choice: Western Digital vs. Graduate School
• 🎓 Graduated UCSD Master's in Computer Science 2014
• ❌ More failed interviews: rejected from Redfin, Twitter, Google, SpaceX, Thumbtack, Pinterest, etc.
• ✅ Finally passed an interview at LinkedIn

• 📚 Learned industry skills
• ⚛️ Backbone.js, Ember.js, Big Tech
• 📱 Push for Mobile First LinkedIn in 2015
• 💰 Worked on the LinkedIn Ads Team
• 📈 Company grew from 1,000 to 10,000 people
• 🤝 Made life long connections
• 🚀 Strong foundation for running an engineering team

• 🤝 3 UCI friends founded GoLinks
• 👨‍💻 Worked Nights and Weekends
• 🎓 Attended YC Schools 2018
• 💪 Left our full-time jobs to pursue a startup
• 🚀 Got accepted into Y Combinator Winter 2019
• 🏛️ Running a company is a lot like running a Student Org
• 📢 Marketing
• 💬 Communications
• 👥 Recruiting
• 💬 Sales Outreach
• 💰 Funding

• 🎯 Mission: To connect employees with the information they need to be productive and successful at any place, at any time

3 Products

🔗

GoLinks: Link Directory

Memorable short links for instant access

🔍

GoSearch Enterprise Search

AI-powered search across all company data

👥

GoProfiles Employee Profiles

AI employee directory and recognition platform

Company Overview

• 👥 38 employees, 18 engineers across the U.S.
• 💻 Fully-remote work environment
• 🤖 Embracing AI in the workplace
• ✈️ Quarterly Offsites to get together

Our Values

• 👥 Focus on users
• 🏆 Be an owner
• 🌱 Grow together
• 🤝 Transparency builds trust
• 🚀 Deliver and delight constantly
• 😂 Have fun

Architecture

• ☁️ AWS as infrastructure
• ⚛️ React Frontend
• 🐘 PHP Backend
• 🗄️ MySQL Database
• 💾 Redis Cache

Popular Frontend Frameworks

• ⚛️ React (Most popular)
• 🖼️ Vue.js
• 🅰️ Angular
• ⚡ Svelte (up and coming)

Backend Technologies

• ☕ Node.js
• 🐍 Python
• 🐹 Go
• 🐘 PHP

Cloud Technologies

• ☁️ AWS
• ☁️ GCP
• ☁️ Azure

Systems

• 🔍 Google Search for company data
• 📊 Indexer: Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)
• 📈 Search Ranking:
  • ⏰ Recency & Frequency
  • 🧠 Semantic Search
  • 📊 TF-IDF
  • 🎯 BM25
  • ↕️ Reranking
• 🕸️ Knowledge Graphs, Graph Databases
• 🔢 Vector Databases
• 🔍 Data Connectors

AI Architecture Concepts

• 🪟 Context Windows
• 🧩 Document Chunking
• 💾 Prompt Caching
• 🤖 LLM Integration
• 🔄 Retrieval Augmented Gen (RAG)
• 🗃️ Multi-Modal Integrations
• 📜 Model Context Protocol (MCP)

AI Features

• 📝 AI Document summarization
• 🎯 AI Summarized Answers
• 💬 AI Chat
• 🔗 AI Agents

Current Technology Landscape

• 🤖 AI-assisted development quickly rising
• 🏄‍♂️ Is Vibe Coding good or bad?
• 🧠 New AI concepts every week
• ⚛️ Frontend trends: React Server Components
• 🥞 Full-stack expectations for all engineers
• 🎨 Frontend, Backend, DevOps, Design, etc.

The Leveling Effect

• 🚀 Junior developers can write senior-level code with AI assistance
• ⚡ Learning new technologies is faster than ever
• 🆕 AI concepts every week, no one is an expert

Current Industry Trends

• 💻 Interviews are changing, coding interviews evolving
• 🏢 In Person vs fully remote work
• 🤖 AI usage within companies
• 📉 Less engineers to do the same amount of work
• 🗣️ "All code will be written by AI in 2026"

📱 iOS App Store (2008)

• 📱 iPhone released in 2007
• 🍎 iOS App Store released in 2008
• 💰 Enabled individual developers to start a business
• 👨‍💻 Created a new job: iOS Engineer
• 🏢 Adopted rapidly in the industry
• ⚡ Those who adapted early had massive advantages

The Reality

• 🎯 Only 1 in 370 applicants gets selected
• 📊 Most filtering happens at the resume stage
• 💪 Persistence and preparation are key
• 🔄 Each rejection is practice for the next opportunity

GoLinks Interview Stages

• 📋 Resume screening and initial review
• 💻 Technical assessments (HackerRank) No AI allowed
• 🎮 Project-based challenges (e.g., Wordle clone) AI Allowed
• 🔄 Live coding or adaptation exercises, AI Allowed

A unique approach

• 🏢 Every business requires 3 things:
  • 📦 Product
  • 💰 Sales
  • 📢 Marketing
• 🤖 Engineers traditionally fall into Product
• 🔄 Adapting to evolving roles
• 🤝 Product Departments might not need as many engineers
• 🤖 Opportunities as Sales Engineer, Marketing Engineer, AI Engineer, Data Engineer, Growth Engineer
• 🎯 Focusing on industry-relevant skills: roadmap.sh
• 🚀 Good to learn if you want to start your own business

Common Resume/Portfolio Mistakes

• 💻 No Github on Resume
• 🌎 No Linkedin on Resume
• 📁 No projects on Github
• 🌐 No personal portfolio
• 🚫 Github isn't filled out
• 🚫 Linkedin isn't filled out
• 📸 No profile picture

What Recruiters and Hiring Managers Look for

• 📖 A Personal Portfolio
• 💼 A completed LinkedIn profile
• 💻 A completed Github profile
• 🟩 Green squares on Github
• 📖 A story about you on your portfolio
• 🤖 AI Filters are a thing, and help sort through thousands of resumes

How to Build Your Network

• 🎓 Get to know your classmates
• 🏛️ Make connections in student orgs
• 🎪 Go to meetup events
• 🏢 Go to career fairs early
• 📞 Follow up with connections
• 🎓 Alumni meetups
• ⏰ It's never too late to network
• 💻 Go to Hack@UCI to build, but also meet people
• 💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a message

The Power of Relationships

• 🤝 UCI connections → Co-founders at GoLinks
• 🎓 UCI alumni network → Job opportunities
• 🌎 Connections are made in the real world

Building Your Brand

• 📖 Create a compelling personal narrative
• 🏆 Highlight key achievements and projects
• 📈 Show growth and learning journey
• ❤️ Demonstrate passion for technology

Digital Presence

• 💻 GitHub portfolio with contributions
• 🌍 Open source participation
• 🔗 Complete profile with links
• 💼 LinkedIn optimization with professional imagery
• 🌐 Personal website/portfolio
• 📝 Technical blog sharing your learning journey
• 🎓 Showcase class projects

Our Journey as Creators

• 👨‍💻 Jorge and I built the Sigma Nu Website
• 🏆 Attended and competed in many hackathons
• 🔨 Always built something to present
• 🌱 Each project was a learning opportunity
• 🚀 Built momentum through consistent creation
• 💡 Disciplined in always launching something
• 🤝 Connected with other creators and builders

Start with Your Interests!

What problem do I have right now?

Sean's Examples

• Night Vision Baby Monitor App - learning iOS Vibe Coding
• Daily Children's Books - learned AI image generation
• https://shipit.today - Get immediate shipit gifs - learned AWS Lambda
• Car Price Chrome Extension - Compare car prices - learned Chrome Extensions
• GasBro - Split gas with friends- learned Objective-C iOS Development

Remember These Points

• 📚 Be prepared, don't wait!
• 🔨 Be more of a creator and less of a consumer
• 📈 Understand Industry Trends
• 💪 Rejection is part of the process, yes it sucks
• 🤝 Relationships matter - build your network in person
• 📈 Always build your brand and skills
• 🧠 Adapt to industry trends

Levels.fyi - Salary & Career Insights

• 🎓 Founded by UCI Alumni Zaheer Mohiuddin
• 📈 Career progression paths, levels, and compensation
• 📚 Interview preparation resources

WorkHap.com - Job Search Platform

• 🎓 Founded by UCI Alumni Sho Dewan
• 🎯 Job search strategies
• 📝 Interview preparation tips

education.github.com/pack - Free Tools for Students

• 🎒 Free access to developer tools and services for students

cursor.com/students - AI-Powered Code Editor

• 🤖 Free AI-powered code editor for students
• 💻 Built-in AI assistance for coding and learning

Y Combinator Internships - Startup Internship Opportunities

• 🚀 Internship opportunities at Y Combinator startups