For countless recent college graduates who are only beginning their professional journey, the transition from academia to the workplace can feel both exciting and intimidating. Lacking years of hands-on experience and often possessing only a modest professional network, many young professionals find themselves facing the daunting task of securing that crucial first full-time position. This challenge becomes particularly acute in highly competitive sectors such as software engineering, where the labor market is saturated with candidates who often share similar educational backgrounds and technical skills. The rise of artificial intelligence and automation has further complicated this entry point: sophisticated coding tools powered by AI are now capable of performing many tasks that, until recently, were the domain of junior engineers and entry-level hires.
Prashanthi Padmanabhan, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Engineering for Talent Solutions, has paid close attention to this evolving dynamic. In an interview with Business Insider, she noted that within today’s fast-changing job market, possessing technical proficiency alone no longer guarantees success. While technical mastery remains the foundation of any engineering role—and skills related to cloud computing, large language model development, and applied AI are increasing in value—Padmanabhan emphasized that these hard skills form only part of what modern employers are seeking. To differentiate themselves from equally capable peers, aspiring engineers must demonstrate a richer combination of capabilities that includes creativity, communication, and adaptability—qualities that cannot be automated or easily replicated by software.
According to Padmanabhan, a critical strategy for standing out in such a crowded market involves emphasizing the so-called “soft skills” alongside tangible accomplishments like personal or side projects. She explained that these interpersonal and cognitive abilities are fundamental indicators of how effectively an engineer can collaborate within an organization. In her words, an engineer who understands how to partner with colleagues across disciplines—whether product managers, UX designers, marketers, or data analysts—is better positioned to turn abstract ideas into functioning products. This emphasis on collaboration and communication underscores that software engineering, although rooted in logic and technical exactitude, is ultimately a human-centered discipline.
Supporting her point, Padmanabhan referred to LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise in Engineering” report, a data-driven analysis highlighting the abilities most in demand among recruiters and employers. Intriguingly, while technical expertise in large language model development tops the ranking, the next three fastest-growing skill categories are all nontechnical in nature: people management, agile problem-solving, and AI strategy formulation. This pattern reflects a broader truth within the industry—that the future of engineering will increasingly depend on those who can balance analytical rigor with leadership capacity, critical thinking, and the ability to guide collaborative processes effectively. As Padmanabhan succinctly put it, mastering soft skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, and a sensitivity to user experience can elevate a technically proficient developer into an invaluable team contributor.
Some industry leaders have suggested that as artificial intelligence automates repetitive or routine portions of the development cycle, entry-level engineers will be asked to engage in more complex and strategic kinds of work earlier in their careers. In practice, this shift means that many software engineers will spend less time simply writing or debugging code and more time engaging in holistic product creation—conceiving, planning, validating, and refining solutions that address user needs and business goals simultaneously. In such a context, understanding how to ideate, test, and improve becomes just as important as knowing a particular programming language or framework.
To illustrate how aspiring professionals can convey this readiness, Padmanabhan recommended that candidates go beyond listing coursework or certifications on their résumés. While academic achievements and professional certificates still reflect foundational competence, they do not on their own verify that these skills have been applied in practical, results-oriented ways. To truly demonstrate capability, applicants should complement their formal training with tangible side projects or prototypes that bring classroom concepts to life. Such projects—whether personal software tools, open-source contributions, or small-group collaborations—show initiative and curiosity, both of which signal potential to employers.
Padmanabhan explained that for students and recent graduates, the absence of substantial professional experience is not necessarily a liability if they can present evidence of self-directed learning and skill application. Through independent projects, candidates illustrate how they take initiative, how they experiment, and how they transform theoretical knowledge into usable solutions. She even encouraged those who feel uncertain about their professional readiness not to hesitate: if they have an idea that excites them, they should simply begin building it, using the many digital tools now accessible to help them prototype and iterate. With AI platforms increasingly simplifying coding processes, almost anyone can now transform an idea into a functioning application with relatively modest effort.
This evolving expectation—that candidates arrive at interviews with personal projects or prototypes to demonstrate their problem-solving and creative processes—has become a standard part of today’s hiring environment. Many students, for example, maintain active GitHub repositories showcasing multiple completed or ongoing projects, each of which shows not just technical output but an underlying thought process. Padmanabhan also shared examples of particularly proactive candidates who have supplemented their technical work with user research, such as conducting surveys of peers to validate a product hypothesis before development begins. She highlighted how thorough research—testing assumptions, iterating designs, and adjusting based on user feedback—is precisely the way teams operate within real-world engineering environments.
Ultimately, Padmanabhan concluded, the process of *how* a candidate builds something matters as much as what they build. The ability to articulate one’s development journey—the motivations, the problem-solving strategies, the iterative improvements—reveals an understanding of the full product lifecycle that extends well beyond writing code. For hiring managers, these demonstrations provide a window into how an applicant approaches challenges, collaborates with others, and learns from feedback. Once candidates accumulate even early experiences with this kind of project-based learning, they can enter interviews not merely as job seekers but as emerging professionals equipped to contribute meaningfully from day one.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-vp-shares-how-entry-level-engineers-can-stand-out-2025-10
