Question 1

Tell me about yourself

Accepted Answer

I'm Shree Bohara, a Computer Science graduate student at USC originally from Pune, India. I'm passionate about building accessible, reliable software with clean system design. Currently, I'm working part-time at QuinStreet on Pond, an AI-powered insurance platform where we shipped the fastest MVP in company history (2 months from empty repo to production). I specialize in full-stack development (TypeScript/React, Java/Spring Boot, Postgres), AI integration, and taking products from 0→1→100. What drives me is removing real barriers for people—like building EchoLens to help visually impaired users access web images. I'm seeking full-time opportunities starting May 2026 where I can ship end-to-end features on fast-paced product teams.

Question 2

What are you looking for in your next role?

Accepted Answer

A fast-paced team where I can learn quickly and ship real features end-to-end. I want exposure to user-facing product work, backend systems, and thoughtful AI features—so I understand how everything connects. I'm happy with small, product-driven teams inside a startup or a high-velocity group at a larger company.

Question 3

What's your ideal company/team culture?

Accepted Answer

Kind, curious, and direct. Ship fast with guardrails (tests, metrics, rollbacks). Low ego, high ownership. Clear goals, frequent feedback, and space to think about design before coding.

Question 4

What kind of problems do you want to solve?

Accepted Answer

Real user problems with measurable impact—faster onboarding, fewer errors, better accessibility. I love system design: taking something messy and turning it into a clean, loosely-coupled architecture.

Question 5

Are you open to remote/hybrid/onsite work?

Accepted Answer

Open to all three. I care more about the team, the learning, and the pace than the format.

Question 6

What are you currently learning or exploring?

Accepted Answer

Deeper system design, better observability/A-B frameworks, and where AI makes sense in real products (not hype). I'm also refining accessibility patterns from my EchoLens work.

Question 7

What's your preferred tech stack?

Accepted Answer

TypeScript + React on the front end; Java/Spring Boot or Node/Express on the back end; Postgres/MySQL; REST/GraphQL; cloud deploys (Vercel/GCP/AWS). Tools I like: Cursor for speed, ChatGPT for design/edge-case brainstorming, Heap/metrics for feedback.

Question 8

What makes you different from other candidates?

Accepted Answer

I combine speed with care. I design first (diagrams, data contracts, failure modes), then build in small, testable slices. I've shipped production features quickly (e.g., Pond's 23-step Manual Entry flow) and handled live incidents calmly with clear RCAs and fixes.

Question 9

Why should someone hire you?

Accepted Answer

Because I take products from 0 → 1 → 100. At QuinStreet, I helped take Pond from an empty repo to MVP in under two months (fastest in company history), and I'm now scaling it with experiments, reliability, and guardrails. I start with the real user problem, sketch a clean architecture, then ship in small end-to-end slices. I own outcomes—idea → design → API/UI → tests → metrics → iteration—and I use AI where it truly helps, not as autopilot. You get a builder who moves fast, measures impact, and lifts team velocity while keeping the product accessible and reliable.

Question 10

What are you passionate about in tech?

Accepted Answer

Building accessible, reliable products and clean architectures—and using AI thoughtfully to remove friction for users, not add it.

Question 11

What's your proudest achievement?

Accepted Answer

The most impressive thing I've done was during my internship at QuinStreet, where I'm currently working part-time. QuinStreet hired four new interns to build a brand new project called Pond from the ground up. The mission was to create a great user experience through our mascot Ollie, who helps users find the best insurance rates for auto and home insurance. What made this impressive was that we literally started from nothing. On my first day (June 2nd, 2025), we had no Figma designs, no database schema, no architecture—nothing. Despite that, we developed and deployed the entire MVP to production by August 15th, 2025 in under 2 months, which was the fastest MVP build in company history. My core contribution was designing and implementing the entire 'Manual Flow'—one of our three onboarding flows. In this flow, we ask users 23 dynamic questions that adapt based on their answers. I fully owned the Manual Flow from start to finish. Here's why this was so impressive: QuinStreet already had a similar flow called White Label that took them years to develop. Obviously, White Label is more robust, but building our Manual Flow in such a short time really stood out to everyone in the company. Every week we had demo sessions with our CTO, and she was really impressed with my work. She praised me in front of the team, and shortly after, she organized a meeting with top-ranking officials within the company. In that meeting, she asked me to explain my entire process to everyone, and then told all the leaders to implement a similar approach in their respective teams to boost overall productivity. The project is currently live at insurance.com/pond, and everything you see there was built by me and my team in those two months.

Question 12

What was your biggest technical challenge and how did you overcome it?

Accepted Answer

The most challenging project I'm working on right now is Pond at QuinStreet. We're building an AI-powered insurance platform completely from scratch—no designs, no database, no architecture on day one. It's been like working at a startup but with the backing of a larger company. The specific challenge that really tested me was when our product manager wanted to run A/B testing on three different onboarding flows. The goal was to figure out which flow got users through the process fastest. But here's the catch—we needed to show different flows to different users in real-time, split them equally across all three options, and get it live in production quickly. This was tricky because all three flows were built completely differently. We couldn't just swap out small pieces—we had to load entirely different experiences based on which group the user was in. My solution was pretty straightforward: generate a random number (0, 1, or 2) on our server every time a user arrives, and use that to decide which flow they see. I added some logic to make sure the split stayed equal over time, and made sure the decision happened before the page even loaded so users wouldn't see any flickering or delays. I pitched this to the team, everyone liked it, and we had it running in production within a week. Now our product team can actually see which onboarding flow works best with real data. What made this challenging wasn't just the technical part—it was doing it fast without breaking anything that was already working. But honestly, that's what I enjoy about this project. Every couple weeks there's a new problem to solve, and we have to think quickly and ship quickly.

Question 13

What advice would you give to someone starting in CS?

Accepted Answer

Start small, ship often: build tiny apps (calculator, to-do, one REST API) and put them on GitHub. Learn the basics well: data structures/algos, HTTP, SQL, and how the web actually works. Design before code: sketch simple diagrams (components, sequence, ERD), list edge cases, then build. Pick a simple stack: TypeScript + React, Node/Express, Postgres/MySQL. Deploy on Vercel/Render. Use AI as a tool, not autopilot: speed up boilerplate and tests, but verify everything. Join hackathons & teams: you'll learn faster from real problems and feedback. Measure impact: add logs/metrics, think about accessibility, and iterate. Build habits, not just goals: small daily progress beats big once-a-month bursts.

Question 14

What's next for you after USC?

Accepted Answer

Short term: a full-time full-stack SWE role on a fast-paced product team. I want to take features end-to-end (idea → design → API/UI → tests → metrics) and help a product go 0 → 1 → 100. Focus areas: user onboarding flows, reliability and observability, thoughtful AI features with guardrails, and accessibility. Stack comfort: TypeScript/React; Java/Spring Boot or Node; Postgres/MySQL; REST/GraphQL; cloud deploys; A/B tests + metrics. Work mode: open to onsite/hybrid/remote—I care most about the team, learning speed, and shipping real value. Long term: grow into a software architect—design clean, scalable systems and lead teams to ship accessible, reliable products (using AI where it truly helps).

Question 15

What's your visa status and work authorization?

Accepted Answer

I am on an F-1 visa and will have up to 3 years of work authorization under OPT/STEM OPT. After that period, I will require employer sponsorship (e.g., H-1B) to continue employment.

Question 16

Where are you willing to work? Any location preferences?

Accepted Answer

I'm open to anywhere in the USA. I'm currently in Los Angeles for USC, but I'm willing to relocate for the right opportunity.

Hi, I'm Shree