Vietnamese female student accepted by Microsoft despite not graduating from university

Overcoming Microsoft's rigorous recruitment rounds, Duong Ha Anh was accepted into this leading technology company despite not having graduated from university. Before that, the Vietnamese female student had worked as an intern at Apple and Uber.

Duong Ha Anh, a senior in Computer Science at Brown University (USA), received news of her acceptance into the Software Engineer position at Microsoft a few months ago. The girl born in 2002 will join this technology giant this summer, right after graduating from university.

“To prepare for this, I started my journey right from my first year and had to send hundreds of letters asking to be an intern within 3 years,” Ha Anh said.

Duong Ha Anh, senior student majoring in Computer Science at Brown University

Before being accepted and receiving a full scholarship to Brown University, a prestigious Ivy League school, the former student of Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted spent 2 years studying in China thanks to a scholarship from UWC (United World Colleges). During this time, Ha Anh thought she would pursue economics and painting.

The summer before entering university, the female student felt that it was not suitable so she decided to switch to Computer Science. Since her first year, she has actively worked as a teaching assistant in many specialized subjects at the school, regularly tinkered with programming to improve her skills and participated in specialized clubs at the school such as game development, virtual reality...

Because she did not have many skills and experience, in the summer of her first year, Ha Anh returned to Vietnam to apply for an internship at a Vietnamese company to “strengthen” her resume. “Most of my seniors advised me to do an internship early to gain experience, however, applying for an internship position during my first year in the US is relatively difficult,” Ha Anh said.

It wasn’t until the summer of her sophomore year that Ha Anh began to apply for internships at American companies, in her field of study: software engineering. The Vietnamese female student mainly searched for information via Linkedin and sent out over 200 resumes. However, only one of them responded. That person was a human resources specialist at the technology transportation service company Uber. After the interview round, Ha Anh was officially accepted.

Before being accepted to Microsoft, Ha Anh worked as an intern at Uber (Photo: NVCC)

After that, Ha Anh interned here as a Software Engineer intern. The Vietnamese girl participated in creating an internal support tool to provide information about trips, customers and drivers. Working for the first time at a professional company, Ha Anh felt "overwhelmed" but also gradually "broke out" the company's operating procedures and the stages in a project.

“I realized that the knowledge I learned at school somewhat 'matched' the actual requirements of the job, such as finding errors in code, but there were also many things I had to learn on my own because the university didn't teach them,” Ha Anh said.

After those 3 months of internship, returning to study, she realized she had to improve her knowledge in different fields to expand her skills.

Thanks to her experience at Uber, during her next internship, Ha Anh received more responses from emails, including Apple. She had to go through 3 rounds including testing her thinking, logic, coding and problem-solving skills.

When applying to large companies, Ha Anh believes that having a personal project is essential. For example, when applying to Apple, the Vietnamese girl shared about the project “water physics simulation” that she coded herself, thereby impressing the recruiting unit.

As an Apple software engineering intern, Ha Anh was assigned to a team responsible for visual features for several products. For about 15 weeks, she participated in a project to improve the experience of viewing 3D photos and videos for Vision Pro users, through artificial intelligence applications.

Working at Apple, there were times when Ha Anh had to work 12-13 hours a day to run projects. Despite the pressure, thanks to that, she learned many more skills and programming languages ​​to meet the job requirements.

The girl born in 2002 will join the technology giant this summer. (Photo: NVCC)

In August 2024, when companies started “hunting” for employees, Ha Anh proactively sought out official positions. This time, she sent out about 80 applications, focusing on large companies. Although she had not yet graduated, Ha Anh still made it to the final interview round of several companies.

“The interview style and culture of companies are very different. It is very normal for one company to be a good fit but not another,” Ha Anh said. The female student said she did not feel too disappointed when she was rejected.

Microsoft's recruitment round includes an online test lasting about 2 hours, involving logic and programming. After that, Ha Anh was interviewed by a leader and two engineers, each for an hour, mainly testing the candidate's knowledge, orientation, and projects, along with some hypothetical situations.

“In addition, they are very interested in the candidate's passion for work, progress, determination and learning spirit,” Ha Anh shared.

Thanks to her experience and early preparation, she passed Microsoft's rigorous recruitment rounds even though she had not graduated from college.

“I was very surprised when I received the invitation letter from Microsoft. I felt relieved because I no longer had to worry about a job after graduation,” the female student said.

In the job offer, in addition to salary, Ha Anh will be sponsored for an H1-B visa (temporary work visa). She will start working here right after graduation.

“The technology sector in the US is quite developed. Therefore, I want to gain more experience and supplement my specialized knowledge related to computer hardware before officially working in the US,” Ha Anh shared.

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Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/nu-sinh-viet-duoc-microsoft-nhan-vao-du-chua-tot-nghiep-dai-hoc-2361452.html