Aimen Moten

Aimen MotenSep 9, 2026

LinkedIn, consider this my public application to your creator program. A few years ago, I started posting here as a college student with no real strategy. I just wanted to share what I was learning while trying to break into tech. Since then, this platform has changed my career in ways I could not have predicted. It helped me build a community. It led to speaking opportunities. It brought internship conversations, brand partnerships, and opportunities directly into my inbox. And somehow, a place I originally used to look for jobs became one of the biggest reasons people started finding me. Now I want to take creating here more seriously. I want to make content that helps students navigate tech, understand how AI is changing careers, and see more possibilities for themselves than the traditional path they are usually shown. So, Lucy Quick, this is my pitch. Give me a seat in the creator program. I’ll bring the experiments, the career lessons, the AI rabbit holes, and probably a few overly ambitious public builds. Worst case, this post gets ignored. Best case, public pitching works. Worth a shot. 💙

Aimen MotenSep 8, 2026

A few years ago, I went from a “no-name” school to working at Google. Not because I had the perfect resume. Not because I knew exactly what I was doing. I just took a LOT of shots. I applied to internships I thought I was underqualified for. Programs I wasn’t sure I belonged in. Opportunities where I fully expected someone to look at my application and say no. And yes, I got plenty of no’s. But a few yeses completely changed the trajectory of my career. So if you’re a student waiting until you feel “qualified enough” to apply, consider this your sign to stop deciding for the recruiter. Here are 5 shots you can take right now: 1. AnitaB.org Kamala Scholars Program For Black and Latine 3rd and 4th-year undergrads in technical computing fields. Scholars receive fully funded attendance to GHC 26, plus mentorship and other support. Deadline: TODAY, September 8 at 11:59 PM ET. 2. IBM 2027 Internships IBM already has internships open across Data Science + AI, Product Management, Research, Data Engineering and more. 3. Google Software Engineering Intern, Summer 2027 The BS SWE internship is officially open. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so apply early. 4. Tesla Data Engineering Internship Tesla has a Winter/Spring 2027 Data Engineering internship open in Palo Alto for students who can work full-time during the term. 5. Waymo Systems Software Engineering Intern, Summer 2027 A Systems Engineering SWE internship in Mountain View working in the autonomous driving space. You do not need to know whether you’ll get in before you apply. Your job is to take the shot. Let them decide the rest. And if one of these isn’t for you, send this to the friend who needs to see it.

Aimen MotenSep 2, 2026

A few years ago, one of the easiest ways to stand out as a CS student was to build something. Build an app. Put it on your resume. Talk about it in interviews. But in 2026, I genuinely think that bar is changing. Give someone Lovable, Cursor, Claude Code, or basically any decent AI coding tool and they can get something working pretty quickly. So if I were a student building projects right now, I wouldn’t just ask: “What can I build?” I’d ask: “What already exists that I could make better?” Take LinkedIn Saved Posts. I save things constantly and then basically never see them again because they’re sitting in one giant chronological feed. Okay, obvious solution: add search, tags and categories. Except… now you actually have to make decisions. Should posts have folders or tags? Both? What happens if a post gets deleted? Can one post belong to multiple categories? Should AI categorize things automatically? How do you add all of this without turning a simple Save button into an overwhelming mess? And if I actually wanted to build it, what would the system look like? That’s the interesting part. AI is making it much easier to go from a blank page to working code. But understanding an existing product, finding something genuinely worth improving, thinking through the tradeoffs, and figuring out how your solution fits into the existing system? That’s still engineering. So if you’re looking for your next project, try this: Pick something you already use. Find one thing that annoys you. Figure out how you’d make it better. Then build that.