Just so I understand, you actually did a software engineering internship, but ended up in a more data science role, right? I'm curious just so I better understand if even the standard software engineering role internship helps for more than just software engineering jobs after grad school.
It also strikes me as odd that this person had no offers after that many interviews, but the truth is that there are a lot of other factors that go into these decisions. Maybe this person wasn't the best at communicating? Maybe this person sold himself as an all-around generalist, and the companies didn't really know what to do with him?
Otherwise though, I'm happy to hear about physicists going into tech!
No, my internship was also in a data scientist type role. I was thinking of data science as a sub-specialty of software engineering. But I do expect that any internship, even if not in the exact role you are looking for, would help your employability.
It also strikes me as odd that this person had no offers after that many interviews, but the truth is that there are a lot of other factors that go into these decisions. Maybe this person wasn't the best at communicating? Maybe this person sold himself as an all-around generalist, and the companies didn't really know what to do with him?
Otherwise though, I'm happy to hear about physicists going into tech!