Choose a path that fits your goals, pace, and level. Whether you're looking to refine your resume, build a project portfolio, or get mentored into your dream job — Headstarter gives you the tools, structure, and support to make it happen.
Headstarter is a tiered platform built for ambitious engineers who want to prove their skills.
Access a curated set of tools — from career capital scoring to resume reviews and project mentorship.
Build full-stack projects and get unlimited mentor calls to fast-track into top-tier roles.
Start wherever you are. Upgrade anytime.
Start your journey with essentials needed for a career baseline
Level up your career growth with hands-on mentorship and deeper guidance
Fast-track your success with unlimited access to resources that help build a career-defining portfolio
Career Capital is a score from 0-100 that measures one's abilities compared to a highly-recruited Senior Software Engineer.
Every month we will have a "super-day" interview with startups hiring the smartest people in the US for Software Engineering roles in San Francisco or New York City. Anyone part of Headstarter with a Career Capital 85 will automatically be invited for an interview.
Rate your resume 0-10: 3-4 personal projects get +3. For every proper SWE or ML exp +1. TA, fellowships, bootcamps and non-swe work do not count. For every year of full-time SWE / ML exp +3.
Up to 5 personal projects beyond YouTube tutorials. Class projects do not count.
Have you done 450 Leetcode? Many Headstarter industry advisors who work at Google + alums who work at Meta / Scale AI + neetcode himself did 450.
Up to 48 projects reviewed by a Senior Software Engineer. Open-source, personal projects with code reviews or production projects with users. Software/ML internships count as 3. 1 Year of SWE/ML counts as 6. Hackathon wins, TA for CS: 1, ML research: 2. Non-US exp: 3.
Up to 25 Recruiters, employers, senior engineers or hiring managers who respond urgently to your calls because you built a valuable relationship.
Can you sell well, communicate clearly? Are you a team player, proactive, self-starter? Adapt quickly and take action? Up to 40 points (start with 5 + technical team evidence).
| Area | Breakdown | Weight | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resume | Rate your resume 0-10: 3-4 personal projects get +3. For every proper SWE or ML experience, add 1. TA, fellowships, bootcamps and non-SWE work do not count. For every year of full-time SWE / ML experience, add 3. | 3% | 0-10 |
| Starter projects | Up to 5 personal projects beyond YouTube tutorials. Class projects do not count. | 14% | 0-5 |
| Interview Prep | Have you done 450 Leetcode? Many Headstarter industry advisors who work at Google + alums who work at Meta / Scale AI + neetcode himself did 450. | 12% | 0-450 |
| Advanced projects | Up to 48 projects reviewed by a Senior Software Engineer. Open-source, personal projects with code reviews or production projects with users. Software/ML internships count as 3. 1 Year of SWE/ML counts as 6. Hackathon wins, TA for CS: 1, ML research: 2. Non-US exp: 3. | 43% | 0-48 |
| Network | Up to 25 Recruiters, employers, senior engineers or hiring managers who respond urgently to your calls because you built a valuable relationship. | 14% | 0-25 |
| Collaboration | Can you sell well, communicate clearly? Are you a team player, proactive, self-starter? Adapt quickly and take action? Up to 40 points (start with 5 + technical team evidence). | 14% | 0/40 |
| TOTAL | 100% | TOTAL |
Be forwarded for interviews with our one or a majority of our hiring partners automatically after having 85+ career capital
Looking for exceptional talent in NYC
As a Member of Technical Staff, you will take ownership of complex technical challenges, delivering impactful solutions that align with the company's mission. You'll work closely with a multidisciplinary team to shape scalable infrastructure, craft robust backend systems, and co-create transformative tools for clinicians.
As a Founding Research Engineer, you'll play a critical role in building and scaling their AI models and inference pipelines. You'll work closely with both infrastructure experts and AI researchers to bring advanced research concepts into their production system. They hold a high standard and are biased towards candidates who teach the team something new.
As a Member of Technical Staff on the Security team, you will take ownership of complex technical challenges, delivering impactful solutions that align with the company's mission. You'll work closely with a multidisciplinary team to shape scalable infrastructure, craft robust backend systems, and co-create transformative tools for clinicians.
Looking for exceptional talent in SF
All of their founding engineers are full-stack generalists, meaning you'll get a chance to work across the entire stack (frontend, backend, AI infrastructure, devops). Given the compound nature of their product, they also tend to form short-lived teams around specific projects.
Looking for exceptional talent in SF
They are seeking an extremely talented, senior- to staff-level AI engineer to help them pioneer the future of user interfaces. You must have experience building high-quality, complex, yet maintainable LLM apps, and you should be able to do so in a fraction of the time that most competent people think is possible (in part because of your ability to wield the latest in code generation and intuition for prompt engineering).
They are seeking an extremely talented, senior- to staff-level Agent Engineer (software engineer with deep experience in ML, LLMs, and/or agents) to help them pioneer the future of user experiences. You must have experience building high-quality, complex, yet maintainable LLM apps and agents, and you should be able to do so in a fraction of the time that most competent people think is possible (in part because of your ability to wield the latest in code generation and intuition for prompt engineering).
Examples of past projects given by our industry mentors in our Accelerator program