San José State leaped to No. 2 on CodeSignal’s annual computer science skills ranking, fueled by programs and student clubs that build practical, employer-relevant coding—an approach supporters say is helping students stand out even as overall interest in comp
On a quiet day after graduation, Shinika Balasundar says the surprise wasn’t that her classmates ranked near the top. It was how quickly it seemed to become normal.
Balasundar graduated from San José State in December with a computer engineering degree. By then, she had already completed internships at three of the nation’s top electric car companies and earned a full-time position at a major global electronics manufacturer.
When San José State students later placed only behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a 2025 national assessment of programming and software engineering skills, Balasundar said it matched what she’d lived on campus.
She credits both the university’s rigorous academic program and the Formula One club. Spartan Racing. where she learned how programming interacts with hardware. “Everything that made me a good engineer today is honestly because of the school and the club together,” Balasundar said. “The high ranking was very much justified.”.
The ranking that put San José State in the spotlight is CodeSignal’s annual computer science skills assessment. The test evaluates students’ technical skills using either three or four problems, takes 60 to 90 minutes to complete, and is web-based. Employers mandate it when they interview candidates for roles such as software engineers, product managers or data scientists.
San José State’s jump to No. 2 put it past top-tier universities including CalTech, UC Berkeley and Stanford. In the same assessment, Stanford ranked 17, while MIT held the No. 1 position.
CodeSignal CEO Tigran Sloyan said the result isn’t simply because the campus is close to Silicon Valley. He pointed to programs at San José State that are “closer to what companies look for beyond the resume.”
Balasundar’s own path reflects that emphasis on real-world application. She said she wanted to join the Formula One club before even accepting a spot at San José State. Her goal was to write code that would let her make adjustments while the car was moving. She built a telemetry system that uses radio.
“Every single thing I was learning in class had a direct application on the vehicle,” Balasundar said. “It may be directly correlated or was adjacent, but I could see the value add of going through the main curriculum that the school provided and how it actually plays into an engineering aspect.”
That approach is now being watched at a time when artificial intelligence is changing how many educators think about computer science instruction. As AI accelerates, some educators are reconsidering whether and how coding fundamentals should be incorporated into learning.
At San José State. officials say the answer has been to stay rooted in computing fundamentals while building hands-on pathways for students to put skills to work. Jorjeta Jetcheva, chair of the computer engineering department, said the university is aiming for long-term capability rather than short-term readiness.
“We want students to be successful, not just now, not just when they’re graduating, but for many years to come,” Jetcheva said. “We need to have more experts in the future, not fewer, to test, validate and understand what the code is doing.”
Jetcheva earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, and she speaks to a department that has broadened beyond traditional boundaries. Most computer science education at San José State occurs in the computer engineering and computer science departments. as well as in the university’s new College of Information. Data and Society. But computing training has also spread into other programs.
San José State offers degrees in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. It also embeds computational skills in its chemistry and business programs. In addition, it will launch undergraduate computer science degrees in biology and geology this fall.
The campus expansion is happening even as student interest shifts. Since 2023, Spartan coders have climbed from number 49 out of 50 up to No. 2 on CodeSignal’s annual skills ranking, overtaking top-tier universities including CalTech, UC Berkeley and Stanford, which ranked 17. But broader national trends show pressure closer to home: the number of applications to study computer science declined by 13% in 2026.
Even so, Jetcheva said more students are turning toward specialized areas. For example, the number of applicants for the computer science and linguistics bachelor’s program has more than doubled since 2024, rising from 61 to 131.
Vincent Del Casino, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said the campus sees a differentiating landscape.
“The landscape of higher education around computer science is differentiating,” Del Casino said. “There may be a decline in computer science, but these other areas are simultaneously picking up and all of them rely at some level on computer science education.”
Del Casino also said the university has steadily invested in hiring faculty from both industry and academia. Last year, San José State was second in the California State University system in hiring tenure-track faculty, and some of those hires also have industry experience.
Student momentum is reinforced by work and research opportunities that run alongside classes. Jetcheva said many students have to juggle school with work or family responsibilities, which “makes all of their accomplishments even more impressive.”
“I came to San José State with a very strong and concrete intention of supporting students,” Jetcheva said. “A lot of my focus has been on applying for grants that directly benefit the students and remove barriers, such as income or lack thereof, from the challenges that they face.”
Meghana Indukuri. who will graduate this month with a bachelor’s in software engineering. described two paid National Science Foundation research projects—one in robotics and another on deep learning and protein design. Indukuri said proximity to high-tech businesses helps some students secure internships, but research can be another route into specialized experience.
“They are two pathways to the same skill sets,” said Indukuri, who will begin a computer science master’s program at UCLA in the fall. “I’m developing software that other people can use, and so is industry.”
Chris Pollett. a San José State professor of computer science and an instructor for almost 15 years. linked the ranking to word-of-mouth about the university’s programming quality. “We’ve always been one of the major suppliers locally for tech talent,” Pollett said. “A lot of people come to San José State specifically because they want to get a job in Silicon Valley. Once they’re here, they’re with a lot of like-minded people and they’re very motivated.”.
Outside the classroom, students say they get what the ranking is built to measure: the chance to apply programming to real systems, and to compete.
The SJSU Robotics club is building a new Mars rover for next year’s national University Rover Challenge. The competitive programming club TEA Time recently advanced to the national finals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest. Spartan Racing produced a Formula One car that placed first for endurance and second overall in a national competition last year.
For Balasundar, the point is simple: the ranking reflects an engineering education that keeps pushing skills toward use.
Just as she did with her telemetry system—using radio to make adjustments while the car was moving—she said her classes repeatedly connected back to hands-on engineering. In that light, San José State’s leap to No. 2 doesn’t read like a fluke. It reads like a culmination of a campus culture that built the skills employers test for. then gave students enough opportunities to practice them until they felt inevitable.
San José State CodeSignal computer science skills ranking MIT software engineering programming test internships Formula One club Spartan Racing TEA Time SJSU Robotics club artificial intelligence education California State University
No. 2??? nice.
So are they ranked for actually getting jobs or just coding tests? Cuz my cousin “studied CS” and still can’t find anything. The headline makes it sound like instant career magic.
Bro the Formula One club? I thought that was like watching races lol. Also internships at electric car companies sounds more like luck than a ranking. Still cool though I guess, just seems weird to say it became “normal” so fast.
I don’t really get these CodeSignal rankings, it’s like those “best schools” lists that change every year. Like MIT is always on there so congrats San Jose I guess. But also it says “interest in comp” like people don’t wanna do it anymore, so how are they still pumping out all these engineers? Sounds like just the tech kids, not the whole student body.