Just build a startup.
EDIT: Building a startup gets you experience, connections and the grit that comes with actually building something. Being employee #440,670 does not; the end game is promotion or getting laid off. Just telling you how it is.
Unless you want to be in research (which the school does matter) instead of applying for jobs, just build a startup instead which gets you the experience you are looking for.
I second this, OP I do truly emphasize with your situation (I graduated right before the 2008 crash and had to join the Army). You should look into creating a startup or make significant contributions on a major open source project. Don't think that just because you're fresh out of school VC's won't be willing to fund you. If you're dead set on being a cog on a wheel feel free to send me your resume and I can give you some feedback.
Tacking on to this: find other people in the same boat (surely there are others from your class or adjacent years). Talk to each other about problems you see in the world. Talk about how you could solve those. Even if you don't raise VC or anything like that, simply working with other people to ship some working product is extremely valuable experience. Even better if you can find others to work with that have different backgrounds (e.g. design) to get that cross functional experience.
Just seems to carry a lot of weight here.
Super common thinking here on HN to be honest.
If I had a penny for every post or reply I've read on this site that just implicitly assumed everyone has half a million dollars or more of savings, or well-off parents that can support them indefinitely then I'd have well over half a million dollars in savings.
Genuine question: the OP had been unemployed for a year, probably with student loans on top. Where would the OP find the money for a venture that, statistically speaking, has an 80% chance of failure? And how about the bills they already have?
She's an MIT Course 6 grad. She can literally cold message any VC on LinkedIn and she will get an opportunity to pitch [0] despite having 0 revenue or customers because our heuristic is "if you can get into MIT you are smart enough to be molded into a founder for an idea we have, or deployed as an operator in an existing portfolio company".
YC also runs startup session specifically for Harvard and MIT students when you can have a personal chat with partners. Same with A16Z SpeedRun.
Additonally, MIT students and alums have access to Engine@MIT [1] and the Harvard I-Lab [2] who help connect students and alums to angels and VCs.
Just being an MIT alum, saying you started "ideating" a year ago, joining Engine or I-Lab, and building a basic prototype will 99% guarantee you a YC interview (especially based on what I've seen in the YC 2025 classes - honestly very lackluster for the valuations being asked, but hey you gotta deploy dry-powder somewhere).
[0] - Am a VC and did CS in the other side of Cambridge
[1] - https://innovationlabs.harvard.edu/
[2] - https://engine.xyz/
I dont know why this is downvoted. Even though the vast majority of startups fail, the outcome of an attempt is an experience thats much more valuable than any class you attended at MIT in the eyes of future employers. It would also equip you with valuable business perspective that you wouldnt have had if you started a regular tech job. I mean, is this worse than continuing to apply to jobs only? Come on HN
This is what happened during the last major downturn. There was an influx of startups. If you want to stay in tech during a downturn you either start a business, join a startup, stay in school or switch industries. What you don't do is stay unemployed for years on end. Best of luck to all of those trying to navigate this difficult situation.