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Student & Early Career Application

Behind the Product is a private, application-based event bringing together SoCal’s top technical students and early-career builders with founders, engineers, and technical leaders behind some of today’s most interesting products.

Hosted at UCLA on October 17, 2026, the event is for technical students and early-career* builders who spend their time shipping side projects, working in labs, building with startups, or digging into hard product and engineering problems.

Priority deadline: September 27, 11:59 PM PT Apply by this date for priority consideration and earlier notification.

The event will feature a series of short, candid conversations with founders, engineers, and technical leaders who have directly helped build the products, systems, and companies being discussed. Rather than polished keynotes or pitch decks, each conversation will focus on the real decisions behind the build: technical bets, tradeoffs, turning points, what broke, and what they learned along the way, with audience Q&A throughout.

There will also be dedicated networking time to meet other attendees and connect with people across the broader LA tech ecosystem, including fellow builders, founders, operators, investors, recruiters, and technical leaders who may be in the room.

Attendance is application-based and capacity is limited. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Selected attendees will receive confirmation and event details by email.

Final application deadline: October 7, 2026 at 11:59pm PT

Questions? Reach us at behindtheproducthq@gmail.com or join the Discord channel to ask questions and connect with the community.

*Early-career = within ~3 years of graduating or starting your professional career.

Full Name

Email

Linkedin

School / University

Major / Field of Study

Graduation year

What areas are you most interested in?(Select up to 3)

What are you currently building, researching or exploring? (150 words or less)

Note: Tell us what’s taking up your curiosity right now: a project, research area, technical rabbit hole, startup idea, or something you’re learning.

Walk us through how you think when you’re building something from scratch.

Note: There’s no right process. Take us through how you go from an idea or problem to something real — as technical, structured, or informal as you’d like.

What’s a project you’re proud of — and why?

Note: This can be a project, demo, startup, research, class project, open-source contribution, or anything else you’ve worked on. Links are welcome.

What's one technical or product problem you can't stop thinking about? (50 words or less)

Big or small — we’re more interested in what you find interesting about the problem than whether you have the answer.

GitHub Link

What would make this room valuable to you?

Currently interested in:

Resume

How did you hear about Behind the Product?

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If selected, can you attend the full event in person at UCLA on October 17 at 12:00pm - 3:00pm PT?

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Are you involved in any technical clubs, communities, startups, labs, or projects (if so, which ones and in what capacity)?

Anything else we should know?

Complete your Partiful RSVP
Your application is only complete once both this application and your Partiful RSVP have been submitted. It takes less than 3 minutes.
RSVP here: https://partiful.com/e/BEkQEBMzSJXEqWQe4Azv?c=Uu_WIg-r

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By submitting this form, you agree that the information you provide may be used to review your application, manage event participation, and communicate with you about Behind the Product.

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By checking this box, you agree that photos and videos taken at Behind the Product may include you and may be used for event recaps, social media, and promotional purposes.

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