Technical Interview Prep

The most important step to landing a job is being prepared for your interviews.

• Who you are (within the context)
• Why do you want to work for this company
• It is one to two minutes long

• However, an "Elevator Pitch" is more generic and is something that you give to strangers.
• Supposed to be ~30 seconds about who you are and what you do

• Backend
• Frontend
• Full Stack
• Mobile Application Developer
• Software Applications
• Compilers

• Short and Sweet (concise and to-the-point answers)
• Sound Natural (unlike a Robot or rehearsed or like a script)
• Remember to breathe
• You are trying to sell so it is ok to brag about yourself but do it tastefully
• Highlight what you can do for the company and what you want to learn in the company

• Rambling
• Speak too fast (happens when you have it memorised)
• monotonous voice 
• Sound depressed
• Sound overly happy

I recently graduated from Super Awesome coding school where I learned a ton about backend development. Before Super Awesome, I worked as a business analyst for 5 years. I became obsessed with functions, pivotal tables and data. I've always been interested in technology, but never really knew these skill could be applicable to coding until a friend started talking to me about data science and big data. The more I learned, the more I realized I wanted to learn programming and make a shift in my career. I've completed my program at Super Awesome and want to start using my skills to contribute on a data driven project.

Bootcamp

I am a backend developer who has experience in both Java and Rails. While working at Cool Tech Company the past 2 years has been an amazing experience, I realize what excited me is more is what I can do with technology, rather than the technology itself. I've been volunteering with non profits throughout most of my life and I want to work on a project that I feel is making a difference and help put my technical skills to better use. While I know I am not currently a full stack developer, I am a fast learner having made major contributions to my current code base without knowing Rails before starting the job. I'm very interested in your vision of changing the world and know I would be an excellent contribution to your team.

Junior Developer

Self Taught Engineer

I'm a self taught full stack engineer. After working for a job I hated in finance, I knew I wanted to work in a position with more autonomy. I devoured YouTube videos and CodeAcademy lessons until I was proficient enough to build a social network for elementary and middle school called Sparkle, which is currently being used by over 1200 students and teachers. I have experience with React, server-side rendering, node, MySQL and AWS. What I love the most about programming is that it allows me to materialize my ideas and turn them into features or products used by many people. I am ready for something bigger and noticed your company has a lot of the same ideas and goals about education. I feel that I would be a great addition to your team.

Example Pitches

I am a full stack developer who loves to help people change their lives through teaching. I have taught at two highly ranked coding schools, Turing and Thinkful, teaching both technical and career skills. I have been interested in teaching and helping others for as long as I can remember. From helping my peers with their homework growing up to tutoring and mentoring students throughout high school and college. Prior to teaching, I worked at numerous tech companies writing production code in Java, Rails, Ember, and React. I want to use my combination of skills to help you create the number one teaching platform. I feel that my experience as a technologist and educator will help me bridge connections between your sales and engineering teams.

Before getting into programming, I worked at a wealth management office in Alabama. After beign there for two years, I realized I wasn't excited about the work I was doing. I end up looking for different opportunities and I landed on front end development. I loved that combined critical thinking skills, creative design, and that the tech industry put so much emphasis on working as a team. I knew that if I was going to grow as a developer, I would need to get out of Alabama, so I ended taking a risk and moving out to Denver to attend the best Coding bootcamp I could find, Awesome Cool Bootcamp. I've love learning JavaScript, and I can't wait to use the skills I've gained working with React and Redux to make an impact at Company Inc and learn more about GraphQL.

Example Pitches

I was working at a tech start up for the last three years where I started in implementation and eventually became a product manager. During that time, I had the opportunity to work closely with our developers whether it was guiding them on product specs or helping them to better understand our customers and their needs.

Example Pitches

As I was collaborating with our engineers, I found myself wanting to understand their work on a much deeper level, so I could more effectively communicate with them and I was also just very curious about their world.  So, I taught myself SQL and a bit Javascript, and quickly realized how much I enjoyed coding and building queries.  As I continued working our engineers, I found myself much more excited by the work they were doing and wanted to be the one to actually code and build the product. 

So, I quit my job so I could devote all my time to become a software developer. Since then, I have built  several full-stack web applications, using technologies such as Ruby on Rails, Javascript, React, Redux, SQL, etc. 

I have really enjoyed  immersing myself in code, and something I have cherished about my experiences and journey so far is how much my implementation and product manager experiences inform the way I code. I am very passionate about ensuring an amazing user experience and being thoughtful about the the user's journey throughout the platform, which is why I am looking to join a user-centric team.

I am excited by Company ABC's collaborative engineering culture and user-centered design,  and would love to dive right in to continue to further user experiences on your platform. I am also excited by your mission to XYZ because [insert my connection to the mission] and would love to be a part to further mission XYZ. 

Organisation

• How to keep organised during the process and preparation 

• Company Communication and Information
• Interview Prep material
• Technical Knowledge and Practice Material

• Juggling talking to multiple people and multiple organisations/companies

• Hard to remember the details over days, months, and years

• Names
• Dates
• Form of Communication (in-person, email, phone)
• Summary

• jobtrack.io
• Excel
• Computer Folder and notes
• Evernote
• Pen and Paper

Folders

• Resumes
• Personal Pitches
• 'Tell me a time when' stories..
• List of questions that you need to ask the company

• Physical Folders
• Virtual Folders
• Evernote

• Reference Material
• Technical Facts

• Big O Notations
• Arrays vs LinkedList
• Data structures
• Common Algorithms
• Most Commonly Asked questions of that languages
• Non-implicit information about language/framework

• Physical Folders
• Virtual Folders
• Evernote

Homework

Organise your Interview Prep Materials

Research

• Job Descriptions
• Tech Stack
  • Same as your
  • Different

• Company Values and Culture
• The product (Who the customers are)
• The Interviewer
• Process
  • How many interviews
  • What they generally have

• The Company Website
  • Product
  • Customers
  • Values
  • Job Descriptions
• Glassdoor
  • Interview Process and Questions
• Reddit
• Google
  • Recent News, competitors
• LinkedIn 
  • about the people 
  • and the interviewer

YOUR TURN! Pick a position you are interested in or are interviewing for. Research the position and company and write down a set of notes.

Culture Fit and Behavioural based questions

It gives the interviewer some insight into your communciation skills, as well as your motivation to work with technology, how you work with others, and what do you do when you face a challenge along the way

Culture Fit Questions 

Enthusiasm has a huge impact on interview results. About 50% of the Triplebyte candidates who fail interviews at companies fail for non-technical reasons. This is usually described by the company as a “poor culture fit”. Nine times out of ten, however, culture fit just means enthusiasm for what a company does. Companies want candidates who are excited about their mission. This carries as much weight at many companies as technical skill. This makes sense. Excited employees will be happier and work harder.

Why they are important?

• Tell me about yourself?
• What is your greatest strength/weakness?
• Why do you want to work for X?
• How do you handle stress and pressure?
• What's the job you want two jobs from now, and how does this role help you get there?
• What gets you fired up and leaping out of the bed every morning?
• Why do you want to leave your current/last company?
• What is the most challenging aspect of your current project?
• How do you tackle challenges? Name a difficult challenge you faced while working on a project, how you overcame it, and what you learned.
• What does your best day of work look like?
• What is the most constructive feedback you have received in your career?

Culture Fit Questions

• What environment do you thrive in the most?
• What drives your passion?
• If you were starting a company from scratch, what would you want the culture to be?
• Describe your perfect job, work and company? What factors are most important to you?
• In your opinion, what is leadership?

• Refer back to the company research
  • Company values and values
  • For example - fast-paced learning environment culture

• Be Introspective
• Be open but honest (courteously)
• Practice

• List 5-7 of your strengths
• List 3-5 of your weaknesses
• What do you like about software engineering? The building? The breaking? The problem solving? The end product?
• How do you keep up with current trends and advances in the field? Blogs? Websites?
• Where would you like to be in 5 years? 10 years? Tech Lead, PM, Start up Founder?
• What is you ideal job? Small or Big Team, Front End, Back End, Mobile, Database
• What is your ideal company? Large, Small, Software is #1 Focus, Non profit, Finance
• Why do you want to work for this company? Can you tie it in with your 5/10 year plan?
• Your ideal job/company? - You can use the job you picked during the research activity.

• Tell me about a time when you failed. How did you handle it? 
• Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker.
• Tell me about a time in which you had a conflict and needed to influence somebody else.
• Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with your manager.
• Tell me about a time you had to give someone terrible news.

• Teamwork
• Problem Solving and Planning
• Initiative/Leadership
• Interpersonal Skills and Conflicts
• Pressure / Stress / Failure