1. What do we do?

  2. Why should you consider Kensho?

  3. How to ace our* interview

* or any other company's

Kenshō (Japanese) - the initial insight (wiki)

2 year old startup (ex-Google engineers)

backed by Google Ventures

series A lead by Goldman Sachs

30-40 full time people (mostly engineers, data scientists)

I am Gleb Bahmutov, 2 years with Kensho, front-end team lead

Fight the "gut" feeling

Why Kensho is successful

source: popsci.com

consider HFT - people invest 10's of $ millions to respond faster by 10 milliseconds

Why Kensho is successful

Clients:

Largest banking institutions

NBC Universal (watch the CNBC channel)

Hedge funds

CNBC example

Oil dropped 5% in a month

Which companies perform best?

Who should know about these results?

AUTOMATED

Kensho: real world events => decisions

  • more events

  • faster processing

  • larger impact

Why should you consider Kensho?

Company culture defined by the engineers

Why should you consider Kensho?

Company is very successful

Why should you consider Kensho?

UI / UX

Software engineers

Data science engineer

Research analyst

Why should you consider Kensho?

> 50% of employees in / just finished college

Why should you consider Kensho?

No aversion to the new tools / languages / libraries

Why should you consider Kensho?

Fastest timeframe to feel useful and meaningfully contribute

Why should you consider Kensho?

We love Open Source Software and contribute to it

Why should you consider Kensho?

We are right at 17 Dunster st, Harvard sq

Why should you consider Kensho?

Why should you consider Kensho?

The most productive and nicest people

Why should you consider Kensho?

We love music

Why should you consider Kensho?

Because we want to find your limit

and then surpass it

Why should you consider Kensho?

Rockstars are made not born

Why should you consider Kensho?

Ask the other MIT students who are at Kensho!

How to get hired

General advice based on 10 / 100 rounds of interviews

It is simple to say NO

We get resumes

Website

Career fairs

Personal connections

No recruiters

Should I interview this candidate?

Website

Career fairs

Personal connections

Should I interview this candidate?

School matters a little

GPA does not matter

Previous experience matters very little

Personal reference from current Kensho

Previous job durations

Hobbies, honors, activities

Skills MATTER

Top 3 ways to show skills

  1. Github profile

  2. Personal website with projects

  3. Blog with interesting writing

Make it simple for Kensho see your skills

Requires planning ahead and time / effort

Show me you have a passion for learning

Meetups, online classes, hackathons, teaching, blog posts, etc.

How much programming should I know?

Enough to be a CS TA

Desire and plan to be head TS for a CS course

Drive and stamina to be teaching a CS course

How much finance and economics do I need to know?

Enough to ask about stock options (just kidding)

It is a bonus, but not a requirement. You will pick it up.

Phone screen

Make it "simple" to chat

  • quiet environment

  • headphones with microphone

  • knowing what you want

  • learn something about Kensho

Phone screen

Try to make it a video call: screen share, demos, coding exercises

Face to face interview

"Wrote Homebrew" vs "invert a binary tree"

Face to Face

Your projects (what, why, how)

Coding exercise

Logical puzzles / whiteboard questions

Face to Face

If you can, find out who will interview you.

Look them up

Face to Face

You are evaluating Kensho too

Coding exercise

Show me that you can write clean, clear, testable code

Are your current projects clean?

What if I look at your current code?

Will it let me make a simple decision?

Make up your mind

Q: What do you want to do?

Do not contradict yourself

Best way to full time job

Internship

  • 1 hour face to face interview.
  • Well paid internship
  • 6/15 full time offers (summer 2015)

Internship

Do you think you are so smart? Prove it

Gleb

Bruno

MIT Career Fair: Fri 25, 10 - 4, 

Johnson Athletics Center