How To Interview A Programmer

Time To Go Crush Your Own Technical Interviews

With these technical interview tips, youre equipped to begin your own technical interview preparation journey!

The next step is taking advantage of all the amazing resources out there that teach you how to ace a technical interview.

First, head to Interview Cake for extra training, strategies, and practice technical interview questions .

Then, acclimate yourself to live interviews by connecting with your peers on Pramp.

Above all, keep seeking out knowledge, improving your trade, and honing those coding interview skills with practice! Getting your dream coding job means getting through the interview. But if you go in prepared, the technical interview will be a piece of cake.

Note: there are affiliate links in this post.

How Have You Managed Conflict With Coworkers In The Past

A recruiter will ask you this question to determine how you work in a team and how you handle interpersonal relationships at work.

Example: “When I’ve experienced difficulties with coworkers, I’ve always dealt with them by talking directly to my coworker. I’ll always remain respectful to the person in question and don’t want to cause rifts in my team, so I’ll take the time to discuss the situation calmly and express my needs moving forward.”

Tip #: Clean Up Your Social Media Presence

Did you know that 70 percent of employers use social media to screen potential candidates and out of those, 57 percent have found content that compelled them not to hire a candidate? Its no joke a tasteless comment or unprofessional picture could derail your chances of landing your dream job!

If you want to optimize your chances of making an excellent first impression on your interviewer, you should take some time to clean up your online presence.

Coding Interview Tips:

• Search your name on Google to see which profiles will be easily visible to interviewers.
• Do an audit of your social profiles to remove any pictures, posts, or conversations that might come off as a red flag to interviewers.
• Make a habit of creating and posting content online that relates to your industry.

Additional Resources:

• What Recruiters Look At When Stalking Your Social Media Glassdoor

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What Did You Like About Your Previous Work Environment And What Didnt You Like About It

Chances are, theyll have the same preferences wherever they go. So if something they strongly dislike is widely present at your company, you have a problem: they probably arent going to be happy in your tech team. On the other hand, if their preferred work environment resembles that of your companys, theyll most likely thrive.

Why Is This Job Open

David Roberts, Arcs Head of Developer Relations, says that inquiring about the reason for the position opening is his go-to question, for several reasons:

My favorite question to ask during an interview is: "Why is this job open?" The brilliance of this question is that it can completely change the course of an interview if you ask it at the right time. You ask questions at the end, right? Well, how about you ask this one at the start?If you listen to the answer, the interviewer will tell you how to frame all of your subsequent answers. If they are behind schedule, you are the developer who is skilled at delivering projects on time and getting back on schedule. If they are missing a skill in the team, you highlight that skill in every answer you provide. The interviewer is telling you their pain, and now you can fix it!The second benefit to this question is that, as it is asked earlier in the process, it can change the interview from what feels like an interrogation into an actual, two-way conversation. This builds a relationship and sets you apart from most of the other candidates.

So, dont wait until the end when they ask Do you have any questions for me? Hit them with this one at the beginning to set the tone for the rest of the interview!

Now, lets continue with the best questions to ask to demonstrate your technical knowledge as a software developer.

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How Many Regular Meetings Do Software Engineers Attend

If youre the type of software engineer who needs long periods of deep work, this question is for you. Find out how many days of the week youre required to attend meetings.

This question is also useful for understanding what teams youd be interacting with on a regular basis. Ask the hiring manager what members of other teams are present during the meetings and what the agenda usually is.

Describe A Time You Failed In This Role And The Lesson You Learned

This will provide how much you are prepared to face any failure in this job.

Tip #1: Share your experience

Tip #2: State what the experience taught you

Sample Answer:

The failure I had in the past revolved around my communication skill. Once, I had to work on another persons code who was away on a business trip. I was a new recruit at the time and was unsure how to solve it. I created a new code that I was familiar with. A colleague noticed that I was working on a new code and told me that there are guidelines on the code earlier. I learned that I needed to improve my interpersonal and communication skills at that time.

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What Is The Most Complex Project That You Have Finished

Talking about projects youve worked on provides you an opportunity to show your skills with real-world examples. In this question, youll learn about the STAR method of answering interview questions. STAR stands for:

• Situation: Describe a challenging situation.

• Task: Talk through the tasks that solved the issue and describe your role.

• Action: Demonstrate actions and strategies that helped you complete your objective.

• Result: Close with outcomes.

Example: _When I was a freelancer, I created an e-commerce site for a client, Melbourne Glass. It was a challenge to get the customers outdated database to interact properly with the e-Commerce page in the CMS editor.*

*However, because I have a deep knowledge of front and backend systems, I was able to create code that pulled from the database inventory system when a customer completed actions like moving an item into a cart or making a purchase. This paid off because it allowed the customers business to become fully digital._

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What To Prepare For Coding Interviews

Now that, I have cleared the confusion that Coding interviews is important and you should not distract, lets get into real work. The big question is what to prepare for Coding interviews?

Well, the most important thing to prepare is Data Structure-based coding problems like array-based coding problems, string problems, linked list problems, binary tree problems, etc.

Apart from data structure-based questions, most of the programming job interviews also ask algorithm, design, bit manipulation, and general logic-based questions, which Ill describe in this section.

Its important that you practice these concepts because sometimes they become tricky to solve in the actual interview. Having practiced them before not only makes you familiar with them but also gives you more confidence in explaining the solution to the interviewer.

One of the main problems with coding problems is that there are hundreds and thousands of coding problems on interviews, there are even sites like LeetCode, HackerRank, Codewars, Topcoder, freeCodeCamp, HackerEarth which train programmers for coding interviews with lots of tough questions, which sometimes just overwhelms a beginner looking for a job.

I believe in simplicity and the 10% of effort which produce 90% of results and thats why I have collected top 100 coding problems which are not too tough and also frequently asked on real interviews.

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Practice With Projects And Coding Challenges

Theoretical knowledge will only take you so far. Completing coding challenges and projects will help instill the skills you’ll use in your new career. Plus, the more you practice, the faster you’ll become. Imagine how impressed your interviewer will be when you’ve efficiently solved the problem in half of the allotted time.

As you complete your projects, take note of how you approached the problems you encountered. Taking the time to analyze your approach helps develop your problem-solving ability and improve your capacity for technical presentations.

You could also practice with technical interview courses. Our Technical Interview Practice with Python, Java, and JavaScript courses cover advanced knowledge and skills, with practice problems to help you nail your next interview.

Onsite Interview And Whiteboard Challenge

Now weve arrived at the most intimidating part of the entire tech interview process. At tiny startups, onsite technical interviews might be a lot less formal than at bigger companies. Heck, there may not even be a whiteboard to do a coding exercise on! Still, whatever the company size, it never hurts to do coding interview preparation so youre ready for any situation that may arise.

What to do during the onsite technical interview + whiteboard challenge

1. Ask clarifying questions before you even start writing code.

I appreciate it when someone takes the time to evaluate the question he faces in the interview, says Refael . It shows me that this person is calculated and rather than just writing code, he sees the whole picture.

Ask questions around assumptions of the question, and try to reason about the question from a bottom-up perspective, adds Chris.

2. Talk through your code to give the interviewer a window into your thoughts.

What happens in a technical interview is as much about the journey as the destination. Its designed to test a candidates communication and problem-solving skills, says Refael. More important than the solution is how they work at getting the solution. Can they articulate their thoughts while writing out the code on the whiteboard? Are they putting together a clear response to the question?

3. Speak clearly and precisely.

A few of Chriss specific tips to help your interview skills:

How to stand out in the whiteboard interview

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What Was The First Programming Language You Learned

With this question, the interviewer is trying to get an idea of your history with programming. People who began coding at a young age may have started with languages like JavaScript which is used to make interactive websites, whereas people who started with languages like Python or Java may not have started coding until university. If your interest in coding started with learning simpler languages on your own, highlight this in your answer.

Example:’The first language I learned in an academic setting was Java, which I started using during my first year at university. However, my interest in coding actually started much earlier than this when I started teaching myself JavaScript to make a maths-based game. I still enjoy using JavaScript as I find it’s flexible enough that I can use it in lots of contexts.’

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Differentiate Between Linear And Non

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What To Ask A Programmer In A Job Interview

Jonathan Bartlett

Yesterday, I discussed the ways hiring computer programmers is very different from hiring for other sorts of positions. Now lets look at the interview questions that will help you figure out whether or not your candidate has the inner attributes needed to grow as a developer and face new challenges.

What programming languages do you know?

The goal of this question is not to make sure the programmer knows your programming language. As long as there is no near-term critical deadline, knowing your language doesnt matter. What matters is that the programmer knows more than one.

Now, chances are, you and the interviewee dont know the same programming languages. So your followup questions are these whats the difference between the programming languages you know which languages do you prefer and why and which types of project is each programming language is the best fit for? Answering these questions intelligently requires more than a passing familiarity with the languages. The interviewee needs to have really interacted with the languages enough to have thought about them that much.

What is your favorite programming language and why?

One caution: Good computer programmers are very opinionated people. If you find a computer programmer who is not opinionated, thats usually because the programmer hasnt taken the time to think about the task. Those types of people tend to be order-takers, not inventors.

What else do you do in your free time?

Best Tips To Crack Coding Interviews In 2022

Here are a few of my practical tips to crack your next coding interview. These are hard-earned and I learned from my own mistakes and experience.

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Do Some Online Research

One of the things managers dont do enough of is researching the professionals online identity, says Shafi. Its important to learn as much about their professional life as you can, to get a sense of their level of seniority, he says.

Once you have gained insight from your Internet findings, you can include questions related to what you found out about them online, that may not appear anywhere on their resumé. For example, he says, Try to find out if they have any open source code out there, and that can help you understand how qualified they might be for a particular job.

Common Technical Interview Mistakes To Avoid

Knowing what not to do can be just as important as knowing what to do, so lets quickly cover a few common technical interview mistakes.

1. Not preparing enough

Seriously, theres no such thing as too much coding interview preparation. The good news is, most candidates dont put in that time. So it doesnt take much to really pull ahead of the pack, says Parker . Its such a bummer as an interviewer to watch a candidate really come up short and just think to yourself, I can tell youre smartif you had just reviewed some of this stuff Im sure youd be able to get this.

2. Jumping into the code without taking a moment to think it through

You might be eager to start solving the problem, but take a few minutes to question your assumptions and make a game plan first! Starting too quickly gets a lot of people into trouble when they could have taken a moment to prevent confusion down the road, says Refael . Some of the most common mistakes candidates make are avoidable. Pause for a moment to think through the problem-solving process.

3. Being too arrogant or opinionated

4. Not making conversation/chit-chat

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Theres More Than One Answer

There is always more than one way to solve a programming interview problem. Always. There are usually multiple ways of tackling a problem, some of which might not be optimal.

One of my favorite tech Youtubers taught me that a coding interview is a mental exercise to see how a candidate thinks. From an interviewer perspective, Im not looking to check if you know what the right answer is. Yes, it is important that you can write a working solution, but its not the only thing.

More than that, Im looking for how smart this person is, how the solution is derived, and what other creative solutions this person might be thinking about.

A programming exercise to illustrate my point:

Merge two sorted linked lists. . Basically you can tackle this in several ways:

What other ways can you think of?

What Are Dynamic Data Structures

Dynamic data structures have the feature where they expand and contract as a program runs. It provides a very flexible method of data manipulation because adjusts based on the size of the data to be manipulated.

These 20 coding interview questions that test the conceptual understanding of the candidates give the interview a clear idea on how strong the candidates fundamentals are

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