Practice Your Answers To Technical Questions
Using the sample questions you find online, think about how you’d answer them in an interview setting. This can help you polish your answers and develop examples to use in your interview. You can also enlist the help of a friend or family member to read you random questions to see how well you respond.
Dont Be Afraid To Ask Questions
If they ask you a technical question, make sure you understand it before diving in and answering. If you dont know the answer, that doesnt mean youre dead in the water, says Tracy Cashman, a technology search consultant at WinterWyman.
Companies arent necessarily looking for one right answer or one specific outcome to their technical screenings, says McDowell. Many look for soft skills and evidence of how you go about solving problems and resolving issues.
Interviewers might think theyre evaluating candidates strictly on their technical merits, but theyre also really evaluating how candidates talk about what theyve done in the past as well as how theyre thinking about and solving problems, McDowell says.
Practice Programming And Coding Problems
Successful candidates whoâve cracked exacting coding interviews at FAANG companies testify that practicing as many problems as they could was the key focus of their prep. We cannot stress the importance of practicing coding problems when preparing for your technical interviews at FAANG companies.
Dedicated practice will make you less startled at complex and ambiguous problems, giving you the confidence to solve even the seemingly challenging ones while also enabling you to identify inherent patterns in them.
This is especially important because you may not face exactly the same problems in your interviews as the ones you practice, but thereâs a good chance that the nature of those problems might be similar. Companies often rotate between an existing set of questions, especially regarding systems design and algorithmic coding.
Therefore, if thereâs one thing you take away from this article, let that be this â practice as many coding and programming problems as you can preferably involving the technology and languages mentioned in the job description.
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Zalando: How To Pass The Interview
Interviewing tips for software engineers applying to Zalando. Before , I worked for Zalando for over 2 years. During that time I interviewed countless developers, from junior to tech leads, mostly in the Android space. In this post, I share what I was looking for and how to best prepare for the software engineer interviews.
Zalando is the leader company for online fashion in Europe. In 2017, the company totaled over 4 billion in revenue and grew more than 20%. They employ an agile and laid back style that focuses on team autonomy, mastery, and purpose. To sustain their rapid growth, theyre hiring plenty of engineers.
I had the pleasure not only to work for the company but also to be on the frontline of interviewers. I did hundreds of phone screens, Skype interviews, onsite interviews and also some manager/tech lead interviews.
I will describe the process how it was when I left the company, which is in May 2017. There might have been changes but I expect the structure to be quite similar.
Bring In A Portfolio Of Your Work
Its always a good idea to bring in a portfolio of your work to show interviewers. That can mean a physical notebook, a link to your GitHub repository, samples of projects youve worked on anything that can serve as a real-world example of your skills and experience. You could include code samples, network diagrams, proposals youve written, or the parts youve contributed to larger projects. Interviewers are looking for technical ability as well as the ability to communicate technical thoughts and recommendations, but theyre also looking at which tools you use and which tools youve mastered.
Self-taught developers often come up short when it comes to solution design and writing clean code, Sloyan says. Again, its helpful to study the fundamentals of computer science to get a sense of how to design solutions. A friend, colleague or professional mentor who can help review your code can be a real asset.
In a professional situation, theres normally one or two senior engineers, or QA engineers, who review your code to make sure it merges seamlessly with production, Sloyan says. Find a friend or someone you work with who can sit down and help you do a code review, both to improve the cleanliness of your code and so you get comfortable receiving feedback from peers and superiors.
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Surprise Theres A Fifth Challenge
Even after you get the job, youre subject to a probationary period. It may not be explicitly called out in your offer letter, but developers are expensive, capital is limited, and if youre not moving the company forward, youre dragging it down.
Itll take time to get up to speed on all the new tech, systems, teams, and people, but you should be delivering results within six or eight months. If it turns out youre better at interviewing than getting work done, you wont be around for long.
The good news is, theres an easy way to set yourself up for success: communication. During your first couple of days, sit down with your manager and outline a plan for your first week, your first month, and your first six months. This will establish clear milestones and expectations that you can work toward.
Follow that up with weekly or bi-weekly one-on-ones to report on your progress, highlight your achievements, indicate where you need help, and get feedback.
Before you know it, youll be fully integrated into the team and helping the next engineer get settled!
Early in your career, youre likely to get a lot of trivia and live coding exercises when interviewing for full-stack developer roles. In the absence of a career full of accomplishments, employers need some way to determine what youre capable of today and how well youll learn on the job.
What Kind Of Questions Will I Be Asked In A Technical Interview
The likelihood is that most of the technical questions in the interview will relate directly to the job role. Therefore, you can get a good idea of what questions they might ask you from the job advert.
Most job descriptions will specify a set of essential technical skills and, rather than take your word for it, theyll want to see those skills and knowledge in action.
The kind of questions will vary from role to role. Your first point of reference, particularly for a big graduate employer, should be their website, as they might post examples of the sort of questions theyll ask.
You can also find plenty of websites with lists of technical questions, which you can use to test yourself. However, you should always check the sources of the website some simply post hearsay.
All in all, during a standard technical interview they might expect you to complete a task, such as coding, or they might ask questions that test how you would use your technical knowledge in a real-life situation.
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Dont Get Too Stuck On A Solution
One bad habit that some of us have is to over commit to a solution. When you are talking through a problem, your interviewer may be trying to provide hints along the way to make sure you continue in the right direction.
However, when we are in the zone thinking through a problem, we often keep down the same path. Even when it is clearly the wrong one.Be open to hints. If you havent gotten anywhere on the same problem for 15 minutes, consider taking a breathe and trying to make sure you are going the right direction.
If you havent found the correct solution for an abnormal amount of time, and you know that you still have three or four problems that you need to answer, then consider taking a minute or two to make sure you really are going down the right path. Its hard to do, but you dont want to over commit to the wrong solution.
Questions To Expect In A Technical Interview
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Every company is going to focus on different things and may have a different style, but generally, these are the four types of questions you can expect: 1. Implement a Well-Known Algorithm These are questions that have been solved, but the interviewer wants to know that you understand how they work and that you could implement them on your own if you needed to. Then the interviewer might ask you to switch and solve it iteratively or recursively, to see if you can make that switch in your mind and think about problems in two different ways. EXAMPLE:
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Whats the difference between a technical interview and a traditional interview that weve all been through?
Anil: Unlike an interview for a job outside of tech, where you may talk about the things you already know, a technical interview isnt as much about the right answer. Rather, its about your thought process, how you approach problems and how you work with a team. As an engineer, you spend a lot of your day not knowing the right answer, but finding your way to it. Technical interviews are trying to suss that out.
Should a bootcamp grad be surprised or hesitant if they are not asked to do a technical interview? Is that a red flag?
Is it cool to ask the interviewer for guidance ahead of time like what technology or language they should brush up on?
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Prepare For A Wide Range Of Topics
Covering a wide range of topics will help you answer and solve a lot more questions than an average candidate. The languages, technology, and skills you should cover in your preparation will depend on the job description and the technology and languages youâll be expected to use and work on after you get hired. Youâll also be asked questions about the languages you are proficient in.
In addition, be prepared to answer any questions pertaining to the technical projects youâve mentioned in your CV or portfolio of work. Some of the interview questions could be around the tech stacks used and the reasons behind using them, challenges faced during the projects, and how you tackled them.
How To Pass The Software Engineering Interview
When people interview for software engineering positions most of their preparation places emphasis on some variant of doing 200 leetcode questions and picking up whatever system design blog or book is out there. Coding and design are only one piece of the pie to nailing the interview. Today, I want to talk about the behavioral portion of the interview which is often overlooked and can make or break you for
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Mistake #: Not Admitting When You Dont Know The Answer
If you dont know the answer to something, admit it! Interviewers appreciate when a candidate is self-aware and humble enough to admit they dont know the answer to something. Its much better to admit you dont know something than to BS your way through it.
If youre unsure how to answer a question you can say, To be honest Im not sure. If I had to make an educated guess I would say& mldr People dont want to work with know-it-alls they want to work with real humans who can admit they dont know the answer.
How To Pass The Microsoft Interview: A Practical Guide
Microsoft is one of the most prestigious and long-standing tech companies in the world. Their impact on the world of technology and beyond is nearly impossible to quantify, and their technical breadth expands into many different domains.
Its no secret that working at Microsoft also offers a fair number of perks. This includes the standard high salary, catered lunches, Microsoft swag, and much more. Access to top-of-the-line equipment and the ability to work with some of the most capable and intelligent people in the industry is a dream for many software engineers.
Getting hired at a company like Microsoft is not easy. The competition for the prestige and benefits of a job at Microsoft are highly sought after, and as a result, you will be in competition with many other qualified engineers.
If you are intrigued by what Microsoft is offering, then youll need to be able to jump the Microsoft Interview hurdle. Mastering this interview is the barrier that stands before you and working for one of the largest and most prestigious tech companies.
In this post, we are going to be outlining how to prepare for the Microsoft technical interview. We will be highlighting some of the key differentiating factors for Microsoft and how these compare to other, more standard technical interviews.
In this post, I will cover these topics:
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Develop Questions To Ask About Technical Job Responsibilities During The Interview
Come up with questions to ask your interviewer regarding specific technical responsibilities for the job. Asking technical questions demonstrates your interest in the position and shows the interviewer that you thoroughly reviewed the job description.
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Algorithms And Data Structures Questions
Algorithmic questions are easier than the big 4. Usually, at least one interview will deal with coding, with an emphasis on algorithms. Other interviews may have easier coding questions on the line of reverse a string. More advanced topics such as graphs and dynamic programming are not so common.
For example, I used to ask flood fill, a graph question. The problem was taken directly from Cracking the Code Interview and can be resolved in few lines of code either by recursion or with a queue . I thought that taking a problem from a standard source would make it easier to answer. I was wrong: only one person in a dozen answered satisfactorily and I had to take the question out.
To prepare I recommend Tech Interview Pro by ex-Google, ex-Facebook Senior Staff Software Engineer Patrick Shyu . Use this links to get 40% off and support the blog. And for more popular coding interview problems, check out CoderPro. Use this link to get 20% off.
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How Is This Repository Different
There are many awesome books like Cracking the Coding Interview and interview-related repositories out there on GitHub, what makes this repository different? The difference is that many existing interview repositories contain mainly links to external resources whereas this repository contains top-quality curated content directly for your consumption.
Also, existing resources focus mainly on algorithm questions and lack coverage for more domain-specific and non-technical questions. This handbook aims to cover content beyond the typical algorithmic coding questions.
Different Formats Of Technical Interviews At Faang Companies
Technical interviews at large technology companies can have any of the following formats. It can also have a combination of two or more formats from below.
- Writing code on the spot or in real time
- Creating a presentation on any technology related topic
- Technical problem-solving challenges in competition with other candidates and presenting to the interview panel
- Solving technical problems on a whiteboard
- In-person interviews to assess your programming and problem solving abilities
- Take-home projects such as development of an application or coding assignments
- Phone screen round
Now that you know the different formats of technical interviews you could face, itâs time for the preparation tips!
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Practice With Mock Interviews
The steps mentioned above can be rehearsed over and over again until you have fully internalized them and they become second nature to you. A good way to practice is by partnering with a friend and taking turns to interview each other.
A great resource for preparing for coding interviews is interviewing.io. This platform provides free and anonymous practice interviews with Google and Facebook engineers, which can lead to real jobs and internships. By virtue of being anonymous during the interview, the inclusive interview process is unbiased and low risk. At the end of the interview, both the interviewer and interviewee can provide feedback to each other for the purpose of helping one another improve.
Doing well in mock interviews will unlock the jobs page for candidates, and allow them to book interviews with top companies like Uber, Lyft, Quora, Asana, and more. For those who are new to coding interviews, a demo interview can be viewed on this site. Note that this site requires users to sign in.
Another platform that allows you to practice coding interviews is Pramp. Where interviewing.io matches potential job seekers with seasoned coding interviewers, Pramp takes a different approach. Pramp pairs you up with another peer who is also a job seeker. The two of you take turns assuming the roles of interviewer and interviewee. Pramp also prepares questions, and provides solutions and prompts to guide the interviewee.
The Challenge With Conducting Technical Interviews At A Growing Company
“Imagine you had a hiring target of doubling your team size and all your interviews are conducted remotely. Welcome to GitLab,” says Clement Ho, frontend engineering manager on the Monitor: Health team at GitLab.
GitLab more than doubled the number of hires from around 400 in 2019 to roughly 1300 by end of 2020.
We identifed three core challenges with orchestrating technical interviews as GitLab grows.
“And by raising the bar, I mean making sure each candidate that joins the team makes the team better,” says Clement.
These problems are by no means unique to GitLab. Any engineering company that is scaling rapidly will encounter some growing pains when it comes to hiring, and many will end up falling back on some of the typical models for conducting technical interviews.
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