Trick #: Be Personable
My last trick for you is to be personable.
In your interview, be someone that you would want to work with. Show them your best self.
Interviews can be intimidating, and developers are generally a quieter and more reserved people, but you need to show the people you interact with, “Hey, I’m a fun and nice person to work with.”
I’m not asking you to be someone you’re not. But you don’t want to be, according to one of my close friends who interviews people all the time, a “sea creature.”
The Many Stages Of A Tech Job Interview
With a variety of challenges and assignments, these interviews are similar to an exam, rather than the typical question and answer interview. Often time consuming and containing multiple parts, it is possible that such a process can be confounding to the uninitiated and even intimidating to others.
While it might seem like these tasks are set to trick and corner you with what might even seem like impossible questions, its worth noting that these are designed to test your critical thinking and real-world problem solving skills that usually only come to the fore only when you are on the job. When you know what happens in a technical interview and you have spent a lot of time training yourself for these situations, then it is quite possible that you will handle whatever different types of challenges are thrown at you with panache and skill.
In the following sections, we will be looking at the most common steps that you will be confronted with during a technical interview process. Even though different companies are bound to play it in their own styles, these will be the average situations any candidate faces. While these are the most common steps when hiring software engineers, coders, programming specialists and generally most roles in the tech world, variations of these are increasingly being applied and adopted to roles in other fields and industries as well.
Coding Interviews: Everything You Need To Prepare
The ultimate guide on how to efficiently prepare for your software engineering technical interview – coding test round.
If you have decided to embark on the arduous process of preparing for your coding interviews and you don’t know how to maximize your time, this is the only guide you need to go from zero to hero on your coding test.
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What Is A Technical Interview
Unlike other types of interviews, tech interviews involve challenges and assignments. Theyre more like an exam than a typical question-and-answer interview.
Like the phrase Show, dont tell, you have to prove that you have the skills required to do the job, rather than just tell the interviewer that you have them.
Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of the technical interview is not to trick you with riddles, brain teasers, or impossible questions. Instead, its to see how you tackle real-world problemslike the ones you might be facing once you have the job!
Gain A Decent Knowledge Of Core Cs Subjects
Moving forward, the fundamentals and core concepts of important CS subjects particularly Operating Systems, Database Management System, and Computer Networks must be clear to you. These core subjects hold a considerable weightage in the tech interviews and the interviewers usually ask several questions from these subjects, especially from the fresher candidates whove just passed out of college or are in their final year. Though, as a fresher, youre not required to dive deep down into these core subjects all you need to have is a clear understanding of their basic concepts. For example: in the case of Operating Systems, you need to know about Process Management, I/O Management, Threads and Concurrency, Memory Management, etc. Similarly, when it comes to DBMS, youre required to go through relational and non-relational databases, ACID property, normalization, etc. Also, if youre having a considerable amount of work experience, you can opt to explore and learn System Design concepts such as Load Balancing, Caching & Proxies, CAP Theorem, Sharding, etc. while preparing for tech interviews.
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The Second Interview: Technical Interview Tips
Whether you’re interviewing to become a software developer, information security analyst, or IT manager, the process will likely include a technical interview. During this stage, the interviewer wants to understand your technical qualifications.
The technical interview is one of the most intimidating steps in a computer science interview. That’s partly because knowing how to prepare for a technical interview can be challenging.
Depending on the company, the technical interview might be a phone or video call, a take-home test or problem set, or an in-person screener. You might also talk to multiple people during the technical interview.
Research common technical questions for your role. If the interviewer ask you to work through a problem, make sure to show your process clearly. The interviewer wants to see how you think and solve problems.
Learn How To Talk About Your Work
Unfortunately, itâs not enough to simply write good code. When you are working for a company, youâll be required to communicate about the code that you write. Your technical interview isnât just assessing your ability to generate code but your ability to talk about it in a meaningful way.
Many programmers can write code. Itâs much harder to explain the code you write.
So, when you prepare, get a friend to come over and practice explaining it to them, record yourself talking through your code, replay it, and listen to how you explain things.
Have someone ask you questions while you write, so you get experience talking and writing or explaining yourself in real-time and arenât surprised by it in the interview.
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Types Of Technical Interviews
The tech industry is known for having one of the most varied and challenging sets of technical interview formats. These formats can generally be broken down into two categories, academic and practical:
Academic formats test fundamentals and concepts via abstract challenges, similar to testing in a school setting. Practical interviews evaluate candidates against more real-world problems, indicative of what they may be faced with in their actual job role.
As the industry improves its processes, it has begun shifting towards more practical formats. However, academic-style evaluations are not uncommon, especially among tech giants aiming to hire only the best and brightest.
Lets take a look at the different ways that technical interviews are administered and what classification they commonly fall under:
Once armed with this information, you can focus your preparation to match the format.
Ways To Prepare For Your Technical Interview
This article was written by our friends at Career Karma.
For both new developers and seasoned engineers, the technical interview can be a daunting, overwhelming and sometimes outright terrifying process. No matter your professional experience, knowing how to prepare for the technical interview is a crucial skill. It will often be the difference between landing the job and being turned down. In this article well explore 5 tips for preparing for your technical interview.
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Trick #: Watch For Visual Cues
This is probably my favorite tip/trick. It’s not the most useful, but it is kind of fun. One of my interviews I did remotely, and we were using a screen-sharing program and I could see the interviewer’s face in the top-right of my screen.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye as I was coding that the interviewer was nodding their head. Ah ha! A little visual cue to know that I was on the right track.
Again it’s not much, but it could be useful. 🙂
Questions About Tech Tools Systems And Security
What They Want to Know: Most tech employers make it quite clear in their job listings which technologies you must be conversant with to be a viable candidate for employment. If you know ahead of time that they are looking for a technical competency you lack, your best strategy is to sign up for a training program so that you can honestly claim to be currently honing your command of the tech.
- What development tools have you used?
- What languages have you programmed in?
- What source control tools have you used?
- Describe the elements of an in-tier architecture and their appropriate use.
- Compare and contrast REST and SOAP web services.
- Define authentication and authorization and the tools that are used to support them in enterprise deployments.
- Have you used Visual Studio?
- Have you used Eclipse?
- What is a SAN, and how is it used?
- What is clustering, and describe its use?
- What is the role of the DMZ in network architecture?
- What is a cross-site scripting attack, and how do you defend against it?
- In network security, what is a honeypot, and why is it used?
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Tip #: Show What You Know
You’re working the challenge, you’re talking out loud, and you’re doing well. The next thing you need to be looking for are opportunities to show your knowledge and expertise.
Is this the place in the code where you might send an email? Mention that it should be done in a background worker instead .
Are you working on validation logic in a model? Talk about how you would also add database constraints to ensure data integrity. What indexes would you add? How would you roll out the migrations to prevent downtime?
Once you get your hardcoded -> dumb -> better solution, talk about how you would refactor it given more time. Would you create a module for this? What about a service object? What about putting some of this logic in a background job? Discuss the tradeoffs.
Now why is this so important?
Most interview questions are aimed at the lowest common denominatormeaning the very basic requirements of the job. The challenge or questions themselves are usually not designed to test the top end of someone’s skill. The interview is probably not going to pull the information out of you, so you have to supply that information.
So while you’re talking through your thought process, mention all of the things you would incorporate in a real-life application or codebase and discuss them.
Why Is It Important To Prepare For Your Technical Interview
It’s important to prepare for your technical interview because it allows you to maximize your potential to get a second interview or a job offer. Here are some additional reasons preparing for a technical interview can benefit you:
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Helps you build confidence: By preparing for your technical interview at least a week in advance, you can increase your confidence level and go to your interview excited to discuss the job further. Your confidence during a technical interview also helps you show your technical knowledge and capabilities to an employer.
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Ensures you’re prepared for technical questions: During technical interviews, employers ask a variety of questions related to the company, job role and areas of expertise. Researching potential questions before your interview can help you mentally prepare to answer those questions in a professional manner.
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Allows you to showcase additional technical knowledge: Your technical interview is an opportunity to showcase your relative job skills, but it’s also an opportunity to discuss additional skills or knowledge that you can bring to the job. By reviewing your other technical skills and mentioning them to employers, you have a chance to stand out from other candidates.
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Meaningful Questions To Ask The Interviewer
Interviews are a two-way street. You should be learning about them just as much as theyre learning about you!
Asking thoughtful questions is also a good way to stand out in the interview. The age-old adage people dont remember what you say, but they remember how you made them feel is so true when it comes to interviews, says Refael . When a candidate keeps the flow going in a friendly conversation, instead of making me feel like I am conducting an interrogation, I will remember our brief time together fondly.
Of course, you should tailor your questions to the specific situation, but here are a few meaningful questions you can ask:
- What do you like most about working here?
- What frameworks, tools, tech stack, etc. does your company use?
- Can you describe the development process here?
- How do you test your code?
- Does the company offer opportunities for professional development, training for engineers, etc.?
- Whats the most challenging project youve worked on here?
- Is there anything about my resume/application that gives you pause?
The other upside: while youre listening to their answer, you get a little break from talking!
Tip #: Ask Clarifying Questions
In the doubly-linked list challenge I was given a blank Ruby file , and a blank test suite. Something like this:
class DoublyLinkedListend
So, a doubly linked list eh? Maybe you know what that is, or maybe you don’t. If you don’t: ask questions. This is the first pitfall to avoid. If you don’t understand the problem or what they are asking for, keep asking questions until you do.
I’ve seen interviewees go down the wrong rabbit trail and the interviewer just let themall the while silently going to fail them. While I don’t agree with this practice, make sure you’re working the right problem.
I do come from a computer science background, so I knew a doubly-linked list means a list that has a pointer to a head and a tail nodewhere each node also points to its next and previous node.
Now even though I knew that, what did I do? I said that out loud and asked if that was correct. Even though I thought I knew what to do, I made absolute sure I did.
Once you think you understand the problem, restate your understanding the interviewer so they can correct or guide you.
The next thing I did was ask another question: “Can I use an array for the nodes?” And I typed out something like this:
class DoublyLinkedList def initialize @nodes = endend
But, the interviewer told me, no, I couldn’t do thatwhich makes sense. If I had used an array it would have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise which is building out the fake “pointers” between the nodes.
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Practice Interviewing With Someone Who Will Give You Constructive Feedback
Constructive feedback can make all the difference when preparing for an interview. A practice interview is one of the best interview tips because you’ll see the highest return.
Ask a friend or family member to conduct a mock interview and give you feedback on your answers. Provide a list of common questions and even practice your questions for the interviewer. Positive feedback or the chance to rework your answers will boost your confidence going into the interview.
You Have A Technical Interview How Should You Prepare
The technical interview can include conversations about many computer science and coding topics such as memory management, Big O Notation, data structures and algorithms, white-boarding or coding challenges, pair-programming, project walk-throughs, and take-home projects.
Aside from being properly rested the days leading up to your technical interview, there are a lot of preparation steps you can take to maximize how well youll do during your technical interview. Below are five ways to prepare.
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Learn Data Structures & Algorithms
While spaghetti code can get the job done, understanding data structures and algorithms helps you write cleaner, more efficient code. Prepare for your technical interview by learning and understanding data structures and algorithms and best use-cases for each. Learning data structures and algorithms will help you have a better understanding of the how’s and why’s during your technical interview.
What To Do Before An Interview
Questions like what to do before an interview? and how to prepare for an interview with no experience? are popular queries in most search engines. These are not only raised by freshers and grads just out of universities, but also by bootcamp graduates who are looking to switch careers. In some cases, even those in the tech industry looking to change companies after a fair few years might want to learn the ropes again in order to be in tune with the latest trends. Right from knowing to dress comfortably during the interviews to ensuring that you have read and prepared for your self introduction and final questions to ask, there is a lot that you can achieve before you are actually shortlisted for the interview process.
There are some simple trips that can enhance your chances if done diligently. Picking a programming language and devising a study and practice plan is something that you can do in the weeks and months leading up to interviews. Based on the amount of time left before your scheduled interview, you can either pick a breadth-first approach, depth-first preparation mode, or even a depth-first then breadth approach for preparation. Once through with the tech preparation, you can start thinking about how you can sharpen your soft skills, practice mock interviews and take problem solving puzzles.
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How To Completely Prepare For Tech Interviews
A majority of college students hold a vision of getting into their dream company after completing their graduation. And why only college students, even many working professionals want to get rid out of their current job and get into their dream job or company eagerly.
Butwhat comes between these individuals and their dream job?? Okay, it is the INTERVIEW PROCESS!
Yes, to secure the desired job in your targeted company like Amazon, Microsoft, Swiggy, etc. youre first required to crack their multiple interview rounds. And to prepare for these tech interviews is not an easy-to-go task, especially for the freshers who often come across numerous problems such as what to prepare, where to prepare, etc.
However, things are not that difficult too as it seems. One can conveniently prepare for the tech interviews, whether it be of a startup or an IT giant if he follows the right preparation roadmap and strategies with sheer determination and consistency. Here, in this article, well get to know what skills you need to learn or what things you need to do, to crack the interview of any big tech company. Lets get started:
