How to properly prepare for tech interviews
Whether they’re cultural/technical, interviews can be daunting!
Ah yes, the dreaded word — “interview”. For some, interviewing is a fun way for them to prove to employers that they are a viable addition to their team. Besides, you’ve gone through all of this training for a reason, and now is your time to shine. Or, interviewing can be incredibly stressful and feel like more of a humiliating chore than a necessary step for progressing in your career. For me, it’s a little mix of both :)
Something to remember is that everyone, and I mean EVERY engineer has been in the same position as you. Your peers are a great tool to help gain the momentum or have a friend that can guide you in the right direction and remind you of your focus. Also, since engineers know how difficult the process is, most people are more than willing to give back to the community (especially if they are juniors). In my experience, I have reached out to developers in companies I’m interested in/applying for, and used them as a resource for where to gear my focus and what to study for the interviews. Most people will not tell you too much detail, but you would be surprised with how genuine and helpful your peers can be!
As far as behavioral interviews, it’s important to practice your elevator pitch, remember why you became an engineer and be able to portray that, as well as truly understand the ins and outs of a company. Glassdoor is a great resource to look for similarly asked questions for companies you are applying for, as well as googling “(company name) interview questions”. This way, you can create a Google doc, and practice writing out responses to questions you may be asked. In many situations, I have heard of people’s behavioral interviews saving them when their technical interview didn’t go as planned. These are more important than I feel people give them credit for — people want to have someone who fits the culture and can be a dependable and kind person to join their team. Don’t forget to let your personality shine through!
In order to land your first technical job, it’s near impossible to do so without some sort of technical assessment. The type of technical assessment you get will depend on the company you are applying for as well as the position you are applying for. Commonly, you will either get a whiteboarding question, a hackerrank assessment, or pair programming with a senior developer/CTO of a company. Internships and apprenticeships I’ve noticed want you to discuss past projects / talk about your code / build a small project rather than do a proper, more common whiteboarding interview.
Because I’m a little nervous nelly, I prefer a small project/assessment followed by a more casual conversation discussing the project and my experience. However, this is not usually the case. So because of this, it is pertinent to practice EVERYTHING. Youtube is a great resource for mock interviews that you can sort by experience level and language. Not only that, but Youtube also has videos that discuss questions you may be asked (technical questions, not data structures and algorithms which I will discuss soon). Github has a plethora of repositories that can help prepare you. From this, you can either create your own repo with your own answers, or create flashcards to help you study for any questions that may get thrown your way.
However, you must practice data structures and algorithms. This is a controversial topic as many companies are trying to do away with this as they feel it’s not an accurate representation of the skills someone has, but it is important in portraying someone’s problem solving skills. So whether you believe it in or not, it’s great to practice them and have a working knowledge of them. Udemy has great beginners courses on these for a low price, but Youtube is a great resource in order to learn them without the interactive aspect. There are also several resources online where you can practice mock technical interviews!
I hope this was helpful and good luck!
