Interviewing Q&A and Videos

Hello I wanted to get some advice. I noticed I can make it to the recruiter, but I keep failing when it goes to the hiring manger side. I'm not interviewing with any engineers - Any ideas on how I can improve this?

I am inquiring on behalf of my wife. She currently holds an H4 visa and is expected to receive her Employment Authorization Document (EAD) around October 2024. She has a Master's degree in International Public Policy and Management, which is unrelated to UX/UI design. Recently, she completed the "Google UX Design Professional Certificate" bootcamp. She recognizes two main challenges: 1) Her degree is not related to UX/UI design. 2) She has a three-year gap since her graduation in 2020. The reason for this gap is my H1B status, which has not yet led to an i-140, preventing her from obtaining a sponsor for a visa in her field. Initially, she did not plan to seek employment in the US, as she was focused on pursuing public sector jobs in our home country, Thailand. However, after meeting me during her Master's program and my subsequent employment in the US, she decided to stay here with me. I would greatly appreciate advice on how she can break into the tech industry, possibly at a FAANG company, as a UX designer. If possible, please provide a plan or roadmap for her career transition. Your guidance would be immensely helpful.

One of the things I wanted to ask is although AI probably won’t eliminate the need for software engineers entirely, will it still cause the number of software engineering jobs to go down? Software engineering before 2023 was expected to be one of the fastest growing fields but will AI prevent that with how advanced it is getting?

I have a question about Alex's course, "Get More Interviews: Write a Stellar Resume as a SWE." Alex mentioned that labeling oneself as a "full-stack" engineer can be a trap for junior engineers, and it's better to focus a resume on either backend or frontend stacks. I unfortunately fall into this category - I have about 1.5 YOE and take on a role of a full-stack SWE. Though I prefer backend development and feel stronger in it (I'll say its about a 65-35 for backend vs frontend), I feel my backend skills alone are not enough to secure a strong backend role. Given this, I’ve primarily been applying to full-stack positions. Does anyone have advice on what I should do? I know this question is primarily for Alex but feel free to share your experiences on how I should navigate this! Thank you!

Hey there, for context, I completed my first year as Software Engineer. I joined the company because I was in dire need without checking the company culture, following which I was not satisfied with the designation. I then started to look out for a job. I got that offer after 4 months of joining with 33% increase in the salary. When I told my EM he was willing to talk to the HR and match the salary but then the Head of the department didn't promote my role in the light that others in the team will think and ask why in 4 months I got my role upgraded. The leadership conveyed that I might get the designation in the 6 months appraisal cycle. In the appraisal cycle they denied my promotion saying my salary doesn't match the orgs designation and they don't know what to do. I was not happy with the decision and since I didn't had any offers I kept working for the organisation hoping I will get it in the 1 year cycle. Now I didn't get the review form for 1 year appraisal cycle. I think they will say in the lines of because your salary was revised at the 4 month you are not eligible for this cycle. Though I don't feel my designation is the right one. But I have some other responsibilities as well like family, commute etc. I'm losing my motivation. I need help in crafting effectively to EM and HR so that they consider my role and some appraisal so that they inline my career in the organisation else juniors will have a higher role in front of me. From today I have also started looking out for other jobs, but I don't want to hurry in making decisions.

I just got laid off from the startup I was working at with zero notice. I'm back on the job hunt. I've been working for about seven years now. I was a full-stack developer in my recent position. In the first five years of my career, I've worked in roles where I've had to carry out SRE work. I'm looking at a job posting for an SRE position at a place I'd like to work. What are the things that I should consider when before taking the call to apply for SRE roles?

I am contemplating if it is a good idea to switch my job for promotion or stay at my current team, company. My primary motivation for switch is the job location (I plan on getting married by next year and just settling in a location for long term), career growth. Here are my reasons, pros, cons: Staying at current job: I have worked for a year and I am now familiar with Amazon ways of doing things. I feel a bit more confident and that I am making progress as a software professional. Pros: - I can gain depth in my project (domain knowledge), technologies as for switching to a mid-level role would require both these. - Great team, and work environment Cons - The promotions in my team to a SDE-2 takes 2-2.25 yrs with the team. It's been 1 yr in Dec, I have work exp 4 years in India, and I do not wish to stay at this level that long. However, I think it will be tough to get a promotion before this timeline. - Looking at the new year roadmap and senior team members leaving the team for another team I feel, we are becoming a mature product and there might not be too many opportunities in my current team. I believe the exposure would have been better if I was in this team a few years ago. - 5 days RTO, I am seriously thinking about moving out of Seattle and settling somewhere in bay area. I don't think I can deal with this weather for a very long time. - Switching teams might not be a good idea as it will reset my promotion timeline. Switching job: Not sure how good the market is right now for switch and if I am being too impatient in moving to the next role. I did have some gap in career due to my masters and I might be a bit rusty but I believe if I know my direction, I can just prepare for interviews and take it from there. TIA

This will be a bit of a long story so please bear with me, I am willing to give you more context. I am a foreign student who graduated from computer science. I have been working in the field since 2021, I was more passionate about design and big data over intensive leet code coding. These were the projects I also aced in college getting 90% in Big Data or Front End Design projects and barely passing on coding intensive When I graduated to maintain my status I had to be employed in an E verified company so I took what I got, a full stack developer position. My mindset was more, maybe it’s a fear once I dive into might overcome it. The company was amazing and so were my managers. I loved every moment working there - I even finished all the assigned projects ranging from maintenance to building full MERN stack apps in 2 1/2 years. I learnt a lot and got more confident in my developer abilities. Despite getting things done and finishing projects, I did realize I want to dive into UI/UX/ Front End Development or Reporting, because I’ve always enjoyed doing that more than Full Stack. I had a talk with my manager to see if I can laterally move. He gave me a go signal, but I got laid off a month after. I will take 100% responsibility here that I had got a little complacent with furthering my career “outside “ work hours, and I learnt my lesson which I am willing to change and I got time to think about it after being unemployed 2 1/2 years of all the things I could’ve done better. It’s been 2 months. I’ve been applying for jobs and haven’t got any, barely got 2 interviews which I didn’t do well in, but I’ll keep persisting A sticking point I noticed here, generally being introverted I have some discomfort with marketing myself better or more like an imposter syndrome, and I was passive during my last work too which I know is not serving me anymore What am I doing which is in my control? I enrolled in Googles UX certification and plan to get my portfolio ready in 2-3 months so in future I can be transition into my dream career Enrolled in a SQL course so I can keep the option of reporting open Joined this group because I never had much of a tech industry network or guidance, and I plan to take my career more seriously going in future. Applying for jobs everyday, mostly Full stack because that’s what I can explain to the interviewer because I have experience. Since my OPT unemployment starts Nov 15 which I get 3 months of My questions: What might be the possibilities that I am not getting interviews at all? I am not even applying to big tech, mostly manufacturing companies. Where can I send over my resume for review? I do want to make the change into either reporting or UI/UX, because I am passionate about that and I believe I can kill it In that, how would you suggest an entry-mid level developer going down that path? I am open to any honest feedback.

I interviewed with Meta yesterday for a more junior role (I'm actually more senior) and they said it would kick in immediately for fertility in September upon starting a role with a program which is 18 month long (short term employee program) STE program that converts to Full Time Employment (FTE). They said stock would come then, but not upon start in September. They said they would allow employees (STE/FTE) options to pick the perks of 4, to individually itemize 4-5 choices to make between medical coverage, which as a section on fertility and co-pays for expenses at the maternity level. Healthcare Dental Vision Therapy Stipend Wellness Stipend Family leave, PTO and time away benefits, Financial benefits (401k matching, financial coaching/planning) How long does it take for benefits AND stock (vesting) to kick in typically at any FAANGMULA or OpenAI type of startup company? I personally don't want to wait until September, am likely to accept a more senior role at Apple FTE of course or other AI startup companies where these benefits AND stock kick in right away at an L4-L5 to L6 level depending. That role above it looked like IC4 and I was way overqualified and should be interviewing for at least an L5 position and above.

There is a policy in my company (Tier 2, in the likes of VMWare etc) that the managers should connect PRIOR to the interview. I personally think this is discouraging, as the current manager can really screw you over if they want to. My relationship with my current manager is ok. Not great. However, I have been standing up for myself a lot as that is causing some under current on my team and with this manager. I found a fantastic opportunity within the company and want to interview. How can I strategize given this company policy? My fear is inform manager -> they tank my performance review / bonus / raise ( it is currently perf cycle now) -> interview reject -> Back on this team.

So it's been 3 months at my startup. The day I get there, I see that our product is way worse than advertised (ie. saying we had 20 core features when we actually had 2). That's okay I guess, the team was just selling their vision during the interview process. After 1 month, one of the cofounders quits. The next day, another one of the cofounders quits. I'm panicking, but I realize I'm stuck here because it's my first job. (looks bad if I leave so early) After another month, we get an impromptu Zoom invite. 1/3 of the engineers have been fired. Everyone is working 60+ hour weeks at this point to keep the same velocity. The firings were not due to lack of funding btw. And just the other day, we had mid year reviews. The CEO says my engineering speed is slow. (he claims to be able to do in 1 day what I do in 1 week) However, he's never been a SWE before so not sure how he knows. My gut tells me to leave, but where will I go? Hopefully I can strive for a FAANG company or somewhere that has a strong engineering culture, but I feel pretty trapped right now. Reflection: I think part of the issue may be that the CEO wants FAANG-level performance + ridiculous work hours while providing only 60-70% of the actual comp of these firms. Something about expectations and leveling seems to be amiss here Personal Context: I have no problems getting interviews (thankfully, even as a new grad) because I spent a few months contributing to open-source. Just debating if it's worth cracking out the LeetCode for a few companies

I'm a junior engineer, and I have a second-round software developer interview coming up where the format is as follows: Group technical interview with three product managers (director, senior, senior) and one software engineer. I can't find any more information about this interview online (Reddit, Glassdoor), and the HR coordinator/recruiter has not answered my follow-up question in terms of live-coding. The first round was a behavioral recorded video interview with nine questions, and I feel like I did not over/undersell experience. Any tips for how to prepare for this interview or redirects to existing Taro questions with this information would be appreciated. I would be glad to provide more information as well; I am trying to manage my nerves.

These days companies are making candidates wait weeks for an offer decision so that they can interview more people. Is it a bad idea to tell them that you have another offer to prevent this even if you don't really have another offer?

Hi there, everybody. I was aiming to build a few applications to present in interviews. Last week, I was building a small-scale Spring Boot application with the help of a tutorial. The project I was working on was meant to retrieve data from a database using PostgreSQL to provide multiple choice DSA questions. I was creating an automated study buddy for technical interviews. Unfortunately, I've been trying to figure out some technical issues and database connectivity mishaps for some days, unfortunately to no avail. Currently, I'm working through a Node.Js tutorial to build an application geared to help me keep track of the things I'd like to do during my job search, so I can always stay on task. I don't know if I'm going to run into some more issues that plague me. The thing is, I'm learning a LOT from both experiences. Now I feel I can have an educated conversation on the trade-offs of monolithic and microservice architectures... and I LOVE what I'm learning. I'd really like to have at least 3 small-scale projects handy that I'm using to automate my own life and make this job search easier for me. Of course I'm going to continue to try to plow through these issues, and I'm not here to necessarily ask for help with my applications (although I won't say no if someone wants to help). It'd be great if I can explain how I solved these problems, because I know the challenging problems I've solved are what I'd want to highlight to people in an interview. But let's say if the day comes where I have an interview and DON'T have a "finished" product, yet I still have these code samples that I can defend and show that I've gained a great deal of experience from... would it be a good idea to present these in an interview? Thanks for the help, Evan

I had a final interview with a small startup yesterday and now they are requesting a manager reference. I would rather not do that until I have an offer that I've accepted. What is standard practice here (if there is one) and is this itself part of the negotiation process? I think I will just tell the recruiter that I am not comfortable giving the reference out since I don't want my reference bothered.

I'm in the team matching process for an E4 position at Meta. I've reached out to numerous friends at Meta for team recommendations, but responses have been limited, possibly because most of them are at the E4/E5 level and not really connected to hiring decisions. If someone asks me about if there's any good teams hiring in my current company, I'd have a hard time answering it. I’ve started cold-messaging managers on LinkedIn but haven’t had much success yet. My intuition says it might not be too fruitful because 1) people don't check LinkedIn very often, 2) they might be hiring previously but not hiring now, 3) they are hiring for specialist positions but I'm generalist. Then, are there benefits of reaching on my own? Are there any success stories from contacting managers versus going through recruiters? I'm not too worried about not having a match, but I'm just trying to optimize to get a best outcome. edit: got some responses from my friends. I think I'll wait to see if any leads from my personal network can result in something :))

I had a round with a recruiter from a Big Tech company today. She reached out to me on LinkedIn, but it wasn't for a specific role, it was more of a call to determine what team would be best for me. The call lasted about 25 minutes, where she asked about my background and explained the interview process. Then she asked me if I had any questions. I felt constrained in asking questions because I felt like the questions I would ask a Hiring manager or member of the team to find out more about the team would not be questions the recruiter could answer. Also, she is recruiting for many teams, so how much can she really know about the team? Should I have taken the opportunity to ask questions? My usual go-to questions are: What are the company’s/team’s greatest challenges right now? What can you tell me about the team or group I’d be working with? How has the company changed in the past year? What are your favourite and least favourite things about working here? The first 2 are team specific and are ones I felt the recruiter might not be able to answer so well. Indeed, when I asked what the company's biggest challenges were, she said that's very broad question, and I don't think she could answer for the team. She already told me basic info about the team, so I couldn't ask my 2nd question. I could've asked the latter 2, but they feel kinda forced, especially during an intro call. Should I have asked anything? I'd like to make a good impression on her, but I also don't know how important that is since she's going to take my profile back to the team and they'll determine if they want to proceed with me. I've heard that a good question could be "How did you find me?" or "What made you interested in me?" since it forces them to come up with strong points about you and thus gives you a more positive image in their mind. Practically though, if I ask "how did you find me?", they might say "simple LinkedIn keyword search" rather than "I love your background using X, Y and Z tech!" Thanks!

I'm literally finding it hard to be consistent with learning various software development concepts and practicing LeetCode. I think a good mentor can help me with this issue, correct me if I'm wrong. What else I can do to target my job search in next 5 months as a mid-level software engineer with 2 years work experience. Do I really need a mentor at this stage?

Hello, I'm currently actively interviewing and more than once, I found myself not progressing due to some knowledge gaps on things that companies seem to expect at my level. I worked as a backend engineer for 3 years after a coding bootcamp, mostly in product features and APIs. Distributed systems is not something I did on a daily basis. I have struggled with system design interview questions asking about databases, concurrency, search, among other things. How can I fill those gaps to the level I can pass these interviews? Here's what I'm going to do, and I'm looking to get advice on whether I should do, stop doing, or do something else that I didn't list. Stanford Databases courses (5 total): Read "Understanding Distributed Systems" by Roberto Vitillo Practice system design interviews with a partner Thank you for your help!