Developer Job Change Preparation: 3-Month Summary (Chronological Timeline)
I’m a backend developer with four years of experience. I’m writing down in chronological order what I actually did while preparing to change jobs. I’m writing this with the intention of coming back to it if I ever need to prepare again.
1. Month 1 – Resume cleanup. While writing my career description, I rewrote what I had done from a “problem-solving” perspective rather than a “technology” perspective. This took the longest. Rather than listing everything I did at the company, I kept only three or four things an interviewer would likely be curious about.
2. Month 2 – Reviewing CS fundamentals again. I skimmed data structures since I already knew them, and instead dug deep into DB indexes and transaction isolation levels. The key was to make it possible to explain them by connecting them to cases I had experienced in practice.
3. Month 3 – Applications and interviews. I applied to 14 places in total, passed the document screening at 6, and made it to the final round at 3.
What I felt was that practicing how to properly articulate in words what I had done was far more important than preparing for coding tests again. In fact, most places where I was rejected, I got tangled up explaining cases, not technical questions.
I decided on salary by comparing the two final offers.
6 answers
I relate to digging into DB indexes and isolation levels. I also shared a write-up of a deadlock we hit in production, and the reaction was great. It's obvious right away when someone's just memorized the theory.
Good job keeping only 3–4. Listing everything actually makes you less appealing. But rewriting it from a problem-solving perspective really takes forever... It took me 2 weeks just to convert mine to STAR.
Agreed, this is so true. I was also only focusing on coding tests, but then I failed because I couldn't explain my project in the actual interview lol
Well, that’s a bit... For a backend developer with 4 years of experience, where would you find a place that doesn’t give a coding test? I doubt that passing 6 out of 14 applications happened without a coding test. These days most companies have a coding test as the first round—maybe it was a take-home assignment because it was for an experienced hire?