Interview Tips from a 5-Year Developer Who Recently Switched Jobs
I recently organized my thoughts from preparing for a job switch. I hope it helps anyone getting ready for interviews.
1. In your portfolio, the failure process matters more than the result.
- Turn it into a story about the problem you faced and how you solved it.
- Be sure to include metrics that can be quantified.
2. In live coding, time allocation decides everything.
- Reading the problem 10%, designing 20%, implementing 60%, testing 10%
- Trying to be perfect from the start just eats up all your time.
3. Technical questions are at a different difficulty level than junior interviews.
- The key is why you used something, not rote memorization.
- Traffic handling, scalability, and incident response experience come up a lot.
I got offers from a few companies with a good interview atmosphere, but in the end I decided based only on salary. Looking back, I think the most important thing might be finding a company where you feel comfortable.
8 answers
Yeah, when you talk about the process of failing, interviewers do tend to focus on it.
Time allocation is super important in live coding. I once spent too long on design and ended up not even getting half the implementation done lol.
Well, deciding based only on salary is a bit disappointing. If it's a good company, salary matters, but in the end, what you do every day at work is work with people. I went somewhere with a high salary and couldn't even last a year before quitting.
Do you have a source? Where did the time allocation ratio come from?
Explaining why I chose this technology in an experienced-hire interview was really difficult. After reading this article, I should reorganize my project retrospective.
It's good to talk about the process of failure, but if you're not a newbie and have 5 years of experience, isn't the experience of achieving results also important? Emphasizing only failure might actually be a minus.
Oh, I didn't know this. Especially the time allocation for live coding, I should try applying that too.
When I wrote about failures in my portfolio, interviewers kept asking follow-up questions. But if I was prepared, it actually worked in my favor. I think finding a comfortable company is truly the most important thing lol