My Interview Prep Order After Three Job Changes
As a backend engineer with 5 years of experience, I've changed jobs three times, and each time I prepared in a similar order. This is just my approach, so take it as reference only.
1. Start by rewriting your resume
- If you only write “what you did” in your work history, you'll get stuck in the interview right away
- Write down metrics and trade-offs first
2. Come up with 30 likely questions
- Derive them backward from keywords in the job posting
- Practice your answers out loud (this is the most important part)
3. Research the company
- Make sure to read at least three recent engineering blog posts
- If you go without reading them, you'll have no answer when asked why you applied
4. Prepare questions for the end
- Salary, team structure, onboarding process
- If you don't ask these, you actually look unmotivated
In the end, preparation is training in explaining to others what you've done. If you only focus on coding tests, you'll fall apart in the actual interview.
8 answers
Agreed, especially #2. If you only organize it in your head, it all falls apart when you actually have to say it.
Well, I think coming up with 30 anticipated questions is a bit overkill. I prepared that way and then completely fell apart at a single follow-up question. The moment you memorize prepared answers, your tone gets stiff and interviewers notice right away. For me, it was much more helpful to pick one project and practice digging into why I chose that technology, what the alternatives were, and what would have happened if it failed. Depth seems more important than the number of questions.
Got a source? I mean, if you've changed jobs 3 times by your 5th year, that's an average of every 1.7 years, and that's a bit...
Agree with #3. It’s really obvious if you show up without reading the tech blog lol. I recently quoted one of their latest posts and asked a question, and it totally loosened up the interview atmosphere.
Same here. But I do it in the opposite order. I've found that you have to research the company first before you can decide what to emphasize on your resume. If the place you're applying to is a payments system, you put payments experience first; if it's high-volume traffic, you put that first. If you start with your resume, you end up sending the same resume to every company. It seems the order varies from person to person.
I don't agree. If you bomb the coding test, you get eliminated in the first round, so excluding it from your prep order is a bit...
Number 4, this is really important. I once joined without asking about salary and found out I was making less than a junior who joined a year after me—I lost my mind lol. Definitely ask about the onboarding process too. If the team has no documentation, your first month is hell.
Numbers and trade-offs—that's really the core of backend, isn't it? "Adopted caching and improved it by 30%, but compromised on a 5-second TTL due to consistency issues" hits way harder than "improved query performance by 30%." The goal seems to be to leave the interviewer unable to ask the next question.