What I Learned After Successfully Changing Jobs After 3 Years
I prepared with a long-term view, but it wrapped up faster than expected, so I'm leaving a review.
The preparation period was about 4 months. Since I was working at a company, I studied 1–2 hours a day on weekdays and about half a day on weekends. At first, I blindly started with algorithms, but I dropped that after the first month. I judged that for an experienced hire, focusing only on coding tests was inefficient.
Instead, I focused on practicing explaining the work I did at the company "in my own words." The questions that ultimately come up in interviews are similar. Why I chose that technology, what the alternatives were, and what the cost of that decision was.
I also negotiated salary for the first time, and it went much more straightforwardly than I expected. It's not about asking for a number unconditionally; if you prepare evidence, it becomes a conversation.
Conclusion: prepare briefly, explain deeply, apply broadly. I hope everyone gets good results.
8 answers
Congratulations haha. Changing jobs isn't easy these days, so that's impressive.
I think you made a really good call deciding to give up on coding tests. I’m an experienced hire too, and I only realized it after burning two months on algorithms. In the end, what they ask in interviews is “why did you do it that way?” Listing your tech stack is already proven on paper; the real contest starts after that, and I regret finding that out so late.
I'm a bit skeptical about saying you've completely given up on coding tests. These days, most companies make even experienced hires solve one or two coding test problems, so I wonder if doing it for just a month is realistically possible. Maybe you just got lucky and only ended up at places without coding tests.
When negotiating your salary, what specifically did you prepare as your “evidence”? Was it something like market average data, or did you go in with a summary of your own achievements?
The key is 'practicing explaining things in your own words,' and this is a seriously underrated part. Instead of doing that, I just kept cranking out side projects nonstop, and when the interviewer asked 'Why did you build that?' I was completely stuck for words lol. You've set the right direction for your prep.