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Imposter syndrome is bad enough for senior devs who walk into technical interviews thinking the interviewer will expect them to know everything about everything. Interviews are even worse for entry-level developers — especially those from code schools, who, despite months of training, have barely scratched the surface of their potential.
What should you expect in the interview? How do you prepare? What should you actually study? Should I bring my own laptop? What’s the real goal of a technical interview? And why are they even asking me these kinds of questions anyway?
I’ve been on interviewing teams, or as a direct hiring manager or hiring decision maker, since 2008 or so. I have screened over ten thousand developer resumes including CTO roles. I have conducted almost 2,500 technical interviews, ranging from interns roles to VP of Engineering candidates. I’ve developed dozens of interesting interview questions, and refined them over the years to incorporate as many areas of technical competence I can while maintaining simplicity and short solve times.
I’ve also actively helped hundreds of code school graduates with resume and cover letter creation, and interview preparation. I conduct mock interviews, teach negotiation tactics, explain how to evaluate benefits and equity in offers, and more.
I wanted to start reaching a wider audience with some FREE technical interview coaching, and created a daily email series to help you prepare for your first (or 100th) technical interview.
Simple – because I’m going to teach you how to think like an interviewer.
There are plenty of articles on the internet instructing you how to prepare for a technical interview. None of them teach you what your interviewer is thinking. Until now. Many hundreds of interviews later, I’ve helped people get ready for web developer interviews, Ruby-specific or JavaScript-specific interviews, general IT interviews, and more general interview help.
It’s all about data structures and algorithms, right?
Well, that’s certainly a big part of it. Not as many articles help you understand WHY you should study certain topics or teach you about the soft skills you need to succeed in an interview, too.
I’ve rarely seen any that help you understand why the interviewer is even asking certain questions, or what they listen for in your answer.
When the email series is done, your subscription info is securely removed. You’ll never hear from me again. I don’t believe in remarketing.
So I wrote some… Here are some examples:
You’ll receive an email in your inbox every day for six weeks with one or more example interview questions.
Some emails explore the motivation behind the questions from the mind of an interview or hiring manager. Other messages cover common variations of technical questions you can expect to hear and explore high-level or low-level answers to some of those questions. Some will cover my observation of trends in the industry and what kinds of things companies care about more based on the size and maturity of the business.
Reply to any message in the series to reach my inbox with feedback or questions, or additional topics you’d like me to cover.