Experiencing different types of Technical Interviews
Tags: beginners, jobs, programming, codenewbie
Published: 2022-03-14 02:31:53

200+ applications, 100+ rejections, 100+ ghosting, maybe about 10 interviews. I've felt a part of my journey has finally been reached as I have finally landed my first software engineer role! After 3 years since graduating from a coding bootcamp, managing through a global pandemic, and trying to take on side projects, the experience has been such stress-inducing and painful at times.

Landing that interview has always been one of the most stressful parts to applying for a job. You are always greeted with the "Thank you for applying for <insert job title here>. Although your skills are indeed impressive, we decided to follow through with another more qualified candidate," or "We regret to inform you that you are not selected at this time being." What makes it even worse is when you see the bottom of the email **No reply**. So, we can't even question why we are not even selected for position, left wondering in the dust like what is it that we need to improve in our application, resume, cover letter, etc.

I do just want to briefly discuss at least trying to land an interview. If you have landed that job interview, you can skip this section and scroll down to the "Types of Technical Interview Section."

##Landing an Interview

- Have your resume/cover letter reviewed by trusted friends & family, getting multiple perspectives if you can, either tech or non-tech perspectives

- Get your resume reviewed by a professional resume writer, there is a cost for this.

- Have at least 2-3 projects included, can be roughly made (for instance, having a git repo and video/gif footage demo of the project), but polished would definitely be a plus.

- When adding your projects, add 2-3 brief bullet points describing the work that **YOU** implemented.

- Add skills that you feel comfortable in, possibly intermediately where you can at least work with OOP, if you can at least create simple CRUD applications, either console app, full-stack, static sites, etc. (can differ depending on the role you are applying for)

- Side note for point above: Depending on the position you are applying for, research the types of projects built with those tools that you want to learn. 

- Education, for someone like me who does not come from a traditional computer science college background, add your degrees you have, don't lie even if it's unrelated. But needn't include GPA, most of the time it is not necessary.

- Finding a mentor or career coach. These can help out with guidance if you sometimes feel lost in the process. Heck, I would still look for mentors just to gain more insights even now.

##Types of Technical Interviews

###Coding Problem Interview (With Interviewer)

This is the most common one that I have experienced. These can range to maybe from 30 minutes to 1 hour. You probably are familiar with Leetcode & HackerRank. So pretty much, it's you in a video call with the interviewer, they will give you a coding problem prompt, giving some form of input, and you need to return an output. 

When you get stuck or possibly drift off in the wrong direction for the solution, the interviewer may sometimes give hints. They can occasionally ask what you are trying to do at certain moments.

###Coding Problem Interview (Without Interview/Automated)

This is another common one too. These are mainly timed, as if you were taking an online test and seeing that clock ticking on the corner. These can range to maybe from 1 hour to 2 hours. You would be given about 2 to 4 coding problems to solve. They can possibly have a difficulty ratio - 1 easy 1 medium : 1 easy 1 hard : 1 easy 2 medium 1 hard, etc.

There are certain rules when these are conducted:
- usually not allowed to use another electronic device
- google is allowed but limited to search, for instance, syntax lookup is fine, but searching how to implement something won't be allowed
- only the interview window is allowed to be open, no other browser windows, tabs are fine in the interview window for the searching though
- your screen can be video captured to avoid any cheating involved
- Webcam video recording may be captured during the interview for cheating purposes that can occur

###Projects Interview

From my experience, I've gotten this type mainly from startup or smaller companies. I have also had friends share to me their experiences with these types of interviews. 

These can possibly range from 45 minutes - 2 hours. While with the interviewer, they make ask for you to build a mini functioning project, simple web app, static site, etc. 

For example, a prompt could be "build a home page for a restaurant, with a navigation bar, title with a logo, description on the page, have the links go to other pages (can possibly go to blank 'under construction' pages but still based on the restaurant's site), sticky header/footer, with button interactions, etc."

The interviewer can be suggesting certain syntax or functions to include, in a way, feeling like they are testing your knowledge with the language. Of course they would allow you to search up these syntax since they would be understanding not knowing everything.

###Take Home Project

This is similar to the above but with a 1 to multiple day span. I have had take-home projects that were due a few hours on the day of, literally after the interview. I had one due in 3 days. I have also had a week take-home project. The scale of these projects could be a bit bigger, from building a full-stack web app, front-end only, etc. This can vary depending on the role.

###Portfolio Discussion

I was surprised to have gotten this one since I did not see this in majority of my interviews. The interview would ask about the projects you have included in your resume. They would ask for you to share any video demo footage of project and also to open the git repo code. The questions ask could range from "what was one feature you felt was a struggle to implement and how did you overcome it?" or "If you were to add ______ into this project, what would you use or how would you implement it?" This was such an interesting but also kind of tough because I had to really think outside the box for new ideas and situations the interviewer would ask about my projects.

3 years since I started my tech journey, and I can only say it has just begun with my new job. It's a painful struggle, I understand. I've had my fair share of working a side non-related job even after finishing my coding bootcamp studies since it was that difficult for me, plus with the pandemic hitting too. 

I hope this blog will be helpful and beneficial for anyone in the endeavors towards their tech journey!