CI, workflows and frustrated interviews
Tags: beginners, job, career, codenewbie
Published: 2022-05-06 15:38:48

While I’m job hunting, I’ll post each day on my [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/in/skaplichniy/) what I did the day before and what challenges I overcame. And here — once a week — I am going to post a summary of these statuses.

![workplace](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ni8xaf2i2fj5fs5kb29u.jpeg)

Last **Friday**, I devoted a lot of time to studying algorithms (I am still struggling with that). And I had a wonderful interview with the tech company. The recruiter said that they are more than happy to have an entry-level developer in their team, and that I could fit well in their team. So I hope that the second interview will be soon.

And at the end of the day, I got an email from my dream company. I had an interview with them and then I got the test assignment. After three weeks of waiting for a response and following up, they informed me that they would not be moving forward with me. Oh, that was brutal. You see, I spent two days (and two nights!) finishing that test order, and I was really proud of myself for getting it done. But still, I am not good enough for them. That’s tough. And my Friday night was ruined by pretty frustrated thoughts. But still, I know I can achieve more. And I’ll try again, over and over, and eventually I’ll find something for me. I should just keep going.

**Monday** was a day full of practical knowledge. I found out what Continuous Integration is and how to use DevOps tools when working on and publishing my projects. So I learned how to use GitHub Actions and how to create my own workflows to speed up the production process.

Oh, and I got the confirmation for the second interview at the company I had the call with last week. Hope it will work out.

**Tuesday** I spent all day again trying to understand how Github Actions work and how to create workflows that automate tests and doployments. Phew! It wasn’t easy and I’m still struggling with a few bugs, but I hope to overcome them today. I asked for help in chat with other students and have received some hits.

Well, on **Wednesday** I had a great experience with looking for answers. Sometimes you just don’t know what to do. You do everything the way it says in the instructions, and it goes well, but then an error comes along. You try this and that, but the error persists. You ask a friend, another, and another, but all the options are wrong. Then you look at the log file, but still no clue. Then you google each step, trying to find something. And finally, someone – just an unknown from the discussion on the Github page – shares the solution that worked for him. And it works for you too!

![Github helps](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ic0ijxvvp2y7o5hgjtsv.jpeg)

I love things like this. And I’m really glad that there are such strangers who like to share their experiences. I don’t know you, mannyanebi, but thank you so much!

So I finished my actions on Github and now when I push something to my project it gets tested, deployed and I get a message that everything is ok. Automatically!

As for the interviews (I’d two appointments), it was terrible. The first was the second interview with the company’s CTO. He started right off by saying that I don’t have enough experience and that they don’t use Python, only Java, so he doesn’t know why the recruiter said to me that I’m right for the job. Oh boy. And the second one – an interview with the recruiter who was recommended to me by another recruiter – just didn’t call me and disappeared.

I know this is the part of the journey and everything will be fine, but sometimes it’s really hard. Regardless, I’ve the technical interview today and I hope it goes well.

On **Thursday** I had a great technical interview. It was the second interview with this company and lasted more than 1.5 hours. I talked to three engineers about my experience and code. There were many questions about time and project management, learning new things, concept discussions, and more. Then I showed several projects I had worked on. After that, we talked about their technologies and workflows. It went smoothly and I found the atmosphere in the team and the tasks they work on very interesting.

During this interview, I felt very confident and was sure that I would get another round. So I really expected to receive the email without keywords like “unfortunately” and “thank you for your interest”.

But no. I was rejected.

I asked for feedback, as I always do, but I’m not sure I’ll get a response.

Maybe it’s a mistake? Maybe I wasn’t good enough? Maybe they didn’t understand my accent? Maybe my projects were too simple? Maybe I asked too many questions?

I don’t know.

For sure I’ll keep on moving. But right now I’m pretty frustrated.