This post is primarily focused on technical interviews. It covers a wide breadth of topics, includes some frameworks for running through problems and a bunch of tips — hopefully it’s useful to some.

A disclaimer: I wouldn’t recommend this article to complete beginners. There is assumed knowledge here, namely: ability to code, familiarity with technical interviews, and some solid CS foundations.

Get to know the shape of the interviews your loops will consist of. If you're going for frontend roles, focus on Javascript, browser technologies, and frontend architecture. If you're going for backend, focus on algorithms and system design.

You should aim to focus on preparing before scheduling interviews, but don’t get stuck in “prep hell”. This means you should start to schedule interviews even if you feel you aren’t ready — this will give you a deadline to adhere to.

Beyond solo preparation, be ready to spend time going through mock interviews. If you ignore this, you run the risk of flailing under pressure. Doing algorithmic problems on your own time is very different from doing them with someone else watching, under pressure.

Remember: you only need to succeed at one loop to get an offer.

You can apply the Pareto Principle here: if you can do all of the Yangshun problems with confidence, under a time limit, you’re ready to pass interviews.

Avoid doing specific problems or implementations, but be intentional about which problem types you solve.

Balance study and practice evenly; dive deep into concepts and understand them before rushing an implementation. Learn broad concepts, drill them in using popular problem sets.

Don’t ignore communication, manual verification (testing by hand), and speed; these are all cornerstones of interview evaluation. You can and should set timers when you sit down to solve problems.

Read the problem statement. Repeat it out loud.

Develop an approach and describe how it works, in writing.

Implement your solution, keeping speed and code quality in mind.

If the interviewer allows compilation, write explicit tests for your program and run them.

People are divided over what to do when you get stuck. Some advocate for struggling without resources, and others suggest you go straight to the solution section.

I think there’s a happy medium. If you’re stuck, gradually introduce hints. If this doesn’t cut it, go to a discussion thread about the conceptual approach. If you’re still stuck, view and understand an implementation. Then put the problem in your queue.

One thing I can agree with most on: never copy down a problem’s solution without understanding it. In fact, never copy-paste a solution at all.

The Job Hunt: Preparation

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The poem above (by Percy Shelley) is about Ramesses II.

The poem itself is powerful, but seeing a photo enhances the effect. This man, who ruled Egypt’s New Kingdom during its most powerful period, chose to impart his legacy by building edifices in his name. Ignoring Egyptologists for a moment, Ramesses’ impact is felt by none. If humans didn’t have an express interest in uncovering historical artifacts — his name would be forgotten.

Ramesses II and his exploits aren’t relevant anymore. Statues that you build will last a few thousand years, if you’re really lucky. You can vest your energies into something impactful and live a meaningful life, but your monuments will fall.

Legacy does not live in a monument — monuments crumble. Impact lasts — zoom out and consider this deeply for a moment. You’ve said things to others that have left lasting impressions, good and bad. You’ve had things said to you that have affected you deeply, good and bad.

Have you thought about the potential impact you’ve had on the life trajectory of others?

When I think about this — I consider my parents. The encouragement my parents gave to me to pursue entrepreneurial ideas, even the ones I felt insecure about, has imparted a pure confidence that I would otherwise not have had.

A child describes their dream to a parent to be nurtured or crushed by the parent’s response. Even if you believe in destiny or creative passion, a lack of encouragement festers and hinders actualization in the child.

Back to legacy — what will yours be? It’s something I’ve grappled with a lot lately. Someone recently told me I seem to be motivated by legacy, and I realized it’s true. Legacy needs to be a meaningful endeavor — not a treadmill.

Ramesses II lived at the top of the world during his time, but perhaps failed to see this. He built his legacy into stone, not the future.

Others have learned from his mistakes. John D. Rockefeller, with a public legacy mired in antitrust suits, facilitated the world’s transition into modern medicine with his charitable giving.

Whether or not you like the Corsican and his conquests, Napoleon’s legacy has been weaved into modern European infrastructure, schooling, and psyche. His feats and contributions have permanently inserted him into history.

These individuals built edifices in their name, but they also integrated themselves into the world via their contributions. Where physical structures may not last, their benefaction has kept them alive.

Fragile Legacies

Behavioral interviews test for liability, not culture fit.

Avoid cold/procedural answers, seek relatability.

Think, why would someone impartial be interested in your answer?

Go beyond the STAR method, craft a cohesive narrative across your answers.

What do behavioral interviews really test for?At the core, they test for liability. They don’t test for likability or culture fit — your interviewer makes this decision within the first minute.

By asking cold, procedural, expository questions, the company is covering themselves in the case that you are a liability to the company. They often must defend their hiring decisions, and by consequence, their firing decisions through the lens of your interview performance.

There are exceptions to this rule — some of the best companies I’ve interviewed at have had conversational-style interviews in lieu of predefined questions. They seek to learn about the candidate, and afford interviewers flexibility to explore the most interesting areas.

Regardless of the question being asked of  you, procedural or conversational, your answers should seek to be as natural as possible, and illustrate the signals that you wish to project.

Adapting your answers to each company is fine, but remember that you are interviewing the company too.

In my humble opinion, the STAR method is not desirable. Your interviewer hears the same story in the same format from different candidates. What stands between you and a job offer is how much you can captivate the interviewer.

Treat this as an exercise in storytelling, not in interviewing. If you imbue your stories with a relatable, human element — you stand above the rest already.

What follows is a controversial suggestion, so take it with a grain of salt. Don’t memorize your answers to behavioral questions. Get to know the “shape” of your story and think about how you’d answer each hypothetical question.

The worst thing you can do in response to a cold and procedural question is to be cold and procedural in return. Rigid, during an interview, is the worst thing you can be — it undermines your credibility, and the interviewer knows you’ve memorized your answer.

Put yourself in the shoes of an impartial interviewer and listen to your answers. Ask yourself, would this honestly grab my attention?

If you have time/energy, tell your story to your friends unsolicited. Do their eyes glaze over, or do they seem engaged? For this, pick friends that aren’t overly polite so as not to confuse their politeness for interest.

Above all else, remember this: be likable. People want to work with a person they would get drinks with, and your interview performance will reflect this regardless of how fair the process is. If you can’t convince your prospective co-workers to advocate for you, you won’t receive an offer.

The Job Hunt: Behavioral

Take my advice with a grain of salt. This is what has worked for me, and results may vary. Even if you don’t take all of the advice, I’m sure there’s something of use here.

Furthermore, this advice is coming from someone in the tech industry, located in the Bay Area. If this is not your industry or locale, this article is probably not for you. Additionally, this is primarily aimed at mid-senior level folks; a lot of forthcoming discourse around “being picky” and market demand is not as relevant for new grads and junior folks.

In the spirit of reflection (and data visualization), here’s a snapshot of my last hunt:

For reference, this was also my first job hunt. I had been in the industry for a few years, but never had to go through an interview loop: I achieved employment via personal connections.

That being said, it took about two months of grinding 

 to start interviewing. I’ve picked up an adage during this time: “being Facebook-ready got me offers from everyone else”.

I failed my Facebook interviews, but the preparation allowed me to succeed elsewhere (Snap, Square, and other big companies).

Every job hunt starts with discomfort. You dream of greener pastures, thinking of how happy you would be if you had a different job. 

Before hunting for a new job, ensure that you are ready to move permanently.

For this to work, you need to sell the idea to yourself and commit. Half-baked interviewing leads nowhere, and this isn’t an ideal situation for indecisiveness.

Once you’ve convinced yourself to take the leap, you have a few options. If you can, quit your current job. 

This means you can financially support yourself in the worst case: prolonged unemployment.

Interviewing full-time is a much more optimal situation, and eliminates the headaches of scheduling interviews in the middle of work. 

If prolonged unemployment is a genuine fear, keep your job for now.

There are a lot of companies out there. Because of this, you can and should be picky. Act as if you have no limiting factors for the next part. First, you should identify your priorities:

How much do you value work-life balance versus career progression?

Be honest with yourself here. In an ideal world, your company would be a strong fit in each category.  

Do not delude yourself into thinking you “want” something because it is prestigious or expedient for you.

Once you’re in alignment with your priorities, you should craft a list of target companies. This should be ranked in order of desire, not likelihood. 

It should include as many companies as you can think of that fit your bill within a margin of error.

Later, we’ll talk about approaching the application process. The key to success here is applying via referrals — more on this in the next one.

The Job Hunt: Strategy

Whenever I learn a new skill, I suck at it for a while. I struggle, and struggle, and struggle until what I’m doing starts to feel a bit hopeless. But eventually, something happens. A switch flips. I’m suddenly 

 good at what I’m doing. It hasn’t been until recently that I’ve characterized this way of learning — I call it “sponge mentality”, somewhat unoriginally.

A sponge is invertebrate, porous, malleable, and soaks up a lot of knowledge… I mean water . You see where I’m going with this: you could easily come up with a bunch of metaphors connecting sponges to learning, I won’t bore you with them here.

This is nothing new, examining your approach to learning is super important. That being said, I don’t think being a sponge is the only thing you need.

When I say this, I mean the kind of stress and discomfort that forces people to improve. If you can create an environment where:

You are forced to complete a task, preferably difficult and domain-relevant.

You have other people depending on you to learn on the fly and complete your work in a timely manner.

You have minimal distractions or preoccupations outside of this task.

Any time I’ve ever learned something deeply in a short amount of time, it’s been in a situation like this. I think I’m privileged to have worked for a couple of startups, where this is a pretty commonplace occurrence.

Here’s where the sponge comes back in: a sponge doesn’t flail, a sponge doesn’t seek out distractions — a sponge just gives in and goes with the flow. If you can become the sponge and remove your own self-preservation instincts from your learnings and work, you become unstoppable.

Most people shrink or shut down when posed with a situation like this. You may think it’s too hard, rationalize about why it wouldn’t work, find any way to get out of the situation. I used to do this frequently, but the aim was always to grow out of this.

Now, when I’m posed with challenges, I feel prepared to tackle them. This is not because I feel mastery over the task itself, but because I can reference previous times where I’ve succeeded under high-pressure deadlines with ambitious goals (and no roadmap on how to get there).

Eventually, you reach a point where you feel comfortable taking on daunting challenges. It’s like a rock in the bottom of your shoe: painful but familiar. All you need to do is take off your shoe, stick your hand inside, and pull that fucker out.

Colin's Corner