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This article was painful for me to read, mostly because of how accurately it reflected my experience with job searching. I'm not the worlds most experienced de

This article was painful for me to read, mostly because of how accurately it reflected my experience with job searching. I'm not the worlds most experienced dev who's shipped multiple products, but for a relatively inexperienced (2y professional, 5y total), I feel I am overlooked for positions I would excel in because I am just plain bad at technical interviews. I have a fairly impressive github, a creative cv and recruitment page, and a bunch of nice addons that show how much I care about programming both technically and socially. I have probably the best possible background for remote positions in particular. I get interviewed a lot because of all this, and then facepalm my way out during technical interviews. I'm the kind of dev that can eventually solve pretty much any leetcode-y type problem, but it takes me a long time of sitting in silence and playfully experimenting with a repl or similar. This translates extremely poorly to interviews. I have also noticed that my brain will just disconnect midway through interviews and I will fail something that under ordinary circumstances I would never miss. A combination of my style of thinking mapping poorly to the interview format, and stage fright, means that my odds are poor; even against candidates who would be both technically and personably worse fits. Not really sure how to tackle this :)

azhu 7y ago
Sounds like you know exactly what your problem is. Technical interviewing is just like normal problem solving, just you have to narrate your thoughts as if the interviewer's inside your head with you. Get some sample problems that match what you're seeing in your onsites, roleplay having an interviewer there with you, and practice them while recording yourself. Best is if you can have a real human. If you're passionate enough, it would be a great idea to organize some kind of group for people in similar positions. Either you will learn the skill enough or you will find a position that fits your current skillset along the way. Being understood by other people is where the rubber meets the road for ideas having any impact and communicating your technical ideas is an important skill in general.
- theelous3 7y ago
  Aye, I hear you. I was giving it more thought over the last few days having written the above comment, and I realised that what happens in tech interviews is that I switch my mode of thinking. Under normal circumstances, I sit and problem solve, thinking only of the issue at hand, branching out and following leads and so on. Under interview circumstances, I instead try to anticipate what the person scrutinising me wants to see, and try to like, game an ungameable situation, which blocks my natural problem solving thinking. I have noticed that when I'm in a position of subordination, I do worse creatively. This isn't to say I can't work as employee, but rather in specific situations, such as "person knows x and is just watching me try to do x", I enter this reactive thought mode. Conversely, when I am in a superordinate position, I find myself much more creative than my baseline, thinking clearly and well. I don't know how to handle this for interviews.

azhu 7y ago

Sounds like you know exactly what your problem is. Technical interviewing is just like normal problem solving, just you have to narrate your thoughts as if the interviewer's inside your head with you. Get some sample problems that match what you're seeing in your onsites, roleplay having an interviewer there with you, and practice them while recording yourself. Best is if you can have a real human. If you're passionate enough, it would be a great idea to organize some kind of group for people in similar positions. Either you will learn the skill enough or you will find a position that fits your current skillset along the way. Being understood by other people is where the rubber meets the road for ideas having any impact and communicating your technical ideas is an important skill in general.

theelous3 7y ago
Aye, I hear you. I was giving it more thought over the last few days having written the above comment, and I realised that what happens in tech interviews is that I switch my mode of thinking. Under normal circumstances, I sit and problem solve, thinking only of the issue at hand, branching out and following leads and so on. Under interview circumstances, I instead try to anticipate what the person scrutinising me wants to see, and try to like, game an ungameable situation, which blocks my natural problem solving thinking. I have noticed that when I'm in a position of subordination, I do worse creatively. This isn't to say I can't work as employee, but rather in specific situations, such as "person knows x and is just watching me try to do x", I enter this reactive thought mode. Conversely, when I am in a superordinate position, I find myself much more creative than my baseline, thinking clearly and well. I don't know how to handle this for interviews.