Blog (job) - Fred Wu's Tech

Tips for Job Interviews as a Junior Software Developer

2020-09-27T05:56:03.000000Z

As coding bootcamps such as Coder Academy and General Assembly churn out more and more software developers, and as more and more people start to realise the importance of software, companies these days are facing an increased amount of candidates applying for junior dev roles.

Recently we had to take down our job ad for a junior full stack React and Elixir role only a few days after posting it due to having received about 300 applications. Suffice to say, the competition is fierce at the entry-level end of the software engineer spectrum.

Software is eating the world. - Marc Andreessen

In the past three months alone I’ve had to sit through over a hundred interviews, many of which were for junior roles. Some candidates did really well but unfortunately the vast majority did quite poorly. In this article I am hoping to offer some tips and insights as a seasoned interviewer and hiring manager, to those who might be struggling landing an entry-level software engineer role.

I’ll break the tips into three sections: before an interview, during an interview and after an interview.

Before an Interview

This is arguably the most important stage of your interview - before it happens! Prepare yourself with enough knowledge and confidence in both software development and conversational skills in order to ace the interview and stand out amongst a sea of candidates.

Study Software Engineering Fundamentals

I get it, bootcamps and many online tutorials and courses focus on teaching the practical things to turn code into products. But just like running or even walking without correct postures, it can be incredibly dangerous over time.

My recommendation is to read on the basics of object-oriented programming, functional programming and some design patterns. For instance, build up some basic understanding of how the JavaScript prototype works or how the Ruby object model works can be extremely beneficial in progressing your technical capability on application design and architecture.

Get More Project Experience

Not having any substantial project experience on your CV is a sure way to significantly lower your chance of getting an interview.

Do junior developers really need substantial project experience, you may ask? Abso-fucking-lutely!

Build your own side projects, participate in open source projects, pick up some freelancing work - the choice is yours. These won’t be your most technically accomplished work, but they will help you accumulate experience, and more importantly to demonstrate your capability to your interviewers with real world experience.

Why Software Development?

I want you to put your hand on heart and answer this question honestly. If your answer is more money or FOMO, that’s okay, but be prepared to be disappointed with the reality - if you are not in this field because of your passion for building products or solving problems, you will find this a long and hard slog.

If you are passionate about building software, then let me tell you this - when you are starting your career you will have to give up your work life balance for a bit. That is, if you want to boost your career and progress quickly beyond being a junior developer.

My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. - Charles Kettering

Looking back at when I started my software career many moons ago, I never regretted giving up my social life early on in my career: I worked extremely hard, often did many jobs - a day job as a dev, a night job as a dev, freelancing and doing open source work all at the same time. Some would probably frown and say that I had no life, but I choose to believe that I was making sacrifices so I can become good at what I love doing in the shortest amount of time.

Research the Company You Apply For

If you are one of those who spam your CVs to every job opening, please consider changing your tactic. A well written cover letter will not only increase your chance of getting an interview, but also allow you to ask relevant questions during the interview.

Check out the company’s website and any social media pages on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, etc. Do a bit of “stalking” on the people who work in the company, sometimes this will give you some insights into the type of work environment and culture the company has.

Doing enough research is not only for your own good - knowing whether you will enjoy working there should you end up getting a job offer, but also demonstrates your ability to do research and independent thinking to your interviewers.

Read, Listen and Communicate

This one might not be immediately obvious because it’s very high level and somewhat vague, bear with me.

Some people might be deep thinkers but really struggle to get their points across, and to communicate their ideas and thought process in a clear, concise and useful way. My advice is to read blogs, listen to talks and learn from other people on how they communicate. When you read and listen, pay more attention to how sentences are structured and how titbits of information are given.

The most powerful person in the world is the story teller. - Steve Jobs

And don’t forget to practice! Get comfortable talking to others on various topics in software development.

During an Interview

Hopefully the tips given thus far would help you secure an interview. Now it’s show time!

Turn Up On time, Have Equipment Sorted

Whether you are attending an on-location interview, or more likely during Covid, an online interview, make sure you turn up on time!

If it’s an online interview, also make sure you have whatever software needed (Zoom, etc) installed and tested. I’ve had a few occasions where the first five minutes of the interview was spent on the candidate trying to get their mic or speaker working - it’s not a huge deal, but it does show the lack of preparation and organisational skills.

A Smile Goes a Long Way

Understandably, interviewing is stressful. However, remember to put on a smile when you greet your interviewer and when you do small talks. Everything needs a balance of course, when you’re giving technical answers it’s probably not a good idea to smile.

If you know you get uncomfortable talking to strangers or when under pressure - do more practices! If you can’t find a friend or don’t have a partner to practice with, use a mirror!

Learn to Say “No, I don’t know”

When you don’t know something or can’t recall the details of something, just say it. As an interviewer, when I ask you a technical question I can see through your hmms and ahs. A “sorry, I don’t know” is a much better answer than one that doesn’t make sense.

Bonus point: “Sorry I don’t know, but I will look it up after this interview.”

Read Social Cues

This one can be extremely easy or extremely hard depending on your personality. For those who might struggle with reading social cues, try pay more attention to what type of questions you were asked.

If it was an introduction of yourself to kick off the interview, make it more than just two sentences but also under five minutes - this is usually a warm up for you to find your feet and calm your nerve, and for the interviewer to extract any interesting information as a discussion point later. It doesn’t have to be your memoir and you shouldn’t robotically talk through your entire education and work history.

If it was a technical question, always try to time-box it. Don’t drag on and repeat yourself just because you have already answered it quickly and concisely. When in doubt, ask the interviewers whether they have anything in particular they were looking for.

If it was an open ended question, try to explain your thought process as you explain it. As an interviewer, I’d hate to ask an open ended question and get a short yes/no back. At the same time, give interviewers room to interject and ask follow-up questions by pacing yourself.

Don’t Speak Too Fast

Okay, you might be very nervous, or English might not be your first language, so you tend to speak fast to “get through it”.

If that’s the case, work on your speech pattern, make it concious enough that you will recognise it when you speak too fast. If interviewers can’t get your points clearly, they might not always ask you to clarify - because if you kept doing it repeatedly, you would already be written off as a suitable candidate.

Be Humble

I totally understand that in a competitive job market you want to present yourself in the best light. Just be confident and speak the truths.

As someone who’s been doing interviews for years, I really dislike people who overstate their capability either on their CV or during the interview because these are often very obvious. Claiming to be an Elixir expert but not knowing how the supervision tree works is a sure way to score a black mark, for example.

Show Passion and Drive

To counter the point on over-selling yourself, what works better is to show interviewers your willingness and determination to learn. Remember, you are still a junior therefore we don’t expect you to know everything we know.

What we do expect, is your commitment to learning - not by saying it, but by demonstrating it. Remember the earlier tip on getting more project experience?

Ask Questions

Usually towards the end of the interview, we’d ask you if you have any questions. Don’t say “no”.

Doesn’t matter how much research you’ve done on a company, there are always insights someone who’s working at the company can give you. How do they manage the delivery? How do they support learning? What makes them enjoy working at the company?

Use this opportunity to gain insights into why you should be working at this company, and to demonstrate your interests in working at the company to the interviewers too.

After an Interview

After completing an interview, it’s an opportunity to do a little retrospective and do a follow up when necessary.

Close the Knowledge Gap

Don’t over-analyse on what you could have or should have said. Instead, spend your energy on solidifying the topics you couldn’t or didn’t provide good answers for. If you’ve said “don’t know” or “not sure” during the interview, now is your chance to make it “sure”.

Follow Up

If during the interview there have been things mentioned that you could provide links or more information on, be sure to act on it. You never know, maybe the clarification is just what the interviewers needed to help them make a decision.

To all the junior developers out there - enjoy the journey! You are in for an amazing ride, make every second count.

If you enjoyed this article, checkout my other tips articles:

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Tips for Writing a Good CV / Résumé

2020-05-20T08:59:24.000000Z

Due to COVID-19, not many companies are hiring at the moment. The company I work for therefore is in a very fortunate position to still be thinking about growth and hiring.

As a hiring manager for almost a decade now, I’ve personally reviewed thousands of job applications and CVs, and many hiring managers would probably agree, the vast majority of CVs are terrible. Let’s change that!

During COVID-19 where more and more people are either losing jobs or having their work hours cut, we are experiencing an increased amount of applicants to our job ads. I’d say on average I spend about 30 seconds per applicant due to my busy schedule - most hiring managers are busy people, it is therefore crucial for candidates to realise the importance of having a CV that is clear, easy to read and most importantly sells yourself. And if you have a cover letter, which I highly encourage that you do, congratulations you just bought yourself another 30 seconds. ;)

I’m writing this post mostly from my own perspective - as a hiring manager in a tech company in the western culture (we’re based in Australia). Understandably, different cultural backgrounds and regions may have their own conventions, but certainly in Australia and many similar western cultures, there are things that you do and don’t do on a CV, and there are things that may help your CV stand out. Let’s talk about these things.

At the end of this post I will also share a copy of my own CV to help illustrate my points.

30 Seconds? Surely It’s Unfair to the Candidates

Yes, I agree, to think that you are only given 30 seconds for your perhaps carefully crafted CV and cover letter is definitely soul-crushing. But it is unfortunately the reality. I work for a company where I can still do the first round of vetting myself, many large corporations would use algorithms and/or HR people to reject your applications based on keywords and other things.

Knowing the reality and the constraints, there are a few things I’d like to address in the hope of improving your CV and your chance of scoring an interview, and in turn, helping myself and other hiring managers out there to have a better candidate CV screening experience.

Have a Pronounceable Name or Alias

This one surely would raise some eyebrows - you might think that your name is your identity and you should not change it for anyone. True, however, the reality is that a hard-to-pronounce name discourages your profile to be shared and spoken about. Why not add a pronounceable alias if means there’s an increased chance of getting an interview?

For clarity, I personally would never reject a candidate based on their name (or their cultural background for that matter), but I know some hiring managers might, and for some of them, they are NOT doing it on purpose. However, I have on several occasions had to ask a candidate how to correctly pronounce their name.

A Short Blurb on Who You Are

As a hiring manager, I care about who you are as a person - if you can summarise who you are as a professional in a sentence or two, it will help me determine whether you might be a good fit or not.

As an example, here’s a blurb about me:

A passionate and hands-on software executive with two decades of experience and an entrepreneurial mindset.

A long time open source developer who has created and contributed to a few dozens of projects, including Ruby on Rails.

In two sentences, I explained my industry experience as well as my open source contributions - two things that help define who I am as a working professional. It also invites more questions from hiring managers: what kind of things have I done as an entrepreneur; what other open source projects have I contributed to?

Work Rights

Many companies have restrictions or policies around who they can hire based on their residency and visa status. If you are not a resident or are on a particular visa, make it clear in your job application so you don’t end up wasting time for the employer and for yourself.

List Keywords, But Don’t Overdo It

In the tech space it is important to have keywords visible to highlight your skills. If you are a software developer, your tech stacks should be clearly stated in your CV. As a hiring manager, if I am hiring a PHP developer, I expect to see PHP mentioned in your CV. There are of course exceptions, for example when we were hiring Elixir developers I did not expect to see Elixir as a keyword simply due to the supply constraint.

It is a balancing act however - I’ve seen CVs where candidates put 20-50 keywords on their CVs. I’m sorry but unless you are extremely gifted, you cannot possibly be good at all those things. Do not put keywords on your CV simply because you’ve read an article on the subject.

Oh, and unless you’re going for a data entry role, I honestly don’t care about your Excel skills…

Do Not Overstate Your Capability

Similarly, try to avoid overselling your capability. I once interviewed a candidate who claimed to be an “expert” on Ruby. We were actually hiring for a non-Ruby position, but given the candidate’s CV, I questioned him on some advanced Ruby subjects during our interview and he struggled all the way through and was sweating bullets. Suffice to say that he did not get the job.

Be confident, but also be honest and be humble. Lying on your CV to get an interview is a waste of everyone’s time.

Keep Things Short

As I mentioned in the beginning, I spend on average 30 seconds on each CV. Keep things short and easy to read! I really don’t care about how awesome you were in your last dozens of projects - these will get covered during interviews.

On a CV I expect short and concise blurbs on what you did in each role. Also, take recency into account too - if you’ve been working in the industry for a decade or two, what you did 20 years ago really doesn’t matter as much, so save yourself some time and cut things short.

For example, here’s the blurb for my current role:

Leading a department of 25+ engineers to make great child care and education software. As part of the leadership team and reporting to the CEO, helping building and turning the company into a market leader.

And here are the blurbs for my older roles:

Yes, the blurbs for my older roles are left empty intentionally.

Now, again there are exceptions. If something happened a while ago but is interesting and relevant, do tell! For example, here’s the blurb for my oldest “role”:

Built my first ever website using Microsoft FrontPage Express, on a Pentium 166Mhz computer, uploaded via a 33.6kbps modem.

Explain Over-Qualified Titles

There were a few times where a “CTO” or even a “CEO” applied for a developer role. In most cases it wasn’t about over-qualification, but about what the candidate wanted to achieve professionally. So, either in the CV or in the cover letter, explain what you are looking for in your next role, otherwise you run the risk of being assessed as over-qualified.

Spare the Personal Details That Are Too Personal

This is predominantly a culture thing as I’ve seen it from mostly candidates of certain cultural backgrounds. I really don’t care about your age, gender, marital status or favourite sport. These things do not define who you are as a professional - we might talk about your favourite sport and food during the interview but they are irrelevant on your CV.

Space Things Out

Look up CRAP Principles - make sure your CV has enough white spaces and contrast, and has fonts that are readable! Scrolling through walls of text is no fun and is a sure way to get your CV dismissed.

2-4 Pages

This is not scientific, for me personally I prefer to see CVs of 2-4 pages. Use the length as a constraint to cut things down. There were several occasions where I ran into CVs with 10+ pages. I guarantee you, unless a hiring manager is extremely bored, he or she does not have time to read your War and Peace.

PDF Over Word

When possible, submit your CV in PDF format instead of Word format. Now, sometimes if you use a recruiter you’ll be asked to submit your CV in Word format so they can ~~fuck it up~~ add their branding. A PDF formatted CV ensures the correct formatting and layout always get shown to the hiring managers.

Cover Letter

Always attach a cover letter when possible, but keep it short too. Given the amount of CVs a hiring manager needs to go through, having a crafted cover letter is another way to grab their attention and increase your chance of getting an interview.

Don’t repeat the same information in the cover letter though. Your CV is about the facts of your experiences, your cover letter should be about your thoughts on why the company should hire you. Focus on the value you can bring to the table.

Find A Referral

When possible, find someone who can refer you. A referral gets preferential treatment during the CV screening stage and does not suffer from the same 30-second fate.

Pleasing Design

This one is a “nice-to-have”: if your CV is really well designed, you would earn another 30 seconds of my attention. ;)

These are the main points, hopefully they are helpful. To help illustrate, here is a copy of my own CV, with contact details removed.

If you enjoyed this article, checkout my other tips articles:

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On Hiring: Use Kanban for Managing Candidates and the Hiring Process

2012-02-21T04:20:00.000000Z

Hiring is usually a long and difficult process - in order to streamline and simply it, I use Kanban to manage the whole process. I believe, hiring should be as lean and agile as our development process.

My Kanban board for hiring (we just started hiring at SitePoint!):

Using a Kanban board offers a number of advantages:

a clear picture of the candidates with their feedback from code tests and interviews
a straightforward view of where a candidate is at in the hiring process
limited number of candidates in some stages to prevent chaos
visual reminders to get in touch with the candidates, it’s always a good idea to keep them in the loop
a tight WIP limit for shortlisted candidates, there’s no point to shortlist too many candidates

What do you think?

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Startup, VC, and the Things I Learnt from Open-sourcing A 200+ Hour Client Project

2011-09-02T12:49:00.000000Z

A couple of days ago, a blog post titled “First employee of startup? You are probably getting screwed!” has made to the Hacker News front page and has spawned some great discussion and debate.

Since I had just been screwed recently, I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to share what I’ve learnt.

After my story got picked up by Hacker News and some other sites, I was contacted by my client. It was a very interesting and surreal experience which included keywords such as sue, settle, donation and disappearance. I am however going to spare you the details and instead, going to focus on the things I have learnt.

Be Strong, Be Emotionless

The biggest mistake I made, was being too emotional - not in the sense of being emotionally attached to the project, but in the sense of being emotionally attached to the opportunity.

Despite having detected some negative signs (which I will cover later), I willingly chose to continue on with the project because I wanted it to work out. I wanted to be involved early in a startup, I wanted to create a product that will have large impact, I wanted to have uncertainties and excitement, and I wanted to force myself to be busy.

I was blindsided because of my desires - even though deep in my heart, I already felt the failure approaching.

Be Informed Who You Are Dealing With

My client, who was referred to me by a strong and reputable PHP developer, is well educated, has an MBA, and has worked as a VP of a major US corporation before he decided to start his own startup.

But didn’t that just prove doing background-checking is useless, you might wonder? No. It is still a useful exercise - it proves the fact that, even legit clients can do dodgy things. Therefore you would want to pay more attention to picking up negative signs rather than being impressed by their reputation and/or portfolio.

Be Alert, Pick Up Tells

Just like playing poker, you need to stay alert and try to pick up tells. What are the tells? Well, in my client’s case:

He often emphasise the importance of communication, but he communicated poorly via emails.
He had unrealistic deadlines.
He was overly optimistic about the success of his startup.
He tried to lower my compensation expectation by using poor arguments.
He would call me up and talk for 20+ minutes when he was fully aware that I was at work (at my day job).
He was not being transparent and upfront about the VC side of things.

The list goes on.

No one is perfect, of course. A minor tell or two might just be considered quirks, but half a dozen or more - you run.

Be Informed About Market Rates

Before negotiating my rates, I had done quite a lot of research online - it provided me with context.

As a non-full time, principal developer and designer, my compensation package was approximately:

An hourly rate that is equivalent to 50% of my full time salary, or 30% of my contract/freelance rate.
2% of the company, after the seed round.

In return, a 20-40 hours per week sweat investment was expected from me. To me, it was not a bad deal since I don’t rely on the success of the startup in order to feed myself - I still have my day job.

One thing to note, is that the agreed package was actually a result of me being too emotionally invested in the opportunity. The offer from my client was originally:

An hourly rate that is equivalent to 90%+ of my full time salary, or 50% of my contract/freelance rate.
1% of the company, after the seed round.

See what I did there? I was emotional enough to trade immediate return for potential future return.

One of the best advices I got from more experienced people in this field is that, always treat equities (or employee options) as a bonus that is likely to never happen.

Be Cautious About the Information Received

Until written on paper and signed, any information you were told should be taken with a grain of salt. Often than not, people would say things to favour and/or support their cases.

The $2mil seed around valuation figure that was told (but was never proved) by my client has indeed influenced my decision of trading my hourly rate for equity.

Be Positive, No Matter What Happens

Positive thinking - one of the most powerful attitudes to ensure your happiness, is the key and morale of the story. You see, even though I went through a lot of stressful days and nights, I still consider the whole experience being positive.

Why? Because I learnt a lot. I learnt many things that I would not have learnt from working at my day job or freelancing. It gives me more confidence for my next startup adventure (whether it’s for someone else, or for myself).

Be Adventurous

Don’t be scared by other people’s experience. Steve Jobs once said something along the line of - they started Apple because they didn’t know any better.

I can comfortably say that, I am very much looking forward to my next adventure! :)

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Moving On From Envato, What's Next?

2011-03-17T03:04:00.000000Z

Today is my last day at Envato. I have been working here for a year and half and it has been, without a doubt the most fulfilling experience I have ever had in my professional career.

I was hired as a PHP developer initially. Who knew, several months into the job I was ‘converted’ voluntarily to a full time Ruby developer - and it has been the highlight of my career progression. It is hard to imagine what I would have become if it wasn’t for Envato’s support behind my conversion.

During my time at Envato, I had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented people in the web industry, from both inside Envato and externally. I am extremely grateful for the experience and I hope to work with them again in the future.

The decision of moving on from Envato was not made easily. As a matter of fact, I have always been passionate about online education (e.g. the Tuts+ network) and I sincerely hope the project will be taken to the next level.

Oh hey, I am still working on a book project with Rockable Press from Envato. If you are a web developer, expect to see a (hopefully useful) web development book this year. ;)

10 days from now I will be joining PlayUp as a senior web developer - to work on more awesome Ruby/Rails stuff! :) The colleagues I have already met at PlayUp are extremely talented and friendly. I cannot wait to start my first day there!

Aside from my day job, I am also working with some very experienced professionals on a startup project - hopefully you will get to hear more about it soon.

Last but not least, I am finally out of some personal and relationship crisis, and I am able to regain my focus and spend more time working on my varies side projects (to be branded under Wuit) as well as on some of the open source projects such as Slim.

Exciting times ahead! :)

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