Interview tips

If you have an upcoming interview with me, great job finding this blog! I already like you, because you have the initiative and drive to look me up and see what I’m writing about. I do a lot of homework on you – I look at your resume in depth, your github contributions, your papers, patents, etc. I DO NOT look you up on personal social networks (facebook, instagram etc). My opinion of you is not shaped by what you do on your own time.

If I am interviewing you for a software engineering role, here’s what I am looking for.

1. Speed of thought – the problem I present to you is always simple, reason is I want to see how fast you think. Once you solve the first problem, you can expect a harder second problem
2. Speed of code – If you can code fast without looking up docs, thats a HUGE plus. But, given where things stand in 2024, LLMs and LLM integrated coding tools are everywhere. Its no longer a red flag if you use them, on the contrary, its a little worrisome if you have not baked in some sort of AI tools in your workflow.
3. Depth of thought – This is usually comes in the form of attention to detail and analytical thinking. Real world problems are always incomplete or not properly defined. If I am glazing over a detail thats a prompt for you to dive deep and ask me a question.
4. Hardcore – Not giving up and following up with an email for any question that you could not answer would unlock a great deal of respect from my side.

If you send me an email ahead of time and ask me about the interview process, I will be more than happy to answer them. [email protected] is how you can reach me.

Evaluating whether you’ll be a fit for our team is my only goal.

Good luck on your interview!