The Interviews

Time has passed by very very quickly. This is my fourth week at Amazon. I felt like I didn't do much, but really, I've done so much, even more than what I've done in my last semester at school when I did the research with Prof. Sami Rollins on Android platform at USF.

Even though I'm the first level Software Development Engineer at A2Z, they don't make me feel inferior. Every time they need opinions, mine is always as important as other's. One of the best thing that happens to me at A2Z is that I got to interview candidates that we might hire. Since we're trying to double the size of the company, we're hiring like crazy. Last week, I got to interview a handful of candidates applying for mobile development job. The experience was indescribable. I can't tell you who are the candidates, or what I ask during the interview, but I think I can give you some tips and tricks that might help you get through the technical interviews a little bit easier.

One thing you have to remind yourself is that you are smart and you are the best candidate. The company is not choosing you, but YOU ARE CHOOSING THE COMPANY. I think that helps a lot with your nerve. I also found that familiarize yourself with basic data structures like tree, linked list, queues, and stacks are also very important. Interviewers always give this kind of question regardless of the position you are applying to. Also, try to understand basic algorithms that everybody (that has a CS degree) should know, such as, determine whether or not a string is palindrome, or how to permute a string. Usually the algorithm questions will be about string manipulation because it is much easier to work with and you can use recursion. Remember! "RECURSION IS YOUR FRIEND" (thank you Prof. Galles).

More importantly, you should know specific technologies or programming languages, or algorithms that you have to use if you are applying for a particular position. For instance, if I am applying for QA job, I should at least be familiar with JUnit (if I'm using Java), or NUnit (for .NET). You might end up having to talk to the director, or high-up people at your interview, so make sure that you understand general project management process, even though you are not applying for a management position. It is important to be able to answer question like "how do you find a bug in your program?" Finally, there might be some trick questions that will show the interviewer how you solve a problem. It is OK if you don't know the answer right away, but you have to show him/her that you are able to solve the problem. One last thing that I cannot stress enough is YOU HAVE TO TALK during the interview, because if you don't talk, the interviewer do not know what you are thinking and that may be a large contributing factor to the decision of the interviewer not giving you a job.

People always talk about first impression when they go to the interview. The tech industry is different than other industries by the fact that you don't necessarily have to wear suit and tie to the interview. However, it is very important to show respect to the company and to the interviewers, so please dress politely. Lastly, BE YOURSELF is the mantra that will never fail you in any interviews.

I hope these tips help you in preparing your interview. Good Luck!