The content is gold! Thank you for this! 20 minutes of great advice which could only be previously got by carefully filtering reddit, twitter, blog posts not easily found through google. The part about which questions to ask recruiters, mindset and the fully present advice is F-ing great, but more importantly actionable. I really hope the youtube algo picks this video up. You didn't say it but I hit that bell icon lol.
Best advice I ever got on interviews was from my brother who is way more of a "people person" than myself. The best mindset to go into interviews with is to treat it like what it is - a conversation. You are talking to another person, not a robot. Don't just spout your resume and your qualifications, actually engage in a dialogue about what the company is working on, what kind of people they are looking for, what they value in employees etc. Ask them questions that you are genuinely curious about, not ones that you got off the internet. And for technical parts - it is way more important to explain your thought process than it is to get the question right.
Have been coding for over 20 years , been in plenty of interviews , too bad their was not a RU-vid back in the day with a video of this caliber. This guy is "spot on" and I will be taking his advice as I plan for my next interview
20 years experience... so if you talk to a hiring manager who is 28... then you also may be out of luck... he doesn't mind about the "age", he only cares about "culture fit"...
@@winterheat you bring up a good point . " The powers that be" eliminate you because you "don't fit in" with the culture without giving you the opportunity . People with experience bring more to the table and a good programmer , no matter what their age realizes that learning never stops no matter what the source . Age discrimination is live and well and its a shame because their is a lot of untapped potential in people who will never be given the chance
@@stevenmccarther5836 like I was just discussing it: if the hiring manager is 28 year old, he is not going to want somebody who has 15 more years of experience than him, because then the worker seems more senior than him.
@@winterheat forgive me winterheat2 , your reply puzzles me , is the "more senior than him" show insecurity regarding my Team Leader than possibly increased output by the team as a whole ? Would not my Team Lead want to find out what I can bring to the table besides " years in the profession " ? Could it be that maybe that person with the experience just wants to come in and do his job and his possible productivity not be viewed as " Power move ? " I agree with you that times in IT have changed over the years but I thought that thought process went out with the " Lincoln Administration " , you would be surprised , most people just want to come , do their job , mind what little business they have and call it a day , have a good evening
I'm watching this after recently landing a software engineering position where I'd thought it was one of my worst interviews ever. I was very nervous and even forgot a very basic keyword in PHP but I did talk through the coding challenge, and eventually solved it. Being my first job on a team (I was an independent, self-taught developer for the 3 years prior), I was very straightforward about my weaknesses but also very eager to get a foothold in the industry. While watching this, it now makes quite a bit more sense as to why I ended up receiving an offer. At one point I saw theyd reposted their ad and thought I'd failed it, so I sent the manager an email asking for constructive criticism on how to do better. He informed me I was still very much in the running from there and I received the offer a few days later. I've worked here for about a week and a half now and it's going fantastic. You're advice really helped put things in perspective and I'll always look at tech interviews differently now... thank you👍
Thanks, I’ve been interviewing for a month and a half and was preparing every night, and was putting so much pressure on myself to do my best, but I failed horribly. I found myself so nervous in every interview and eventually it was really stressful and daunting. I think you’re absolutely right when you said take each interview as an opportunity to learn and go in with a curious mindset. Thanks I really needed to hear this.
I am in the same boat as you are in. I get severe interview performance anxiety and often am quick to blame myself for not enough preparation or I didn't try hard or do well enough...so I deserve to not land this job role. It's really difficult though when you do know that you do have something to offer, but can't quite seem to display it when it counts on the actual interviews. I'm just not very good at verbalizing my thoughts while Im coding / whiteboarding stuff.
@@CknSalad yeah, I totally understand. I encourage you to stay positive and remember to know you have a lot to offer something to a team, and the right person will see that. Hang in there :)
The most useful of all interview preparations summaries I've found. I'd say, that the scope of audience is targeted for is bigger - not only for SEs, it can be used by Technical Product Managers, Technical Project Managers, Solution Architects. I like the down-to-earth, smart yet humble delivery of advice.
I can proudly say that this video open my mind and make me more confident in interviews. I just had one this week and the days before it happened, I found this channel and watched it. The idea of "Interviews are a two-way street" and the "Mindset before, during and after the interview" are really good. I asked some questions to the interviewer, they seemed happy about it, and before the interview happens, as you said, I set my mind where this interview is just a mock interview, or to practice myself in interviews. During the interview, I relaxed and try to do my best without considering the result, Lastly, after the interview, back to thinking that this is just a mock interview and I've done my best, not to regret anything. And now, I'm a software engineer at a company called Unit4. Thanks a lot Pragmatic Engineer, keep it up!
I love your thoughts on being present and being conversational. A great way that I have found to practice these is to practice with a live person without any notes. Thanks for the insight!
Guys! This stuff is gold! I realized I was doing a lot of the stuff in this video because I studied interpersonal skills for years. I got FAANG and other offers left and right after graduating. It's a rare and valuable skill.
This is such a great video with some awesome advice. Initially, even I used to go to the interview with the mindset of solving all the questions that were asked to me, but after that changed my approach and tried to make my interview more interactive and make sure my interviewer has a good time while interviewing me. Thanks for the video, Gergely!!
Yes being curious and fully present makes for a relaxed and positive candidate. Its a great frame of mind to tackle these interviews. I am trying for a position at Amazon and this is the approachI plan to take. Thanks for the book suggestions, I have ordered them.
That was really great advice! I love that you're reminding us to be human and have an authentic conversation. It's amazing how far that can get us. I really appreciate that suggestion. 🙏🏼
You sir are a treasure. I've met too many arrogant seniors/managers/etc that focus so much on "intelligence" and less on the other important skills of engineering. I've worked with brilliant people (math majors, etc) and while they're mental quickness and clever-solutions are impressive, they were not ideal teammates and ultimately caused more trouble on the team/organization than necessary.
There are lots of guys giving advices on interviews on youtube. You are by far the best in terms of content and presentation. And the way you smile sometimes while talking is awesome. Keep it up. Thank you.
This content is not Gold, its platinum. This advice here is applicable to not just interviews but general work also. - Be curios - Ask questions. Read blogs, attend classes, gain knowledge. - Be fully present - In all the meetings and interactions. Don't be a passive log that floats about in the stream of work. - It's not time wasted: it's experience gained
Active listening techniques are so important in the interview. Also being curious, open to new ideas, and always seeking to learn more does not mean being overly self deprecating or passive.
I wish I watch this video before my interview with Wepay. I got the same "tell me a bit about your back ground and what make you excited for this role" question. I just recited the piece I had prepared and we didn't have a full conversation. I got rejected. I learned a Great Lesson. Thanks Gergely for sharing the tips with us.
I used to have a lot of interview anxiety and stress. Always thought of them as something daunting and more like an interrogation. I came across this video last year when I was doing a lot of internship interviews. The biggest takeaway and something that impacted me the most in this video is the mindset change. Treat it like a learning opportunity and a conversation. I think all of my interviews went much better after that, and I genuinely enjoyed them too. I thought of them as a conversation, a chance to learn from these talented people. I am currently undergoing through my 16 month internship and by chance I came across the book: The Software Engineer's Guidebook which happen to have released around a month ago. I purchased a copy and started reading some of it, I got a bit curious and followed the pragmatic engineer newsletter. Randomly, I decided to open up the author's RU-vid channel and this is what I see! You are a great person and you are helping me once again with all the valuable advice in the book!
Thanks for the video, great tips on being present and going with the flow - loved the one about asking interviewer questions right-away instead of waiting for it til the end!
It can be tricky to do, as you’re focused on the interview. It’s a small thing but I as a hiring manager, I always register it, as so few candidates do so. It also makes for a better conversation!
A link to this video was shared in a chat window which was screencast from another streamer's youtube video. I am glad that I took the effort to type it into the address bar. The advice in this video is gold!
I’ve been doing really well in behavioural interviews but getting stuck at later technical steps. I don’t have CS degree and working as SWE for roughly 3 years at a large enough corporation but aiming at FAANG seems require strict data structure and algorithm prep. Great video though. Love your content on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Gergely! this is a FANTASTIC video - definitely adding to my list of helpful content to share with candidates and job seekers :) I was standing and clapping at #5 ;)
The mindset part is great, but the reality is even with great interaction during a coding interview, if you don't get to solve the question, you won't move to the next interview when some other candidate actually solves the question within 5 minutes without interaction. Anyway, the mindset will grow you but doesn't guarantee that you are going to get that job.
The thing is, would you want to work in a company that just hires machines that spit out code without communication? It's a huge red flag if a company only seeks those types of candidates because in my experience, they may be brilliant but they tend to be very poor team players. Lone wolves who think they can do everything themselves tend to tank projects.
This is really helpful. I'm currently trying to break into a dev role and I'm struggling. I've been coding daily for a decade but have no professional experience. Even landing an interview is turning out to be very difficult.
Man, I wish I watched it before I got a rejection from you haha. But I still consider it the best interview I ever took. I should have followed up, but was too bummed out. Anyways, great content!
Thanks for the video. It came to me before an interview and I applied the advice mentioned here and ended up getting an offer that was better than my expectations 😀
Thanks for sharing this video Gergely!. I was in process for Google and Facebook in 2020 and definitely all your words make sense. I didn’t get an offer, but I reached the final interview at FB and that experience helped me to got a great job 👏
Thanks for sharing! One of my next videos will be about why Big Tech hiring is conservative and you shouldn’t take a rejection to heart - glad you didn’t and took the learnings! I have a similar story on FB, but from much earlier. My NDA has expired so I’ll do a more detailed share than what’s normally possible as another video.
I didn't watch the video but went through the comments. What I got is this: Rather than focusing on the outcome of the interview, be curious, honest, and conversational instead. I agree and for that, I will give this video thumbs-up.
Back in 2014, I interviewed with Facebook. The recruiter never asked me for feedback regarding the process. I talked to a colleague of mine who worked there about my experience. She stated that I had very bad interviewers and they do not represent the daily life there (one of the interviewers barely made eye contact with me). I am of the opinion that most tech interviewers suffer from the Peter principle and should just be removed from the process
Similar experience like 5-6 years ago at FB. Interviewer didn't show up, so I had to reschedule for the next day with HR. HR was like we have never had this happen before. Then during the interview, the interviewer was not engaged at all. Seemed like they were like working on something else. I asked them what they like about working at FB at the end of it, and they were like "the people". I was like hmmm...
@@falljosh offf this was my second time, my first time I withdrew my application. It was last year when the pandemic hit I had schedule the first phone call and I waited 15 min and no one called. The call came in 35 min after the scheduled time, ignored the call, email recruiter that I wasn’t interested anymore.
Uber was hands down my worst interviewing experience ever. After the phone interview they told me I would be continuing to on-site, then didn't contact me and I had to track them down basically to schedule the interview. My recruiters were switched like twice during the process. And my on-site was literally 8 hours long, I had to bring my own laptop for one section that was 2 hours long, and like 4 out of my 6 interviewers were really un-engaged and not nice.
Your experience sounds like a really poor one. Interviews are a two-way street: if you have a poor experience I suggest to share this back, and this can be a good reason to reject an offer (just keep in mind 0:25). For better or worse, at large companies, teams and organizations can be very different, as can recruitment processes. Some teams are messy and unorganized. Interviewers might have had a terrible night with oncall. Or they might just be not pleasant to work with to start with. Note that I also don't work at Uber anymore (if I did, it's unclear if I could share information like this without explicit permission from corporate, or create videos like this).
Its not a preconception for interviewees to think interviews are for them to answer question. Its the fact that most interviews don't give time or options to ask any questions.
This is an awesome vid and great advice, I particularly resonate with the learning mindset you talked about, from my experience even though I'm dumb as hell when it comes to technical challenges a lot of people see this learning mindset and find it highly desirable and might even look over some of your other shortcomings!
I've been doing interviews for lead positions in big tech and to be transparent i have a simple checklist i follow. 1. Have you recently used the same stack as us? 2. How deep have you gone in the tech stack you are using? ( In c#, I usually ask people how they handle tcp message handlers, or if they've seen the generated queries your LINQ statements make when using EFCore ) 3. Are you good at coming up with solutions? ( have a set of scenarios that i choose from ) 4. Do you fit with our culture? 5. How good are you with working with others. This might not be true for everyone, but I value small-talk.
Thank you for making this video. This is sage advice and very useful for people who are preparing for these bigtech interviews and I really like your advice of treating each interview as a learning experience and being curious! Thanks a lot.
Great video, but as a developer, I completely disagree with referring to the 'Cracking the coding interview' book. There was a good joke about google. When it was down for a while people ask in twitter: "are you solving your issues by inverting a binary tree"? So, do your engineers solve computer puzzles on a daily basis? If no, why do you ask me to do this?
Being productive on open source project contribution easily bypasses this recruitment process for those who dislike being interrogated. You provide solid solutions with a proof of collaborative power with tangible commits. And pros of it is you can pretty much relate to your future work as that company was working with what you were contributing. Smooth transition , easier on boarding with much clearer expectations from company's side. In those occurences heck they may even want you to keep on contributing to the same open source project in your work day since they are also invested there.
It also excludes people who don’t have the time or means to contribute to open source. Some companies take open source into account; most larger ones only do for the resume screen and then gather signals with the same interviews to have a process that gives consistent signals in a repeatable way. It can only be a positive in contributing to open source: all I’m saying is it varies by how much.
Gergely seems like such a nice dude, a guy you can just grab a beer and hang out with. Really enjoyed this video! Because of your personality I'm interested in seeing more.
Thank you, good advice. Somehow I knew deep down that hiring manager don't really like tight structure when it comes to interviews - partly because otherwise it becomes more like a standardized test and partly because it's boring to just listen to someone and create score cards. However, that kind of mentality is the basis for NOT treating everyone equally. For example, a candidate with better system design skills who really knows his/her stuff but does not give elaborate attention to every question the hiring manager is asking, especially to those chit-chat questions, is likely to be judged as inferior to an engineer with better people skills but with lacking system design skills who pays attention to even the least relevant of questions and makes sure the hiring manager's ego is tickled every time a such questions are asked. Maybe I am exaggerating but based on I just heard from this "confession", this appears to be the case.
My advice was mostly for the hiring manager interview. On the debrief, all interview signals are collected and shared. That's where the signal of someone knocking it out of the park on the systems design interview would come in. The two are not necessarily dependent. The hiring manager can be (but will not necessarily be) the future manager of the candidate, and they'll focus more on the "softer" things in a HM/behavioral interview. Don't forget that all hiring managers are different. I am sharing my observations and advice in this video only.
8:05 this helped relieve a lot of my anxiety. I have been studying and having massive anxiety for the last two weeks without getting a good night sleep. I will try to do my best to make this a good learning experience.
This was a great video. Although I'm nowhere near ready for any interview, this was all very useful information. Not only did you get a like and subscribe, but also a save the video to reference it later. Thank you very much! Can't wait to see the rest of your videos.
I agree, no interview wasted our time as long as we learn from it. It will at least prepare you for a bigger opportunity and as they are saying, experience is the best teacher.
Hi Gergely! Thank you for providing great information to the RU-vid community. I know these videos take a lot of time and energy so we appreciate everything you do! Do you currently work with any affiliate partners that offer professional online education to your audience? Warmest Regards, Adam
thank you for all those top tips! had an interview some days ago, a tech-interview and i did try talking to them and to say them "i'm passionate about this and i really wanna learn more", the response was *silence* and the basic structure of this interview was question question *i answer* they literally say nothing and then go to the next one, i think imma drop them even tho it's a really big and nice company
Fullu agree about mock interviews. They are not real ones because at least we know that they dont have a big impact. But failed real interviews teaches us much more :)
RU-vid just recommended this video to me, and oh my goodness, this is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of these tips, it makes a lot of sense that the recruiter would be on your side too. I think next time I interview anywhere I'll probably be a bit more deliberate with salary requirements to see how well they advocate on my behalf 🤓
I have a question. I think the tech interview is very unfair in that the interviewer knows and understands the question he is about to ask inside out so it is very easy for him to make the interviewee(or me) to fail and look bad. He can poke holes in my logic, ask follow up questions, etc. At the same time I have to think intensly in a stressful situation. But if say hypothetically the table could be turned around and I were to pick a random leetcode question and ask the interviewer, and test him based on the same standard that I am being tested, would he pass? I doubt it unless he's been leetcoding along side his fulltime job. Which I must say it makes me think this whole thing is just a lot of BS. But yeah, I know, this is the game and if I want to win I gotta play the game and there is no use in complaining.
If you are failed by an interviewer who set out to fail you, then you dodged a bullet by not getting hired into a toxic environment. Normal interviewers want to understand your abilities, and they know that if you get stressed out then they are not going to really know your abilities. But you are right that leetcoding is an artificial way to spend your time. On the plus side of it, if you are smart enough to master the leetcode game, that intelligence and determination will carry over to the job.
Thank you for sharing your valuable experience with us. It is really helpful. Specially - be curious and ask questions back to recruiter and have conversation with him & not monologue .
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this 🙏 I learned a lot from this video. Also, can you make a video about what should be done in the first 90 days after joining in order to succeed? is there any co-relation between what you say in the interview and the real job?
If you are a future engineer, please read Operating system and compiler books. Man there are a lot of foundation in the two areas and many algorithms can be found and implemented.
I like your thoughts about the interview as a two-way street. If you were an interviewee, what kind of questions would you ask to see if this is the co-worker you would wish for?
Honestly this is down to what you find important on working with people. I'd make a list on what are "must have" and "nice to have" things on a workplace and ask that. Questions I find useful to ask: - What is the thing they like the best about working there, and the thing they like the least? (you can get a good sense especially about what they don't like - can they do anything about it? Asking this to engineers is a really good one) - What does a typical day look like? - What did the most hectic day look like? - How does this place compare to previous workplaces they've had? What is better, what is worse? - What are they most excited for the next 6 months (another great signal)
Maybe I just got lucky, I don't know, but I work for a fortune 500 company and I didn't get a whiteboard coding problem. Had a decent amount of tech type of questions, but no coding problem. Worked out I guess, I'm still with them, still creating software.
Great to have a perspective that isn't some jr dev influencer. I have a simple question: how can I actually get to the point where my resume isn't getting shredded immediately and actually get into the interview process? I am currently a 4th year Math/CS major.
Hey Daniel! The "jr dev influencer" would tell you to have a standout resume with e.g. better formatting :) I happened to write a whole book about advice on this topic, and the book is free for anyone without a job. You count as such, so claim your copy here: thetechresume.com/#pricing The reality is that it's a competitive environment, and few positions are more so than new grad positions. The book goes into far more details and examples but a few things: - Referrals make a huge difference. Look for alumni working at companies and reach out to them. I'd refer people from my university to the company I worked at for sure. - Easy to scan resume with most relevant sections standing out. Lots of examples in the book and free templates. Here's one I created: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-pragmatic-engineers-resume-template/ - Aim to get real-world experience, internships or non-trivial projects on your resume. E.g. a great way to stand out is to contribute to a production open source project. That's some advice off the bat. For reference, at Uber, when I hired for internships at Uber Amsterdam, out of 500 qualified resumes, we progressed with about 120 coding challenges, 40 phone screens, 25 onsites and 4 offers (due to some last-minute headcount reduction). This type of "competition" is not uncommon at large, well-known tech companies, but it's on the extreme scale.
So I was watching this badly focused soccer play and after some time I noticed that there's a software engineer talking to the left of the match. I started paying attention to this side part of the soccer match recording and now I work at Google.
8:00 not focusing on outcome is very very challenging when you're dependent on a job to pay the bills. sure if you're in a financially stable position in life and have an existing job etc then focusing on the outcome matters less. but it'd be foolish not to focus on the outcome when it's the difference between having a place to live and putting food on the table etc.
Insightful. Liked! Trying to help the RU-vid algorithm to discover this great video. Besides the great content... What do you use to process your video? I like the zoom in/out!
The whole "treat the interview as a learning experience instead of focusing on getting hired" thing sounds nice...if we exclude the fact that my success or lack thereof determines if I have the means of paying rent or afford groceries.
You have suggested a more traditional way to get recruited into the tech companies, as a software engineer. It may or may not work. Meaning, there is an element of uncertainity into it. My recommended procedure is, try to impress the present tech employees of the tech companies, though your GitHub repository, Stackoverflow credentials, Kaggle credentials etc(try to become an expert at whatever you do relating to software engineering !), to get a referral, thereby hopping over the technical recruitment process, and non engineering employees working for a tech company, involved in recruiting the software engineers for the tech company.
That was such a great piece of advice, couldn't have asked for more. Loved the mindset section and allowed me to think about such an important aspect of learning from interviews rather than focusing on clearing the interviews.
