Programming Interviews For Dummies

272 Pages·2019·21.04 MB·english

by  John Sonmez

Programming
Interviews

Programming
Interviews
by John Sonmez and Eric Butow
Programming Interviews For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
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Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019948431
ISBN 978-1-119-56502-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-56506-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-56505-5 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents at a Glance
Programming Interviews Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1: Finding and Hooking Your Next Employer . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: What Should You Expect? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER 2: Knowing How the Company Is Preparing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
CHAPTER 3: Understanding the Investment a Company Makes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Part 2: Preparing for Your Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CHAPTER 4: Searching High and Low for Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
CHAPTER 5: Shining Up Your Résumé and Social Media Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
CHAPTER 6: How Your Experience Affects Your Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . 3
CHAPTER 7: Getting Ready for the First Ring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Part 3: Everyone’s Testing Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
CHAPTER 8: Testing Strategies for the Interviewee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
CHAPTER 9: Working with Data Structures: Garbage In Means Garbage Out . . . . . 117
CHAPTER 10: Identifying Design Patterns and Using Recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
CHAPTER 11: Sorting with Sorting Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
CHAPTER 12: Solving Puzzles Is Fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Part 4: Sealing the Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
CHAPTER 13: Closing the Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
CHAPTER 14: Honing Your Negotiating Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Part 5: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
CHAPTER 15: Ten Ways to Stand Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
CHAPTER 16: Ten Non-Technical Questions You May Be Asked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
CHAPTER 17: Ten Reasons Your Résumé Will End up in the Round File . . . . . . . . . . . 211
CHAPTER 18: Ten Useful Websites to Check Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
CHAPTER 19: Ten Great Books to Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
How This Book Is Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Part 1: Finding and Hooking Your Next Employer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Part 2: Preparing for Your Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Part 3: Everyone’s Testing Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 4: Sealing the Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Part 5: The Part of Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
PART 1: FINDING AND HOOKING YOUR
NEXT EMPLOYER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER 1: What Should You Expect? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Understanding the Interviewing Process Funnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Finding Companies That Are Hiring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Meet online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Meet in person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Look at company websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Submitting Your Résumés . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A Company Is Interested! Now What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Participating in phone screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Going to in-person interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Being prepared for tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Dealing with One or (Better Yet) Multiple Offers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER 2: Knowing How the Company Is Preparing . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Learning What Each Company Is Doing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Gathering information about smaller business
and startup needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Navigating the involved hiring process at bigger companies . . . . . 23
Preparing for the interviewers you’ll meet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Leading Your Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Finding out how the interviewer is approaching the interview . . . . 26
Volunteering the right information to make you shine . . . . . . . . . . 27
Showing other ways you’re the right fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Being Prepared Pays Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table of Contents vii
Understanding the Investment
CHAPTER 3:
a Company Makes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Knowing Why Companies Are Risk-Averse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Different risks for different companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Firing is hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Discovering What Companies Are Concerned About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Showing How You Can Help the Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Explaining how you can help the team you’ll work with . . . . . . . . . 35
Demonstrating how you fit into the company culture . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Offering examples that back you up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
PART 2: PREPARING FOR YOUR INTERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CHAPTER 4: Searching High and Low for Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Getting Your Ducks in a Row . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Deciding Where You Want to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Search for a local technology ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Commute or move? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Working remotely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Figuring out the Size and Type of Company You
Want to Work For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Large companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Small companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
What Type of Job Do You Want? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Step one: Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Step two: Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Step three: Define your specific role . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Learning What’s Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Understanding the pros and cons of job search websites . . . . . . . 50
Using and managing recruitment agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Networking to find the unadvertised jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Shining Up Your Résumé and
CHAPTER 5:
Social Media Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Finding Out Who You Are Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Googling your name to get your online image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Learning how to rebrand yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Cleaning Up Your Social Networking Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Understanding your visibility online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Learning what helps get you an interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Removing what can disqualify you in an employer’s eyes . . . . . . . 64
viii Programming Interviews For Dummies