Connecting the dots: My first Software Engineering interview
This past week, I was lucky enough to participate in a first-round interview with Atomic Software and The New York Public Library — specifically the digital collections. on 85 Broad Street in N.Y.C.
Atomic Software builds digital products for publishers, teachers, and students. I have 5 years of teaching ESL experience and some of Atomic’s products, like Read180, help young learners improve their reading proficiency. My biggest selling point was my passion for education and my experience being a user of very simial digital products.
The New York Public library has an amazing array of digitized images, books, and resources made available to those who can’t visit the library here. Just from a quick glance, I could immediately tell that this job would be data-intensive and focus more on the Rails backend. Both jobs were incredibly well-chosen given my background and passions, so I have to thank the team at WeWork that cultivated the relationships to land first-round interviews. While they are only my first two interviews, it is worth noting that Flatiron promises every graduate at least one interview.
Fast learner
If you just finished a Software Engineering program and are looking for your first gig, the major sell you should make to an employer is your ability to quickly absorb new concepts. How quickly were you able to pick up a new server-side language? Did you ever learn a new lanugage while living abroad? Any situation in your recent past that demanded you to learn on the fly, should be highlighted and related back to how it will help you excel at whatever company you interview with.
My experience and education are with Ruby on Rails — but Atomic needs someone to pick up Java. I highlighted the fact that I was able to code 25 + hours a week while working full-time. Learning how to build these projects under a 2-week deadline was stressful but it’s exactly the type of skill any company is looking for. I also noted that I moved to a foreign country and had to deal with the stress of learning the basics of a new language, culture, and profession all within the first week of moving there.
After that, I focused on my results. How can you prove that you did learn something well? For me, I highlighted that I was offered a promotion from my last employer and I showed them both of my hosted apps and allowed them to sign up and use the apps.
Showing vs Telling
To be honest, I believe they didn’t care if I showed them my project or not. Some, if not most employers, will think that your project is too simple to translate well to working on their much larger codebase. However, if you are proud of your projects, and you want to show what you learned, be sure to bring your laptop in with you. I think they are the best way to show what you’ve learned, as opposed to telling them what you can do.
Sending a thank-you email
After my interviews, I tried to immediately type up the first draft of an enthusiastic thank you email. I would recommend writing it up immediately for the following reasons.
First, you should have your career coach edit and approve it. Second, if you wait too long, you won’t be able to include specific details that show you were paying attention
Here are some pointers for thank you email:
Paragraph 1: Show genuine gratitude for your interviewer(s) taking the time to meet with you. Restate the position that you were applying for and 2–3 facts about the position that you learned when listening to them describe the role.
Paragraph 2:
- Remind them again how your skills and traits will help you excel at this current position, using situations from working as a Software Engineer or another role.
- Be sure to highlight the features of your applications or specific technical knowledge that relates back to the position as best you can. Try to think of how the features of your work line up with the requirements of this position. If they work a lot with APIs and React, explain the basics of how your Rails JSON API works.
- *Optional** If you stumbled on a particular question be sure to address it here and show off what you do know, or maybe show you understand why you were incorrect when responding to a particular question.
Paragraph 3:
- Rephrase your intro and repeat the three strengths, with results for how you will be able to write clean, concise code while working with a new team.
