Thursday — Interview
This morning I got up and went to Makers. Besides weekends, I can’t actually remember the last time I didn’t go up and go to Makers… I set my stuff up and started preparing for my job interview. I wasn’t really that efficient, I just sort of read through some interview questions.Then I went over to the houses of Parliament where I had my interview, and that was super cool!
The interview was quite good; we had a 30 minute talk about the role, and about me, and then paired on a problem for an hour and a half. I’m really glad that the interviewer told me that it was all about the process and not the destination, because I didn’t know a lot of what we ended up working on.
In an hour and a half I built a Ruby Gem that makes an API call, takes the data, and puts it into another gem, which subsequently makes objects.
When he explained to me what we would be doing this was my face:
Luckily, I kept in mind that it was about the process; he was observing me learning something new, and seeing how flustered I got, how good I was at thinking logically, and asking questions. I wrote a test, got it to pass, then moved on.
With quite a bit of help from him (but no actual answers) I was able to get it to work JUST in time for the interview to be over!
I think it could have gone better, but I also think it could have gone worse! Now I’ll wait to hear back!
This was my view walking back to the station
Then I went back to Makers Academy and found out I’d got a job offer from another company!
At this stage I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I need a bit more information, and I’ve got a few irons in the fire, and I want to make an informed decision.
Right now I’m absolutely delighted! Whether it’s at the place that I got the offer from, or somewhere else that I’ve applied, I WILL be accepting a job as a developer in the very near future.
How freaking exciting!
Things I learned
- How to build a ruby gem
- How to make an API call in Ruby
Things I want to focus on
- Verbalising what I’m thinking a bit better when I’m confused
- More API stuff
Things I’m struggling with
- Nothing — today is an awesome day!
Reflection
Oh doubles, I still struggle with thee! I’m quite a bit better now, but mocks and doubles still scare me a little bit. That is something I really want to focus on down when it’s less crazy with tech tests and interviews.
My thing that I wanted to focus on about calling a method in more than one place is nice. I would probably just use an if statement. Encapsulation is something I struggled with for a while, maybe just because the word is kind of scary. Ultimately, my understanding is that it is about keeping related functions together, and only giving the info out that is required. ie. Classes in Ruby
I most likely won’t post until Monday or Tuesday as I’m off to Italy to eat ALL the food!
