After DigitalCrafts: 4 Tips for The Code Challenge

I miss the day to day of DC; learning new code with a senior developer as safety net for when things go the way you weren’t expecting. Goofing around with the cohort after class, and hitting up secret food gems all around East Downtown.

But all great things must end sometime, and my cohort closed out with an awesome demo day a little over 2 months ago. For most of us, that meant the job hunt. For me, things initially came easy; companies were interviewing me at a decent clip, and I was getting close with quite a few places.

Then a little event called Hurricane Harvey hit and destroyed a month of momentum. One company which I whiteboarded with went completely communications dark, another decided to forgo hiring until next year, and a third I concluded was not a great fit. So September was a doldrum month of no response, maintaining resilience and sanity.

But the job market is not what I meant to discuss. Code challenges! October comes around, and things pick up again. With conversations come code challenges, which many of my peers seem to dread. I also thought this was going to be something unpleasant, but was surprised at how well they went, and I think it boils down to some tips I learned during mock interviews set up through DigitalCrafts. In italics I’m going to also go through my verbal thought process with a very common code prompt, the FizzBuzz:

“Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”.”

1. Talk everything through. Say the question prompt out loud, say what your first impressions are, let the interviewer know where you’re going to start, what your thoughts are, and all and any steps in between. You already made it this far, so you should have some familiarity with the language. Just talk talk talk it out! Your communication skills are being noted.
   (After reading the prompt out loud) “So first I need iterations of one to a hundred. I’ll do a for loop. Within that loop I should have three “if” conditions, one for fizzbuzz, one for fizz, one for buzz, then the else condition should just print out the numbers”
2. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something or admit that at this point you’re going to Google it. Be specific on what term you’re going to Google. If at a whiteboard, they’d usually give you the results. If a remote interview, they’d usually let you Google away.
   “Ok, for fizzbuzz I need multiples of three AND five, which are essentially multiples of fifteen. So for my first if statement I’ll do if the counter’s remainder after dividing by 15 is zero, then print fizzbuzz. Whoops, I forgot what the remainder symbol is. Mind if I Google it?”
3. Solicit feedback from the interviewer if stuck. This is an evaluation of your technical skills, but it’s also an evaluation of whether or not you’re a team player.
   “I’m on the right track with these remainders equalling zero, right? Great, so I have all three if conditions, and the else statement to print out the numbers. Let’s run this… wait, it’s only counting up to 99? Oh, my for loop was doing greater than instead of greater than/equals.”
4. Clear the air and be calm. You and your interviewer both know you’re on the spot, and that this isn’t just about the code. This is about your ability to ask for help, your resourcefulness, and your communication. Remember how in school you wouldn’t have gotten credit for some math questions if you didn’t show your work? You’re not getting credit here unless you can talk through your work.