The Placement Journeys
The Placement Journeys — Episode 2
Placements through the eyes of ASE-B’s DSC lead!
Hello! This is Ramshankar and this is the official release of episode 2 of TPJ. In this episode, we had Sai Teja, the Developer Student Club (DSC) lead at ASE-B on the podcast. He was amongst the first to get placed in the batch of 2020 and has a full-time job offer at Amazon with the designation of Software Development Engineer (SDE 1)(CTC : 28 lakhs).
Sai Teja is a tough person to miss if you are a participant in the DSC sessions and events at the college. Being the DSC lead, he is amongst the very few people I know who are great enthusiasts of building a developer community at ASE-B. He is also a CSE 2020 Batch topper and is an astute believer of backing up academic prowess with the ability to apply theory in practice.
It was a great experience talking with him and now, I shall serve the main course and present you with the contents of the episode.
Original Audio Recording of the Interview
For those of you who want to hear the entire interview, I am attaching the whole 36 minute audio recording below.
That’s the unedited version and hopefully, we were able to bring more fluidity into it from the last time 😄
The Interview in a Nutshell
This section is for those of you who are looking for a crisp set of points to take-away from Sai’s placement experience. And for the same purpose, I am writing them down below.
NOTE : I would any day recommend you to listen to the audio recording as that would give you a much better experience and you will feel closer to the speakers too(almost as if you are there with us; nope…I don’t intend to be creepy 😏). Use this condensed, written version only if you are opening this article for some quick-fire motivation to pull your socks up.
- Getting over your fears is key to being mentally prepared for the placements (More about the 3 types of fears students face during placements is given towards the end of this article)
- No concept must be considered learnt until you can implement it in code. Theory is just a start, implementation has the most weightage. Each concept has to be learnt in-depth (i.e, with both code and background theory) and a subject has to be covered in-breadth (i.e, most concepts under it must be prepared)
- It is important to ask your interviewer relevant questions. Not asking any questions makes you look disinterested in the job.
- Try to be comfortable with the 3 standard languages of C, Java and Python. Even if you don’t know all, it is okay. But, be perfect in atleast one of these.
- Be prepared to approach any problem from multiple angles. An interviewer is usually more interested in seeing the number of different ways you can solve any given problem and how you provide explanations for each choice of solution.
- Courses and Certifications are not necessary. But, if you want to take them, they will not really help you unless they are industry-certified. (Eg : AWS Cloud Certification, Google Cloud Certification, CCNA, Oracle Java Certification etc.)
- Real skills >>> Certificates
- Projects are very important. Learn to organize them and be ready to sit through 1 hour long Q&A sessions on your projects!
- Talk about your projects from the perspective of how it would help the interviewer’s company. This will show them that you have the ability of generating value for your employer.
- Do not work on cliche projects (i.e things like library management systems or anything that has ready-made code and solutions available). They are obsolete, irrelevant and won’t help anymore.
- Your resume should definitely have sections like educational qualifications, internships, projects, publications, positions of responsibilities, certifications. The order of these sections depends on which of these are your strongest. The best come first. First Impression is last impression!
- Make sure that your job role suits your interests. Look at the side you want to see. It’s important to have good focus and adherence to your definition of a good job. (Great money is not always a great job)
- Academia and Industry definitely has a gap. But, filling this gap is solely upto you. You can crib about it, but that’s not going to help until you start doing something to improve your skillset.
The 3 Types of Fears
- Fear of the Coding Test — The only work-around this is to be patient, practice hard and stay aware of the concepts that can hurt you during the test and pay them special attention.
- Fear of Rejection — The best way to get over this is to be ready to accept your falls and learn from your mistakes. According to Sai, the best way to do this would be to keep track of your mistakes in every coding test, discover your pitfalls, work from the most basic concepts and try to transform your weaknesses into your strengths.
Failure is a very strong force. If untethered, it can be very detrimental. But if controlled, it can make you a much better version of yourself.
- Fear of the Interviewer — There is nothing of this kind in reality at any good company. So, don’t fret about this!
Competitive Coding Key Tips
- Try to cover all test cases to the best of your abilities; the final test cases are usually the hardest and have greatest weightage
- Understand the constraints first before you start writing your code
- Improve Speed of thinking and coding
- Learn to write code to make efficient solutions
- Practice Daily
Competitive Coding Platforms
Important Links
That’s the end of episode 2. Hope it helps you in being better prepared for your placements!
Thank you for reading !!!😃
