Started as a Co-op now Jennifer’s here (as a Junior Developer)
Co-op work is an invaluable experience for both students and employers. Learning is a two-way street and both employers and students have a lot to learn from one another. It’s an opportunity for employers to receive new perspectives and for students to gain work experience and find their true passions.
At Hootsuite, we’re lucky to have had so many amazing students come and work with us. We’re proud to say that we’ve had about 40 of our past co-ops receive a full-time offer when they finished school — including Jennifer MacFarlane! Jennifer started as a co-op and is now with us as a Junior Developer. Her growth and development during her career have been inspirational, so we asked her to share her story.
Tell us about yourself and your journey into tech.
I’m Jennifer, a Junior Developer at Hootsuite on the Plan and Create team.
My journey into a career in tech is an unconventional one. I first completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and French, took two years off to travel, and then decided to pursue a second bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I’m a big advocate for the importance of arts and humanities and how these disciplines help shape our world. My background in humanities has provided me with a unique perspective in tech: from communication skills to empathy for designers, copywriters, and users, I am always looking for ways to bridge the gaps. I certainly took an unexpected and meandering path to this career I love, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Tell us about your co-op experience.
During my second degree, I joined Hootsuite as a four-month summer co-op on the Webdev team, where I worked on the marketing website. The tech stack I worked with was Javascript/ReactJS/Styled Components, PHP/Twig, SASS, and Scala, leveraging these technologies to create CMS components, marketing web apps, and integrate with social network APIs.
My team was amazing — I looked forward to coming to work every day. I felt continually challenged by learning a ton of different languages and frameworks while simultaneously learning about infrastructure at Hootsuite. However, I always felt my team was in my corner, willing to support and teach me at every turn. The challenge of picking up a varied stack helped me become more adaptable, and also allowed me to explore different parts of the stack and choose work that interested me.
During my time as a co-op, I found myself gravitating towards front-end development — I’m a visual person and love to see code translate into an impactful UI. I also enjoyed working closely with designers, learning to translate designs into code, and working collaboratively to implement solutions that benefited from different knowledge domains.
After my co-op at Hootsuite, I went back to finish my last year of school, where I avidly took on front-end tasks in assignments, personal projects, and hackathons. Diving into my interest in front-end development that was sparked during co-op led me to landing a full-time position as a Junior Developer at Hootsuite, where I now work as a front-end developer.
How did you prepare to interview for a full-time role?
I prepared for my interview at Hootsuite by taking a (surprise) interdisciplinary approach. I went through the standard whiteboarding interview prep — I brushed up on my data structures and algorithms knowledge and did the LeetCode grind. But I also focused on my soft skills — knowing Hootsuite prides itself on its people and culture, I made sure I knew how to ask good questions, talk through my thought process, and pivot on whiteboarding questions based on feedback. I personally knew how much Hootsuite values its culture (this is a big reason why I wanted to get a co-op at Hootsuite in the first place), so I made sure I could speak to how my personal values, the challenges I’ve overcome, and my brand of conflict resolution would make me a great fit for the team at Hootsuite.
What advice do you have for graduating students looking for a full-time role?
Culture fit is often under-emphasized in interview prep for new grads. When you’re interviewing at a company that is aligned with your values, make sure that comes across. Genuineness and energy are inspiring in a candidate, so let your passion and your personality shine through!
And of course, there’s no escaping practicing technical whiteboarding/coding questions. My advice here isn’t to just complete a lot of questions, but to look for patterns in how to solve particular problems: What data structures work well? What are their main operations? What algorithms make the most sense for which kinds of problems? The idea for studying for whiteboarding questions isn’t to memorize every possible question (this would be impossible), but to do enough of them that you deeply understand the underlying concepts and can therefore think on your feet when faced with a question you’ve never seen before.
This brings me to my last piece of advice: Whether you’re practicing whiteboarding questions, thinking about talking points on your past technical projects and experience, or brushing up on your soft skills, come armed with a few different solutions and their tradeoffs. Being able to talk at length about the pros and cons of different possible solutions is a chance to show your knowledge and your critical thinking skills.
Are you interested in a co-op at Hootsuite? We have finished our co-op hiring for the summer 2020 term. Please keep an eye on our student careers page for future opportunities.
