Makers Academy Interview Prep
Makers Academy is a coding bootcamp in London. I’ve just started the pre-course there and here is a little guide to their interview process and what I did pre and post interview.
Makers’ interview is a 1 on 1 process where they ask a little bit about yourself, maybe ask some logic questions, and do little bit of programming exercise. You can apply for this here.
How I prepared for Makers interview
Read all I could on their website and blog.
Did drop in session to find out as much as I could.
Attended a Taster Weekend.
As recommended I did the Ruby Codeacademy route.
The first 8 chapters of Chris Pine’s Learn to Program book.
The first 34 chapters of Zed Shaw’s Learn Ruby the Hard Way book.
Did as many codewars Ruby Kata as I could. Very intimidating at the start but really good fun.
Tips for the Makers interview
Read everything on their website. Make sure you know what you’re interviewing for!
Go to as many Makers events as you can. You can sign up here for their email list here to hear about these.
Do all the pre-work beforehand but don’t worry too much about memorizing all the syntax, instead focus on understanding the concepts.
Practice doing problems you don’t know how to solve (codewars for example). Resist the urge to immediately google it. Write pseudo-code (english language version of what you’d do step by step), even if you don’t know how to write it in ruby. They are more interested in how you approach problem solving then you actually solving the problem.
Read these blog posts from the Makers Blogs
- Coding 101 — Thinking Like A Programmer
- Scientific Method in Programming
- How We Find the Best: The Makers Academy Selection Process
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. I failed badly at this one, left the interview feeling like I’d pooed the bed and had wrecked my chances. I’d let the idea of Makers become such a huge thing that I completely over-reacted when I couldn’t answer the question immediately (which of course was the point!). I’m pretty sure I even apologised to Nikesh (the interviewer) during the interview. Don’t be like me. Be kind to yourself.
What I did post-interview pre pre-course
Had a genuine moment of incredible pure joy and excitement and did this for a little bit.
Started using github more — I created repositories and redid and pushed all exercises I completed for Chris Pine and Zed Shaw books. You can find those on my github.
Completed Git Codeacademy route.
Completed Command Line Codeacademy route.
Lots more codewars! Add me to your clan, here’s my profile.
I’ll be documenting my time in Makers Academy so if you’re interested in learning to code, or doing a bootcamp I’ll hopefully have regular updates on my progress.
