Bloc Student Lands Job as Test Engineer for Apple

This week, we chatted with one of Bloc’s current students, Tara Willman, on her promotion to an Airplay Performance Test Engineer at Apple. Tara had worked in retail for Apple before Bloc and after 10 months into the Software Engineering Track, she interviewed for an internship for Airplay and Carplay. Now, after completing her internship, she’s been offered a full-time position as an Airplay Performance Test Engineer and we couldn’t be more excited for her! Check out our interview with Tara below:

Why did you end up taking Bloc?

I gained some exposure to coding in college while acquiring my electrical engineering degree. After graduating, I felt a lack of experience and a fear of entering the tech world, which led me to retail leadership programs at Target and Apple. After struggling with bills and student loans, I decided to make use of my degree and make myself more marketable to the tech industry. I remembered enjoying coding in school, and based on my stepdad’s recommendation began researching coding bootcamps to give me the necessary experience to start a new career. Bloc gave me the flexibility and accountability I needed to learn important concepts and challenge myself, all while creating some pretty cool projects.

How did taking Bloc change your life?

Bloc not only gave me new skills, but also the confidence to enter the tech world. It can certainly be an intimidating industry. I know the coding skills and experience from Bloc is what got me noticed for my position, and now that I am in the field I was meant to be in, a huge weight has been lifted. I feel fulfilled and excited to progress in my career and in my life. My new career opportunity has also inspired me to help young women realize their potential in a largely male-dominated field, and to boost their confidence.

How long were you searching?

For me, this was a very happy coincidence. I had just begun job searching in January and barely started the process of reviewing some jobs with my mentor when I learned of this internal opportunity with Apple. This sort of internal internship program was the first job I applied for in early February, and they wanted to proceed to interviews within a week.

Before Bloc, did you have your sights set on working at Apple HQ after working on their retail side?

It was a question that I got asked by friends and family more than anything. I had thought about it, and always thought it would be amazing to transition to a corporate employee position, but I didn’t think it was a real possibility. I really would’ve never had the confidence to even try without the knowledge I gained from Bloc.

How was the interview process? The length of the process?

The entire process took about a month. I’m not entirely sure of how the external hire process looks, and even the internal process changes, but for me, I submitted an application, resume, and a bio which got sent to all software engineering teams with a slot for this type of internal temporary role. After an initial phone screening that asked open-ended creative questions, like: “What’s your favorite product? Design a new feature for that product. How would you test this feature?” I was contacted with a list of teams that were interested in me and asked to pick my top choices to interview with.

From there I was able to directly interview with hiring managers — I believe I interviewed with 4–6 teams. I was asked a range of questions from my familiarity with object-oriented programming and RESTful programming to very specific debugging questions. I even had to implement functions live on the spot. After this group of ~1-hour phone/FaceTime interviews, I was contacted with a list of 5 offers and was able to choose my favorite team. Once in my temporary 6-month role, I was able to demonstrate my abilities and learn the specifics of automated tests in my group, and eventually, I was offered the opportunity to convert permanently to fill an available role.

How did the software engineering principles part of your Bloc program prepare you for this new role?

While the initial part of my role was in manual testing, a huge part of my team’s decision to offer me the permanent position was due to the fact that I was able to catch on to our automated testing so quickly. There was no need to familiarize me with the concepts of git or bash, and though I didn’t learn Python during Bloc, my Ruby experience made it very easy to understand and learn the Python syntax. Since in a real environment we are rarely writing things from scratch, it is important to be able to read, understand, debug, and optimize existing code more than anything. Being conceptually sound made my team confident in the fact that I was a promising candidate for a role that would require scripting.

What advice would you give bootcamp students specifically looking to work at larger companies like Apple?

1. Network. We all only look so interesting on paper, and a personal recommendation from someone goes a long way.
2. Be unique. There are thousands who want to work for these big companies.
3. Share your story and your passions. If you have projects to share that reflect your passions, even better. Talking about your passions will put the best version of yourself forward. If it’s a company you really want to work for, hopefully, it’s one you respect.
4. Know the company, and know the products and your thoughts on them.
5. Be confident and sound in your skills. I have no doubt that Bloc will prepare anyone to sail through interviews at any company, but putting thought into how to best represent yourself and your skills is just as important.
6. Try not to be intimidated; there’s no harm in gaining a ton of interview experience, so by all means apply and learn from your interviews!