DEV Community

Cover image for Thoughts on Interviewing at Big Tech Companies

Thoughts on Interviewing at Big Tech Companies

Jaime González García on December 16, 2018

This article was originally posted in barbarianmeetscoding.com. 😊 I was reading dev.to a couple of weeks ago (I think) and there was an article th...
Collapse
 
rhymes profile image
rhymes

Great, great post Jaime!

Not just for the info and the story but also because of you're great attitude :-)

You very seldom get feedback when you fail an interview. We should change that.

Definitely, it would literally improve people's lives

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Thank you!! :D

And definitely yes!

Collapse
 
miguelrodoma95 profile image
Miguel Rodriguez

I'm having an interview for a Google mobile developer position in January, this post really helped me to feel more confident, since I failed two months ago at Microsoft's.

"We should throw our self-imposed limitations and fears out the window, embrace life to its fullest, dive head in and if you fail, you fail, you'll do better next time"

Thank you for this, I really needed that.

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

That's really awesome to hear! Good luck!! :D

Collapse
 
eljayadobe profile image
Eljay-Adobe

Thank you for sharing the tale of your journey! Sharing your doubts, fears, and emotions like that is not an easy thing. I appreciate you candor.

I've a friend who works at Google. He loves it there. He's not one to say that lightly, so to me that speaks volumes of how awesome the company culture is there.

He doesn't have that same reaction regarding working at Microsoft. (Before Google, he worked at Microsoft.)

Since you had interviewed with Mojang, was that before or after Microsoft? Since you have .NET background, I think you'd find JVM to be very comparable, and .NET skills correspond well with JVM (and vice-versa). Since Mojang was acquired Microsoft, I ponder if they will (or are) porting from JVM to .NET. The potential backlash from the modding community may be a showstopper, though.

If you still work on .NET, I urge you to try your hand at F# with The Book of F#. If you haven't done FP before, it is a real eye-opener. If you have done FP before with other languages, F# will impress you with how syntactically awesome it is. More-or-less, F# is OCaml for .NET.

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Thank you for sharing the tale of your journey! Sharing your doubts, fears, and emotions like that is not an easy thing. I appreciate you candor.

Thank you! :D Glad that you appreciate it! I thought it would be helpful for other people struggling with the same doubts and fears to hear it like it is.

I've a friend who works at Google. He loves it there. He's not one to say that lightly, so to me that speaks volumes of how awesome the company culture is there.

Very Yes! It definitely is an amazing place to work at.

Since you had interviewed with Mojang, was that before or after Microsoft?

Sorry if I misrepresented it. At the time Mojang had already been acquired by Microsoft. The Microsoft recruiter that contacted me was for a position at Mojang.

If you still work on .NET, I urge you to try your hand at F# with The Book of F#. If you haven't done FP before, it is a real eye-opener. If you have done FP before with other languages, F# will impress you with how syntactically awesome it is. More-or-less, F# is OCaml for .NET.

I don't work with .NET anymore but I do own that book (sitting cozy in the shelf waiting for me XD). I've been planning to write a book on FP in JavaScript for ages and I want to dive fully into FP and languages like F# and Haskell to make the most awesome book evah. :D Thanks for the tip!

Collapse
 
jonchiou profile image
Jonathan Chiou

Great post and thank you for sharing! I recently made the switch from Technical Services Specialist (sounds a bit similar to your Technical Solutions Consultant role) to application development and have also been feeling full of doubt as I shake off some of the rust and get back into writing code full-time.

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Thank you! :D You got this! 👍

Collapse
 
garfbradaz profile image
Gareth Bradley • Edited

Thanks Jaime. I just failed a test miserably where all the questions were simple Algorithms which I was completely rusty on!

Testing myself as we speak.

Collapse
 
garfbradaz profile image
Gareth Bradley

I've bought that book!

Any good online testing sites for Algorithm's (specifically using C#)?

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Thank you! Good luck!! :D

Collapse
 
ogaston profile image
Omar Gaston Chalas

Wow its amazing how helpful this article is, I'm preparing myself to apply for a position in a big company of my country. Reading this gave me more courage. Thanks for sharing.

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

Awesome to hear that! :D Good luck!

Collapse
 
ld00d profile image
Brian Lampe

OMG I thought you were talking about telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) for a bit there and was reeeeealy confused

Collapse
 
vintharas profile image
Jaime González García

hehe Let me fix that :D I should have kept at least the first reference as Test Driven Development. Thank you for the feedback!

Collapse
 
Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted