💪  How to Prepare

Research the company

• Spend 10-15 minutes looking at their website, blogposts, or news articles

  • Google the company’s name and look at the “News” tab
    • If it's a startup, check their Crunchbase profile
    • Review the job description
    • Watch this video to learn more about researching smaller companies

• Download/use their app/product

  • Think of ways you'd improve it
    • Think of challenges their product may be facing
    • Be able to explain their app to a 5 year old

• Know what the company does

  • Be able to answer "what do you know about our company?"
  • Look up their competitors

• Review the STAR method for answering behavioral interview questions

  • Review your Personal Pitch + stories page

• Research the company’s values

  • To get an advantage on the job hunt, research the company’s values so you can get a better sense of the questions they’ll ask! Watch this video to learn why.

• Prepare unique questions for each kind of interviewer (see below)

  Don’t be afraid to ask the same questions across interviews

  • • Ask specific questions

      There are three categories of questions you should ask from. This demonstrates you took time to research the company, shows your curiosity, and also conveys you're thinking about what it's like to work there. (You may have more questions within certain categories which is normal)

      • • Your Interviewer
          • • Benefit: Establishes a connection with your interviewer
              • Example
              • • “I saw you recently joined $company_name from $brand_name_company, what led you to $company_name and what keeps you there?
          • Position (e.g. the day-to-day work)
          • • Benefit: Demonstrates you know what you are getting into and that you’re excited about it
              • Example
              • • "What is the greatest challenge on the engineering team and how will this next hire help solve that problem?”
          • Company/Industry
          • • Benefit: Showcases your ability to think about "the big picture"
              • Examples
              • • "I've been following Coinbase's blog for some time, what's like working for such a transparent founder?"
                  • "I read on your website you're trying to disrupt agtech and I've always been fascinated by the challenges technology could solve for agriculture. What is the company's biggest opportunity to do that?"
          • Ask for next steps
          • • Benefit: This is the easiest and most efficient way to show interest.
              • Examples
              • • "I'd love to move forward in the process, what are the next steps?"
                  • "Are there any questions you'd like me to go back over to show I'm the right person to move forward in the process?"
                  • "Do you have any hesitations about my background or answers given to suggest not moving me forward?
          • More examples
          • • Culture questions / Key Values
      • Ask closing questions at the end
      • • “Before I leave, is there anything else you need to know concerning my fit/ability to do this job?”
          • “Do you have any hesitancies about my candidacy for this position”?
          • “Are there any answers you’d like me to go over again?”
          • “I’d love to move forward, what are the next steps?”

👱  Know your Interviewer

Recruiter

• General

Recruiters’ jobs are to identify and build a pool of qualified applicants. Depending on the stage of your interview, a recruiter can play one of two roles. Generally, in the early stages (pre-phone screen, phone screen), a recruiter will be acting as a gatekeeper. They’re ensuring you have the right prerequisites for the position, validating your experience/matching it to the job description, and acting as a filter for the hiring manager and team.

Later on in the process (onsite, offer, etc.), a recruiter will pivot more towards an advocate to try and help you get the job (think: getting you the right prep info for what to expect, going back to the hiring manager or C-level in negotiations, etc)

• Interview Responses

Remember, recruiters aren’t engineers. Therefore, when answering their questions, it’s important to make sure your responses aren’t too deeply technical for them to understand. You want to namedrop/use buzzwords for languages/frameworks/tech stacks/tools, etc., but you normally do not need to go into deep specifics. Your goal is to provide them with as much information as possible so they can go back to the team and easily describe your work/impact.

• Questions to ask Recruiters
• • Job-related
    • • What further information you can provide them to share with the team to show you’re the best candidate
        • Current challenges for the team
        • Why they’re hiring (or their hiring goals overall)
• • Cultural-related
    • • Their favorite part about working at the company
        • Why they joined
        • Why engineers should join
        • Characteristics of great employees
• • Process-related
    • • Next steps
        • Who you’ll be interviewing with
        • What to expect
        • • Note: share this in the Job Hunt Mattermost channel!
        • How to prepare

Hiring Manager

• General

Hiring managers are responsible for working with HR/recruiting to develop open positions within their team. They usually hold a higher weight in hiring decisions (though this depends on the organization) and have the best idea of “the right fit”. Their job is to hire the most qualified applicant in the process for any given position.

• Interview Responses

Hiring managers will usually be engineers themselves (some are more hands-on than others) so it’s important to speak more technically with them. Contrary to recruiters, you want to show you can speak deeply and technically, especially when it comes to sharing stories about your past eng work and technical projects.

• Questions to ask Hiring Managers
• • Job-related
    • • Current projects/challenges
        • • “What has been the biggest challenge in the last 30 days?”
        • Current team makeup
        • • Growth opportunities within the team
        • Their development process
        • A day (or week) in the life of an engineer at $company
    • Qualities they’re looking for in a new hire
    • • How they define success for this role
        • • ”What are signposts of success? / “Let’s say I’m the right fit and you hire me. A year from now, what will tell you I was the right hire?”
            • “What are the most important skills and attributes you’re looking for in filling this position?”

Engineer/Peer

• General

Interviewing with a peer is one of your best opportunities to truly understand what it’s like to work at a company. Make sure to take advantage of this by asking questions that are more closely related to the job and team itself.

• Interview Respones

Similarly to with Hiring Managers, you’ll want to match your responses to their technical level.

• Questions to ask Peers
• • Job-related
    • • Day-to-day life
        • Development processes
        • Project load (be careful not to ask about hours or anything that would make you look like you don’t work hard)
        • Most challenging and/or most rewarding aspects of the position
    • Company-related
    • • “What do you consider to be the company’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?”
        • “Does the company support you in training? How?”
        • “What was/is the office culture like?”
        • “What’s your favorite part of working here?”

Cross-functional team member

• General

Some companies will have you interview with a cross-functional team member or leader (think Product, Design, Data, etc.). You may or may not work directly with this person on a day-to-day basis, but their goals are to help the team:

• 1. Find the right person for the team
  2. Find someone they can see their team working with

Generally, they won’t be testing you on the role itself, rather other attributes the company is looking for. It could be compatibility, problem-solving, what motivates you or makes you tick, etc. Treat these interviews similarly to the Engineer/Peer interview.

• Interview Responses

Adjust your responses in technicality to your interviewer. For example, if they’re a Product Manager, they may have a background in engineering so they’ll be better suited to understand more granular technical concepts/specs. If they don’t have a technical background, consider speaking from a higher product/systems view.

• Questions to ask Cross-functional team members
• • How do you imagine we will be working together day-to-day?
    • What does the relationship between [design] and [engineering] look like?
    • What are some challenges that [product] encounters here that seem unique to this company?
    • What are some tools or processes that facilitate [data scientists] and engineers to work together seamlessly?