Prepare for Job Shadow: AEIOU Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis? Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace? Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to see in your interactions during the shadow? Objects: what questions do you have about the code or the product? Users: what questions do you have about how the company interacts with their users?
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Activities: What does your daily schedule look like? How many meetings do you usually have per day? Do you collaborate or do more individual work?
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Environment: Do you feel encouraged to expand your learning? Is collaboration encouraged? Do you feel welcomed?
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Interactions: When you collaborate, is it more in person or online? Is most of your collaboration through meetings or different interactions? I hope to see how the workflow is implemented.
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Objects: What is salesforce? How does that different from javascript? What similarities/differences are there?
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Users: Does your role have to do with user interaction?
After the Job Shadow, reflect on the same questions; what are your takeaways from the shadow?
Activities: what was engaging to the person/people you shadowed?
- The person had a pretty free flowing schedule. They worked on a task throughout the day and didn't need to attend meetings. This allowed him to set his schedule based around his family.
Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company?
- He made the culture seem ver inviting and collaborative. He mentioned that the CEO wanted people to come in and work together but with COVID, he recognized the importance of remote work. The person I shadowed also talked about how he was persuaded to expand his learning with salseForce.
Interactions: what did you notice about your interactions with this person/people?
- I noticed that most of his interaction was through messaging and pull request type comments. This allowed everyone to be on the same page and pitch ideas.
Objects: what did you learn about their approach to code and/or product development?
- I learned what salesForce was and how it can be incorporated in a company. It was mainly work for the admin and we even helped him debug an issue with a button. His approach to problem solving was similar to what we experience at Turing.
Users: what did you learn about their approach to their users?
- The guy we shadowed does not have any interaction with the user. However, what he does helps the admin and other developers create code for users. He also mentioned that most of their users just want something displayed on a screen and that's basically what they do.
What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy?
- One of my main takeaways is how to be more employable. The man we shadowed talked a lot about what to consider when we are applying for jobs and how we can describe our experiences to fit the job's description. Since he was one of the only salesForce engineers, he talked about how his focus makes him necessary for the company. That made me realize that if I am great at one thing while simultaneously willing to become good at other things, then my employer will see me as necessary.
Interview Prep: Pick a successful project and write about it with the STAR method (What was the situation/scenario of the project? What was the task/target of the project? What action steps did you take? What were the results?):
- A successful project I've had was Rancid Tomatillos. The task for the project was to build an application using a brand new framework that displays a database of movies and allows the user to get info and rate single movies. This application also introduced Router, a new concept.
- First, we spent time researching the new framework (REACT) and Router. Then we started to build out the application based on a wireframe and outline. The results were a working application with minimal issues and I learned how to learn build a REACT application.
Write about a time you failed and what you learned from that experience:
- There was one time I was tasked to build a simple vanilla JavaScript application by myself within a three hour window. I had never done something like this by myself so I was anxious and unsure. After the three hours, my end result was a working app, but it did have bugs and it was lacking the aesthetic that was necessary. Because of that, I reflected on what skills I needed to review and how I could tackle a new problem I hadn't experienced before. I learned that I needed to break foreign concepts down step by step and know that there are multiple ways to solve a problem. Since then, this new way of thinking has helped me learn new frameworks, libraries, and concepts without feeling anxious or unworthy.
Write about how you’ve approached working with a team using a specific example:
- When it comes to working with a team, I am very patient. I recognize that everyone has different skills/abilities and insights. There was one time I was in a group of three and it was difficult to reach daily goals due to a team-member being constantly distracted/distracting. I had to approach this with patience and understanding because I learned that this specific team-member has ADHD and other conditions that made it difficult for him to focus. Once I knew that, I made sure to accommodate him with a schedule so that we could be on the same page and stick to the timeframe.
What other stories will you prepare to share?
- I'd like to share how being a previous teacher to a diverse student body gives me the skills of accommodating and diversifying. I can recognize what a student/user needs in order to access the information being given to them. It is very similar to developing user stories and increasing accessibility for the user.
Do some research into your top companies’ tech stacks; what do you already know? What can you compare to your own learning? What do you need to learn more about?
- I already know JavaScript, React, HTML/CSS, Sass, Redux.
- Since I learned a Central State Management framework, I can use that experience to learn other CSMs.
- I want to learn more about Vuel and more backend languages like Ruby
Using this interview prep resource doc, pick out at least 3 resources you will use to prepare for interviews as well as 3 behavioral questions you could practice:
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Ian's Guide to Technical Interview Prep
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Frontend Interview Handbook
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Top 50 Programming Interview Questions
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Questions:
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What made you switch from your prior career into programming?
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Tell me about a time when you worked under close supervision or extremely loose supervision. How did you handle that?
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Tell me about a time when you had to work closely with someone whose personality was very different from yours.