This week I attended my first in person interview at a local rails opening. I have had previous interviews via the phone previously but have yet to make it inside the building to share my charm. I want to take the time to share some of the questions I received while attending and a brief synopsis of what happened.
The company is just slightly north of Orlando and not a city I have visited previously, but I arrived with 30mins to spare. I unfortunately could not find their door with was hidden off the main street, and what made it worse, no one in the surrounding area had ever heard of them company. I found out later the company only recently occupied the space and had only been there for about 3 months.
I finally made inside the building 10mins late :( , but to my surprise it was not that big of a deal. The entire process was unlike any interview I had ever been apart of in the corporate realm I am coming from. The normal structure is wear a suit (in hot Florida!) and sit a interview room 1:1 or 2:1 while the interviewers grill you with behavioral questions.
From my initial conversation with the Director of Engineering 2 weeks back, I knew this would miles different. During my phone interview it was a natural conversation where I recited different highlights of my journey, basically from this blog (yet another reason why you should start a blog yesterday, all I had to do was study my own blog before the interview). The in person interview was no different, except the fact that instead of the Director interviewing me, I was met in a conference room by the team of 5 engineers on the existing team.
The beginning of the interview we all established rapport by them sharing with what they do on the team...4 rails devs and a Front End guy. There was not really too many questions in the beginning, but just me sharing my story and what I have done. I was then asked to share some code, which I shared my Taskitoff, Chuych, and Bloccit app (All from my Bloc apprenticeship). These are all my most complete apps and share my ability to write a test and complete a project.
I was thrown off by some questions within my code, but was able to eventually navigate through the code that I have not set eyes on since February. Which leads me to my first quesiton:
Q. Show us something you are most proud of and tell how you implemented it.
A. I chose to share my Chuych app and how I implemented the Geocoder gem to search by nearest location within 20 miles.
*I highly recommend before you go into an interview you have a completed app that is deployed to Heroku. Be sure there is no abandoned code and straggling notes, or be prepared to talk about it. Also make sure it your best work, even if its a tutorial. The guys I met with were laid back, and I am sure they just wanted to see if I knew what I wrote and could talk in front of the group without breaking down.
Q. I was then asked a question on Git Flow, which I was unaware of, well I was aware of it but not aware of the term.
While sharing my Taskitoff code I shared how I implemented the time limitation, but was asked why I didn't use a lambda.
Q. What is lambda and when do you use it?
A. I did not have a clear answer other than it is basically an undefined method (technically).
*One of the team members assured me that most people learning rails could not explain it and it functionality recommended to be used with defining time. I found out more of that on Stack Overflow
Q. What are the main components of Rails
A. I only answered Action Mailer and Active Record.
*The group gave me some other answers on that question, since they let me know most people do not know that answer. I also searched this after I got home.
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I was asked other questions but they were all more about me and though they did not come out and say, they were just trying to figure me out as a person to see if I would be a good for the team. I did get a lot of questions on why I am choosing to switch to developing from a career in sales, which is what I have gotten in every interview. I answered that in my last post in the Reddit Interview.
*No highly technically questions were asked, my assumption is that Ruby is not taught in most schools and a lot of the code is done for you. So if they ask would implement a bubble sort into this blah... Your answer could literally be, I would go to the Ruby toolbox and install X gem.
I hope to hear back on the results of the interview this week. As far as the other company's here are the current standings with them.
Company #1: 2nd interview concluded and DENIED. I responded back with a thank email and asked for info on different materials to increase my skill. No response received.
Company #2: No response after 1st interview, I keep forgetting to email back but they are not on the top of my list
Company #3: 2nd interview concluded. Hopefully hear back this week
Company #4: DENIED, it was a great talk, but I was not a great fit.
Company #5: Met with them on Friday, Reaching out via Twitter to hear back on code review.
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