Lets get a software development internship Julian Ozen Why you should listen to me How to get an interview How to approach interview practicing Why am I talking? Generic career advice isnt always relevant WashU is not a top computer science recruiting school You may not be a top candidate Software Developer Positions are not given out solely by intelligence, school, GPA, or referral 2014 High Paid Interns by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell Sources Recruiters Company Hiring Blogs careercup.com Quora / Reddit / Twitter HackerNewsCracking the Coding Interview Are you ready? If youre at WashU, have you taken CSE241? Linked Lists Binary Trees Tries Stacks Queues Vectors / Array Lists Hashtables Breadth First Search Depth First Search Binary Search Merge Sort Quick Sort Tree Insert / Find / etc Bit Manipulation Singleton Design Factory Design Memory Hierarchy Stack vs Heap Recursion Why you should listen to me How to get an interview How to approach interview practicing Interview Process Build a resume Submitting Application Screening Interviews Follow Up Interviews Resume Building CareerCenter is still a valuable resource Quantifiable Bullet Point Accomplished ____X____, by using ____Y____, which led to ____Z____. Quantifiable Bullet Point Organized and directed a team with diverse technical backgrounds in the design of an urban disaster relief application. What technologies did you use? What was it for? Who did you help? How well did it perform its job? What recognition did it receive? Quantifiable Bullet Point Wrote web application in Python, HTML, and JavaScript that checks if internal bridge lines are currently being used, and updates a database correspondingly. Projects and Languages WashU doesnt teach anything except JAVA for the first few semesters You dont want a recruiter to think youre just a __________ developerJAVA You dont want a recruiter to think youre just a __________ developeriPhone You dont want a recruiter to think youre just a __________ developerWeb Projects and Languages Knowing several languages signals to a company that you are capable of being put on any project Online courses make this extremely easy to learn A projects proves you know that language Go to Hackathons Utilize a new technology or language Create a projects to put on a resume Free t-shirts, swag, food, prizes Meet with recruiters and other smart people Networking Getting an interview can be the hardest part of the application process Critical if your school doesnt attract top companies Referrals are both everything and nothing Apply, Apply, Apply Make an A / B List of Companies, but interview everywhere Multiple offers give you leverage, even for internships Why you should listen to me How to get an interview How to approach interview practicing Interview Questions Behavioral Coding Behavior Question Memorize Resume Talking Points Most Interesting ProjectConflict with Teammates Hardest Bug Most Interesting What languages did you use? Coding Questions Done on paper or a whiteboard or collaborative doc so dont practice on a computer Coding Questions Ask Questions What attributes does the data have? What resources / libraries can I use? What constraints do I have? What is the context? Figure out the catch Coding Questions Coding Questions Pseudocode, then "real"code Coding Questions Test your code What happens at negative?What happens at 0? What happens at a million values? Does it do what you think it does? Coding Questions Remember, these are hard. Go Slow. Stay Calm. Deep Breath. Start with any answer, work towards the best one. Often getting a question wrong does not mean you did poorly. This is just the start. There are immediate significant payoffs to putting in hard work in a few specific areas. The best way to be successful is to become comfortable with this process. Good Luck! Any questions?