Universidad de California en San Diego

Mastering the Software Engineering Interview

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Curso 4 de 5 en SpecializationObject Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond

You’ve hit a major milestone as a computer scientist and are becoming a capable programmer. You now know how to solve problems, write algorithms, and analyze solutions; and you have a wealth of tools (like data structures) at your disposal. You may now be ready for an internship or (possibly) an entry-level software engineering job. But can you land the internship/job? It depends in part on how well you can solve new technical problems and communicate during interviews. How can you get better at this? Practice! With the support of Google’s recruiting and engineering teams we’ve provided tips, examples, and practice opportunities in this course that may help you with a number of tech companies. We’ll assist you to organize into teams to practice. Lastly, we’ll give you basic job search advice, and tips for succeeding once you’re on the job.

De la lección

Welcome & What is a Software Engineering Interview?

Welcome to our course on effectively communicating your technical abilities. This course focuses on landing a technical job and excelling in a technical role. To succeed in job interviews, you’ll need to be able to confidently articulate your ability to solve challenging problems and come up with new solutions under potentially stressful conditions. After getting a technical job, the role of communication increases even more. You’ll need to work with other members of the team, communicate technical challenges and successes, and potentially sell the value of your work to those outside the company. Our goal is that by the end of this course each and every one of you understands the importance of technical communication, and has received constructive feedback on areas of potential improvement. In achieving this goal you will also learn about algorithmic thinking on the fly, how to evaluate a good interview answer to a difficult technical problem, and how “soft” skills impact interview outcomes. In this module, we’ll begin to see what a technical interview looks like, from the perspective of a major tech company. We’ll then focus on how to best get the interview in the first place. If you're not in the job market right now, you might want to skim the videos in this module and skip ahead to the Resume Critique (for insights about how to present yourself in writing) or the Introductions assignment (on effectively presenting yourself in person).

Course Introduction3:29

Course Goals7:21

Why Soft Skills?8:24

Google engineers share their stories4:32

Conoce a los instructores

Mia Minnes
Assistant Teaching Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Leo Porter
Assistant Teaching Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Christine Alvarado
Associate Teaching Professor
Computer Science and Engineering

[MUSIC]

Hi, I'm Christine Alvarado.

>> I'm Leo Porter.

>> And I'm Mia Minnes.

Welcome to our fourth course in our intermediate Java programming

specialization.

This course is about how to succeed through all elements of a job

application process in order to get a software engineering position.

Front and center to that process is the technical interview.

>> Yeah, and that technical interview can be stressful.

I remember my first one.

I was in a small college in New Hampshire.

I had to drive two hours down to Boston for this interview, completely unprepared.

Didn't know what to expect.

And it was a train wreck.

It couldn't have gone any worse.

I just remember 20 years later that awful feeling, how I felt after that interview.

Now things got better from there but

I don't want any of you to have to go through what I went through.

>> That's incredibly rough.

If it's any consolation, my first interview, now this is

back in high school, actually finished with the interview telling me that I

should call back after job interviews offers went out to get interview advice.

>> Ouch.

It was nice of her to offer that advice, but still that stings.

>> You know technical interviews are just plain hard.

It's not surprising that interviews with companies like Google had a reputation for

being really difficult.

You're asked to demonstrate expertise in softer engineering

by solving new problems and writing code in high pressure situation.

And it's not just about having strong technical expertise.

It's also about how you convey yourself, your soft skills.

Do you project confidence?

Do you exhibit the communication and

interpersonal skills that would make you a great team player?

>> And so

this course is going to address both of these elements of the technical interview.

In this course we're going to pull back the curtain and

show you the secrets of what you can do to make a good interview look easy.

Just as is this course may look polished and

easy there's lot of work that goes into making it look that way.

I get it, that's why we're in the studio not out in some beautiful

scenic UC San Diego location for this little chat.

>> Exactly.

So in this course we're going to be going deeper with your technical skills

using the knowledge you gained in data structures, algorithm analysis, and

programming that you've learned either in earlier courses in our

specialization or elsewhere.

And we'll teach you about the soft skills that can make or break the interview.

>> Now you may think you're alone, and worrying about these soft

skills that convey confidence and being well prepared for

your interview, but everyone feels nervous before an interview.

We'll teach you ways to combat that stress, overcome self doubt, and

put yourself in a position to succeed.

You know there's one common cure for doing well at something hard.

It's practice.

So we'll make sure to give you the tools and

avenues you need to practice these skills.

If you look at other interview videos on the internet

you'll find that they don't give you this kind of practice.

So what we're going to do is give you the programming assignments and

the feedback that you need to succeed.

Yeah, and these assignments will give you practice on many things.

They'll give you practice on how to introduce yourself in your work,

how to write code during a technical phone screen and an in-person interview, and

how to solve new algorithmic problems on a whiteboard.

>> Now this practice will help you hone both your technical and your soft skills.

It may take awhile to get it all right, but

the skills you learn aren't just about getting the job.

There's a reason that interviews test you on all of these skills and

that's because they are so fundamental for success throughout your career.

>> We've had a lot of fun building this course and

we've had some great help from a team of engineers and recruiters from Google

to help make sure that what you're learning is up to industry standards.

So we're really excited to have you with us and

we believe this course can make a real difference in your career.