Alternatives to the Software Interview / Getting a React Job

Want to get a job as a React developer? What’s the best way to go about it? In this episode we discuss different paths to becoming a React developer and which one might be the best for you.

Links

• Companion YouTube Video: Easiest Way to get a Software Job
• Study: Does Stress Impact Technical Interview Performance?

Show Notes

• Overview
• Thomas Experience
  • CS degree, joke in a different way
  • ran the gauntlet
• Austin Experience
• State of Software Interviewing
  • Well known to be very broken
  • Does not accurately gauge ability to do job
    • One study found interviewers are primarily judging level of anxiety
    • Obviously data-structures & algorithms are irrelevant to nearly all programming jobs (especially React)
      • Blame Google
      • One time Yelp was asking me about bits and bytes for a JS job
    • Requires studying for weeks on stuff you don’t need to know even if you’re senior level
    • Interviewing environment, like whiteboard, way different than real life
    • Some people are great at this
  • Why does this happen?
    • Google
    • High-risk for hiring company
    • Very conservative decision making
    • Many candidates, trying to filter without investing in more personnel
• Getting paid to interview
• How to gauge someone’s ability to do the job?
  • Best way: see them do the job
• Contracting/Consulting
  • Lower-risk for hiring company
  • Generally leads to employment offers
  • Much better gauge of how well you can actually do the job
  • Generally doesn’t involve so much ds&a
• Either way, best thing to do is build
• Summary

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