Happy New Years!

A little update on the two interviews that I had from last month.

I am currently 1 for 2 in that I moved to the next round for one of them, but unfortunately did not make it for the other one.

I want to reflect on what this interview process has done for me. Through the past weeks of studying and stressing and cramming, I feel like I have gained a better understanding of where I stand in my computer science career. Though I have progressed so much since a year ago, I feel like I can push for more and greater things.

Anyways, I feel like I have gotten a lot better with data structures and algorithms. However, instead of memorizing which data structure or algorithm is good for what problem, I need to learn how to apply these data structures and algorithms in actual code to execution. This will ultimately help me to become a greater interviewee and software engineer.

But why are these types of problems so important to becoming a “great” engineer?

These problems, even though we face external pressures like interview pressure, show our thinking and analytical skills that are important for close deadlines and could even show a bit of insight on how passionate we are about programming instead of saying “I’m really passionate about programming”. A person could spin up a website in less than a day, but learning the knapsack problem and being able to implement it on the spot? It could take more than a day… at least for me and my experience.