Category Archives: CS

CS, University

NI Interview

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I had a job interview with a big silicon valley company, the job post on LinkedIn said it was SRE focused on Java.

The interview with the recruiter was great, he told me what the process will be and what the job will be.

There were 2 interviews one regarding programming and one on systems, this was told me to in advance by the recruiter.

  1. Tech interview:
    1.  The first tech interview was scheduled for 60 minutes, I received the call 8 min later(fault wasn’t on my side) and the interview stopped at 52 minutes, I wasn’t give back the 8 minutes ( 13% of the interview)…I know I did good there but I felt those 8 minutes longer would have been enough to answer the last question.
    2. I thought that the first interview will focus on Java per the Java SRE thing, I solved couple of questions on Java but then I was asked to switch to another language, luckily I know a few others and was able to switch to Python but that was very odd to me.
  2. System interview:
    1. The questions on the second interview weren’t formulated in a straight way, nor in a direct way. I feel we didn’t move fast enough because he was asking in a cryptic way. This was the way it happen with the first question:
      1. Interviewer: Can you explain what happen when you do :curl -l linked.com
      2. Me: Yeah a request is send to linked servers, it passes through my router, modem, then ISP.
      3. I: But I mean what happens when I press enter?
      4. M: It launches the request that goes to the ISP to solve the direction.
      5. I: Where is the direction for linked.com stored?
      6. M: On DNS.
      7. I: How is it store?
      8. M: As an IP
      9. I: Whats the format of the IP?
      10. M: You mean like the octet?
      11. I: Yeah but lets get back to the what happens with the curl?
      12. M: Well the curl launches the request
      13. I: How does the curl works?
      14. M: What do u mean? it checks/request a page.
      15. I: But how does curl gets executed?
      16. M: It gets loaded from the disk?
      17. I: Yeah but where is curl stored?
      18. M: /usr/bin
      19. I: But how does it know is it on /usr/bin?
      20. M:You mean like the path?
      21. I:Yeah, thats what I meant.
      22. M…OK
    2. I was recommended to read the Google SRE book, I took the Google SRE course on Coursera and read several of the chapters on the book, still I didn’t feel I was asked something related to that methodology.

At the core the job I thought I applied for and according to the recruiter and first interview it was Java SRE but I didn’t get asked a single Java SRE question.

Because of all of this I decided to give my feedback to the interviewer, I knew I wasn’t the right fit for the job since the second interview started but I thought there was room for improvement….but I didn’t heard back anything.

CS, University

Interview policy

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I have 1 interview policy

  1. Take it.
    1. Doesn’t matter if you are not going to take the job or if the initial job offering was too small.
    2. Taking the interview will:
      1. Allow yourself to test your knowledge.
      2. Get yourself confidence for when an interview really matters to you.
      3. If you get an offer
        1. It will make you feel safe, just in case you suffer a work force reduction (WFR)
        2. You can always ask for more, now they know you are worth it =).
CS, University

My leadership

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While the recruiters never buys that I’m a leader that can guide, mentor and develop a group of persons, I do:

  1. I’m a leader while I’m teaching.
    1. Guided hundreds of undergrad students from 1st sem to the last to develop their tech skills.
    2. Guided at least 100 students on their masters.
  2. I’m a leader while directing a thesis
    1. Guided a handful of students on their own research, each one of them picking me from other of students.
  3. I’m a leader while  I’m tutoring my students
    1. Around 20 students picked me for guiding them through all their careers, most of them now works on the important IT companies on the country.
  4. Most importantly: I’m my own leader.
    1. If I can’t be my own leader, I cannot guide anybody else.

Too bad this doesn’t count for IT Recruiter, because I also act as a PM for this.

 

CS

Dodged a bullet

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Some years ago, I applied to an outsourcing company that provided some service to HP, I passed the interviews with HP and got an offer for little more than 2.15x what I was earning at the time.

I hesitated a lot because:

  1. It was using a mix payroll(mostly bonus and just 1 minimum salary via payroll), which means I will get less money for my retirement( I could just put some voluntarily  to avoid this but consider 2).
  2. I wanted 2.5x what I was earning at the time and I knew if I moved then, I should wait before moving to another job for at least 2 years.

I decided to pass on the offer because of those 2 reasons, the tech recruiter wasn’t to happy about that but hey that’s business.

It all turn out for the best for me, 1 week after that, HP broke into HP inc and enterprise, so I would have been fired pretty soon.