This is my rough sketch of advice for people trying to get their first role in the tech industry. A lot of this is synthesized and regurgitated from what others have told me, so might be pretty recognizable! Cracking the Coding Interview is a really excellent resource for all of this too.

Getting an interview

Tech companies look for engineers that can work with data. They want people that know how it can tell a story, how to get the right data, what’s important, and how you can use it to support your arguments. Your CV should reflect this. Try to identify nuggets of data about your previous experiences to include.

What was the impact of your actions in your projects? This doesn’t even have to be technical projects. If you were part of a student society that held events, did you grow their attendance by some %-age year on year? Companies want to see that you can set goals for improvement and hit them, or at least have awareness of it. Include this in both your CV bullet points and in your interview prep.

When it comes to applications, a referral is at least 10X more effective than applying to a portal – at least when it comes to getting you through the first screening. After that it’s up to you, but it’s the best way to get an introduction to a company. There’s so many low quality submissions that come in through online application portals that it’s very hard for recruiters to screen, particularly with the rise of job application bots and LLM usage.

If you have a target company you want to work at, try and get a referral instead of applying for a job just through a portal. Look up people that work there on LinkedIn. You can filter by some criteria that’s connected to you to make an easier introduction. Look for mutual connections, that you went to the same school, etc. that’s not the key part but it helps people have familiartiy. Reach out to them with a short message about yourself, what you’re aiming for, and ask if they can refer you.

If there’s a position advertised you’re looking at, reach out to the hiring manager and ask for more information. Hiring managers are much more likely to hire candidates that they know. It’s a good way to show interest and that you’re a real person before putting an application in. This stuff is a little scary at first, but it gets easier when you understand what people want. Hiring managers want good quality candidates that won’t waste their time. Hiring is an incredibly expensive process! You have something to offer them as a friendly, competent, understanding individual.

Interview prep

Have a 50/50 emphasis split on leadership questions (stories about what work you’ve done in the past and how they show certain characteristics the company is looking for) vs DSA coding skills (Leetcode or whatever other platform). You should prepare the stories for interviews in much the same way you prepare your coding skills.

For coding prep I have no other advice than to do it. I did a bunch prior to my first role, and I really enjoyed a lot of the learning. Leetcode Easy and Mediums will serve you well for entry level roles. It does suck, but it’s a bit of a necessary evil. No one needs you to solve DSA problems under time pressure in your day to day job, but like exams at school, it’s a way of demonstrating you can play the game.

Write out a grid of all of the various experiences you had against all of the public values that your target company advertises1. For each box write a few bulletpoints in the STAR2 format (situation, task, action, result) about the story, talking about how you demonstrated that principle. People care most about the action and the result, while the situation and the task are the context so they can understand. You should be able to relay these stories in around 5 minutes.

When it comes to the interview process, performing that you understand and can demonstrate what they want to see is as good as actually doing it. Interviewers want to know that you can play the game of internal values, because that’s how companies organise themselves without pulling in many different directions. They’re used in all company decisions, hiring, project prioritisation. Playing a role in a company is as good as being the role.

When it comes to interviewing, come with a few questions. It’s your chance to learn about the place too, what the day to day is like. Be curious about the team and the work. It’s a good way to demonstrate you are engaged in the process and evaluating your options carefully.

  1. Amazon has well documented leadership principles which they use to interview and make decisions, other companies will have different principles and criteria. Where you can, find what they are, but you can also prep in this way for questions that you expect to get. ↩

  2. STAR just kind of works. It’s a great way to trick yourself into being coherent, and makes it a lot easier for others to follow your thoughts. ↩