How to escape the interview horror: talking good old expertise and teamwork

It’s best to forget that you’re in an interview (in a good way): simply focus on helping the interviewers to see that you’re smart and can get things done

It is as hard for the employer to find a developer, as it is for a developer to find a job. Yet, don’t worry about any other candidates they might be looking at, since most of them wouldn’t be able to program for their life. If you can successfully write a loop that goes from 1 to 10 in every language on your resume, can do simple arithmetic without a calculator, and can use recursion to solve a real problem, you're already ahead of the pack. This week, we talk about more curious things: the minds of people who interview you. What are they looking for, and how do they make sure what they find in you and other candidates is what they need? It comes down to two things - checking that you’re smart and get things done. That’s why any interview conversation usually breaks down into two themes - technical skill and teamwork. Like to help this blog going? Tell your friends about it, like and share the post. Check out the full blog post here:

Will Open Source Actually Beat Silicon Valley Start-Ups?

Open source could even do better than the proprietary model, since the inspection and debugging of it is not limited by the capacities of the team that the company hires to do the project

Essentially, there are two ways of producing software. One is the ”Silicon Valley” way, where you start up as an entrepreneur in your garage, reach out to venture capitalists (VCs) who then invest into your idea, and later scale, if you’re successful - like Facebook. The second is a community way, where numerous members inspect, modify and enhance the applications that have openly available code bases. They gradually improve and add on features as the project goes along, like Linux.

How to get your first software developer job

People who are interviewing you have to listen to many, many other candidates - it is as hard for the employer to find a developer, as it is for a developer to find a job

You need to find a job to get software development experience, and you need the experience to find a job. A Catch 22? Well, not exactly. For one thing, development as a profession changes so much overtime that anyone who works here ends up learning, unlearning and re-learning things. And for another, coding culture differs from company to company, and it is going to take months for anyone, regardless of their experience to start knocking out valuable, production-ready code. This is why your chances of getting a job are not as bad as you might think. All you need to show them is that you have an open mind and easy to work with. As for specific skills, these will skyrocket once you’re positioned in a company where you’d be spending 8 hours a day coding, surrounded by experienced colleagues.