What I Learned From Blowing An Interview
I&#x27;ve just blown a technical interview. Not like this though.<p>I&#x27;ve got lots of experience, know my languages inside out and have several launched products to millions of people. I did every problem in the recommended book (CtCI) and know data structures and algorithms well. I wasn’t prepared for the nerves though.<p>I interviewed at a large social network recently. 3 out of the 5 onsites went amazingly well. 1 was okay and the last one totally tanked. It wasn’t a particularly hard question, but I didn’t crack it immediately so started to panic.<p>What made it 10x worse was that the interviewer sat in complete silence, not responding to any of my ideas. I followed all the recommended strategies: Throwing out a brute force solution, discussing what you are thinking (incidentally, I said the correct solution very early on!), trying different data structures - but he said nothing and checked his phone.<p>When I got the call, I was absolutely devastated. I had put 3 months of preparation into this and it was all gone in 30 minutes. The recruiter couldn’t believe it as he thought I was a shoe-in. I told him about the interviewer and he was furious. He said he would pass that on as feedback, but there was nothing he could do - they have to respect the process.<p>I appreciate the humility in this article. As much as I want to blame the interviewer, the process, how technical interviews are broken, how that company isn’t all that, etc etc - the most fruitful thing I can do is learn what went wrong and how I can overcome it next time.<p>In repairing my shattered self confidence, I’ve found this very helpful:<p>“Doing poorly on your Google interview could mean a couple things, if you&#x27;re a good engineer….Which of the two evaluations is more meaningful?
A) A few hours with busy people who don&#x27;t know you trying to guess how good you are, with only a few minutes of a problem they&#x27;re familiar with as a probe.
B) Years of successful performance in your career.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;I-felt-I-was-a-pretty-good-software-engineer-with-a-successful-career-but-I-did-quite-poorly-in-my-Google-interview-does-this-mean-Im-not-as-good-an-engineer-as-I-thought?srid=z06&amp;share=f787395d" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;I-felt-I-was-a-pretty-good-software-en...</a>