Interviews During Covid (2)

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TLDR

• Unexpectedly received an interview invitation from Amazon, opening up the possibility of transitioning to a software engineer.
• Grinding on LeetCode due to the lack of software background.
• Lost the connection during Google interview. Made a comeback in the second chance.

While I was considering the next step in my career, I received an interview invitation from Amazon, which was my third interview in a few months. When tech companies are hiring, interviews come in waves, overwhelming but indeed exciting. The Amazon interview was actually a beautiful mistake, but this mistake led me to stumble into becoming a software engineer Amazon’s HR saw my resume filled with various quality control achievements and mistook hardware quality control for software, giving me an interview opportunity for Amazon’s Software Quality Assurance. Initially, I didn’t realize it was for the software department, and I wondered what they meant by “Framework” because I had never used this term during my time at Intel. It was only after joining Google that I learned “Framework” refers to a standard structure used in software development. Amazon’s HR didn’t care if I understood framework or not; under the pressure of hiring needs, they guided my answers, hearing only what they wanted to hear, and sent me into the interview. Of course, the Amazon manager realized I had no experience as soon as he saw my resume and didn’t even want to ask questions, quickly dismissing me. However, the first stage of the programming interview went surprisingly smoothly, making me wonder if I could also switch tracks and interview for software jobs.

I never dislike programming. During my Ph.D., my papers were mostly theoretical, filled with simulated data, but all written in Matlab. While developing Rimo, I also wrote some iOS software to test Rimo’s performance on mobile phones. When I started working, I helped write many tools for data analysis for my team. However, these programs I wrote were never undergo the standard review process in a typical software company, nor did I have guidance from experienced engineer. I coded in free style. No one except me can understand my codes. As long as my software and tools work, my team doesn't care much. One could say that, apart from university courses, I had no professional training. Knowing my shortcomings, I practiced on the programming website “LeetCode” every day, practicing one question a day. After the Amazon interview in September, I started practicing questions intensively, going from one question to ten questions a day, and scheduled the first Google interview at the end of October. At that time, my friends thought I was crazy. They thought I should have started with smaller software companies for practice software interviews. I agree, but I already got the Google interview invite, I might as well give it a try. As expected, the test was really difficult, involving topological Sort, which is not commonly found on LeetCode. I paused for a long time, and only after the interviewer gave some hints did I start explaining my algorithm. After talking for a long time, the interviewer didn’t express any opinion, and when I thought I was doing well, I realized the network had been disconnected long ago, and I was essentially talking to the air. That day, there was actually a winter storm, and it’s common for California’s fragile infrastructure to lose internet and power whenever the weather is bad. Later, when I managed to reconnect using my mobile signal, the interviewer told me not to worry; we would try again next week, and this interview wouldn’t count.

After the Amazon interview in September, I started practicing Leetcode intensively

A blessing in disguise. In the second interview, the examiner was a girl who seemed unaware that this was my second interview, or perhaps this batch of interview questions was similar; she asked a seemingly very different question but essentially also a topological sort question. Of course, it could be just good luck since there are only a few types of programming questions. Although I already knew the algorithm, I pretended to think very hard and enthusiastically discussed with the interviewer. In the end, I gave a very thorough answer that I had pondered over and over again after the first interview. The examiner nodded satisfactorily, very pleased with my answer. I knew I should have passed. However, I also knew that I wouldn’t be so lucky in the on-site interview, so I scheduled the next interview for a month later, hoping to practice more within that month.