Whether you work in finance or the food industry, job interviews can be a tricky process if you don’t prepare in advance and aren’t well equipped to navigate questions while seamlessly selling your skills and experience.
And if you work in technology, the bar is even higher. This is evidenced by data collected by interview.ioa technical mock interview platform, which has found that technical applicants now need to do 15% better in a technical interview than in 2022 to get hired.
Power shift
This is probably due to one primary factor: layoffs. Since early 2023, 436 technology companies laid off 122,341 employees worldwide with Amazon, Meta, Stripe, PayPal and Twitter – household names that previously seemed financially bulletproof and untouchable – dominating the headlines.
Through its research, the interview platform also found that software engineers are now feeling the pinch, an industry that had seemingly remained robust despite periods of corporate restructuring and workforce reductions.
What must we do
So what can engineers looking for a new job do to ensure they step up their tech application game and land a coveted job offer? Job site Indeed advises candidates to prepare for three different interviews.
One is a phone screen where questions are asked about your experience, another is a remote coding assignment that tests your proficiency in the skills and experience you have along with your suitability and aptitude for the job you are applying for. An in-person interview should also be prepared where you will be asked behavioral and technical questions and will have the opportunity to ask your own questions.
It’s helpful to break down your technical knowledge into categories and tailor it to the specific job you’re applying for. For example, if you’re applying for a position primarily related to cybersecurity, look at your problem-solving skills and how you can adapt your skills to respond to real-time threats while also restoring preventive measures. Likewise, if you’re applying for a role that uses Kubernetes, but you’ve only used Docker, you should brush up on the differences between these cloud-based solutions.
Get ahead
If you really want to give yourself a competitive edge, a tech boot camp or refresher course is a great option to keep yourself up to date with the latest programs and processes. Codesmith offers online courses including a 12-week course and was ranked the best boot camp for coding in 2021 and 2022 by SwitchUp and Course Report in 2021 and 2022.
Alternative, Technical elevator offers 14-week courses and uses its relationship with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and startups to get its graduates employed upon completion.
Ready to increase your improved technical interview knowledge? The VentureBeat Job Board has hundreds of job openings at companies that are currently hiring, such as the three positions listed below.
Sr. Staff Cyber Security Engineer, GE Aviation, Cincinnati
The Sr Staff Cyber Security Engineer is responsible for working with core development teams to plan and deliver secure development resources across the organization. As such, you’ll work with software development teams across GE to identify and drive industry-leading patterns to create products and services and provide insights directly to developers. You will also need to focus on automation and orchestration to prevent cybersecurity risks while promoting the use of CI/CD tools to automate builds, testing and deployment. More information can be found here.
Cyber Software Remediation Engineer (Satellite/Space Systems), Northrop Grumman, Dulles
Northrop Grumman is recruiting Software Cyber Remediation Engineer at the beginning of their careers to work in a 100% agile development environment focused on ground segment and mission application software development. In this role, you will be tasked with analyzing and prioritizing findings based on mission severity and impact and planning remediation activities as part of the technical debt in the software development lifecycle (SwDLC) backlog. Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree in a STEM subject along with two years of software security experience in any industry and proficiency in C++, Java or Python. View the full job description here.
Staff Database Engineer, Ripple, San Francisco
Ripple is looking for a Staff Database Engineer to join its team. Collaborating with stakeholders across the company, including product development and business strategy, you will be responsible for designing, developing, managing and scaling enterprise-level database infrastructure to enable high-impact initiatives across the wider organization. You also design, implement and maintain complex relational database systems using Cloud Native principles and best practices to ensure highly available, secure, performant and scalable database systems. To qualify, you need a bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field, plus eight years of database design or enterprise-level operational experience. You can apply here.
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