Career on

Lesson 3: Your Story — Connecting your career narrative to the role

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Almost every interview starts the same way: “So, tell me about yourself.” And almost every engineer I’ve talked to hates this question. Not because they don’t know themselves, but because it feels formless. You could say anything. You could say everything. What are they actually asking?

What they’re asking is: give me a thesis statement for why you’re sitting in this chair. Not a resume recitation. Not a biography. A thread that connects where you’ve been to why this job is the logical next step. That thread is your career narrative.

Lesson 2: Leadership and Conflict — The questions that decide senior vs mid-level

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a specific moment in every senior-level interview loop where the conversation shifts. The system design round wraps up, the coding is done, and then an interviewer leans back and asks something like: “Tell me about a time you had to push back on a product decision you thought was wrong.” Or: “Describe a situation where you disagreed with your tech lead and how you handled it.”

These are not softballs. For companies hiring at senior or staff level, behavioral questions about leadership and conflict are often the deciding signal. Everyone who makes it to that round can code. Not everyone can navigate the organizational and interpersonal dynamics of a senior role. These questions are trying to separate the two.

Lesson 1: The STAR Method — "Tell me about a time you..." and how to actually answer

Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I used to dread behavioral interviews. I was confident in system design rounds, reasonably calm under algorithm pressure, but the moment someone said “tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical decision,” I felt my brain empty out completely. I would ramble for two minutes, lose the thread halfway through, and trail off into something like “…so yeah, it worked out eventually.” Not exactly compelling.

The STAR method fixed that — not because it’s magic, but because it gives a structure that stops you from wandering. Situation, Task, Action, Result. Four buckets. Every behavioral answer you’ll ever give fits into them.