Whether you work in finance or the food industry, 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 tech, the bar has been elevated even higher. That’s according to data compiled by interviewing.io, a technical mock interview platform, which has found that tech job applicants now must do 15% better in a technical interview than they did in 2022 in order to get hired.
Power shift
This is arguably down to one primary factor: layoffs. Since the beginning of 2023, 436 tech companies have laid off 122,341 workers globally with the likes of 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 uncovered software engineers are now feeling the pinch, a sector that had seemingly remained robust despite periods of company restructuring and reduction of staff members.
What to do
So what can engineers who are looking for a new job do to ensure they up their technical interview game and secure a coveted job offer? Employment site Indeed advises that candidates should prepare for three different interviews.
One is a phone screen where questions about your experience will be asked, another is a remote coding assignment which will test your proficiency in the skills and experience you have along with your aptitude and ability for the job you’re interviewing for. An in-person interview should also be prepped for, where you’ll be asked behavioral and technical questions and will have the opportunity to ask questions of your own.
It’s helpful to break your technical knowledge down into categories, and tailor it to the specific job you’re interviewing for. For example, if you’re interviewing for a position that is mostly concerned with cybersecurity, home in on your problem-solving skills and how you can adapt your skillset to respond to real-time threats while also reinstating preventative measures. Similarly, if you are applying for a role that uses Kubernetes but you’ve only used Docker, you’ll need to brush up on the differences between these cloud-based solutions.
Getting ahead
If you really want to give yourself a competitive edge, a tech bootcamp or refresher course is a great option to get yourself up to speed on the latest programs and processes. Codesmith offers online courses including a 12-week course and was ranked as the number-one best coding bootcamp in 2021 and 2022 by SwitchUp and Course Report respectively.
Alternatively, Tech Elevator offers 14-week courses, and uses its relationship with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and startups to place its graduates in employment upon completion.
Ready to flex your improved technical interview knowledge? The VentureBeat Job Board has hundreds of opportunities in companies that are currently hiring, like the three jobs below.
Sr Staff Cyber Security Engineer, GE Aviation, Cincinnati
The Sr Staff Cyber Security Engineer is responsible for partnering with core development teams to plan and deliver secure development resources within the organization. As such, you will collaborate with software development teams across GE to establish and drive industry-leading patterns to create products and services and provide insights directly to developers. You will also be required to focus on automation and orchestration to prevent cyber security risks while promoting the utilization of CI/CD tools for automating builds, testing and deployment. Get more details here.
Cyber Software Remediation Engineer (Satellite/Space Systems), Northrop Grumman, Dulles
Northrop Grumman is recruiting Software Cyber Remediation Engineer at the start of their career to work in a 100% agile development environment focused on ground segment and mission application software development. In this role you’ll be tasked with analyzing and prioritizing findings based on severity and mission impact and plan remediation activities as part of technical debt in the software development lifecycle (SwDLC) backlog. Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree in a STEM subject along with two years’ software security experience in any industry and proficiency in C++, Java or Python. See the full job description here.
Staff Database Engineer, Ripple, San Francisco
Ripple is seeking a Staff Database Engineer to join its team. Partnering with stakeholders across the company including product development, and business strategy, you’ll be responsible for designing, developing, managing and scaling enterprise level database infrastructure in order to power high-impact initiatives across the broader organization. You’ll also design, implement, and maintain complex relational database systems with Cloud Native principles and best practices to ensure highly available, secure, performant and scalable database systems. To be considered you’ll need a Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field plus eight years’ of database design or enterprise class operational experience. You can apply here.
For more opportunities across tech, visit the VentureBeat Job Board today
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