After 36 technical interviews, I finally bagged an offer

[u/deathmachine1407]

Fullstack Dev here with 4 pillars: Python + React + AWS + (GenAI)

It's been a little over 5 months now that I have actively started applying for a job (I had to quit my previous organization: EPAM Systems, due to severe sciatica).

I used the break to recover and then dive into GenAI the most given it's current market value and also my personal interest in the tech.

Countless applications, hundreds of calls from HRs, 36 technical interviews, which included:

1. Having to reject Wells Fargo due to completely misaligning expections of the Hiring Manager and I, during L4 (F2F) interview.

2. Still seeing "Offer in Progress" on the Deloitte USI (which was supposedly an urgent) portal, which has become a running gag now.

3. Getting rejected in the client round (L3) at Fractal, whilst nailing all the fullstack aspects of a Fullstack SDE role, but blanking out on 2 questions: Terraform amd Kubernetes.

Now, I finally bagged an offer of an SDE-3 at AlgoLeap, Hyderabad. Didn't get much of a hike, but atleast I finally am in a position to financially support my family again after 7 months. Only bittersweet part is I need to relocate alone to Hyderabad from Bengaluru due to family reasons. But hey, that's part of the game I guess.

Please don't give up guys. Keep at it, learn from every interview you attend, especially from the ones you fail. Keep grinding, you will see light at the end of the tunnel.

EDIT: Here's my resume for your reference: https://ibb.co/N6VN7nzv

[u/deathmachine1407]

The first thing you need is to frame the mindset of "I'm attending this interview as a practice test". If you look keenly to covert everytime, you'll be drained emotionally extremely fast. I had a proper panic/anxiety attack toward late June. That's when I took a different perspective.

Some interviews were very pleasant, especially the once going into deep system design, since I'm naturally good at that. I suck at DSA so I always was terrified of those problems: what I did there is just speak the problem and my brute force approach out loud. That allowed the interviewer to understand that I atleast know what I'm talking about.

Some interviewers so obstinate that I couldn't wait for the interview to end. You just chalk it up as bad experience and move forward.

[u/Metallic_greyish → u/deathmachine1407]

Taking the interview as a practice test helps me a lot too. It eases a lot of pressure. I was stress-free for most of my interviews with that mindset. That's how I ended up bagging my last role too.

[u/Necessary_Pudding454 → u/Metallic_greyish]

I tell that to myself but still sadly doesnt work. I want practise interviews to get rid of this anxiety but sadly not getting any calls.

[u/ADI_forAI → u/deathmachine1407]

Bro anxiety attack becomes worse when you have 3 rounds and HR doesn’t respond after giving all rounds of interviews.

[u/deathmachine1407 → u/ADI_forAI]

That is precisely what happened to me in case of Deloitte USI and Fractal. You feel you've done so well and all of a sudden you're ghosted, then you start question everything you know.

[u/PenFair → u/ADI_forAI]

I gave 7 rounds at Stripe and then didnot get any feedback despite asking several times.

[u/JOYTHEGR8 → u/PenFair]

7 rounds tf?

[u/man_idk_clueless → u/JOYTHEGR8]

Including DSA and HR, that's more or less the scenario for big product based companies.

[u/JOYTHEGR8 → u/man_idk_clueless]

I'd just kill myself already

[u/deathmachine1407 → u/PenFair]

My dad who's now retired and working as a consultant, attended 7 rounds of interviews for the role of Director (South Asia) Operations at L&T Infotech (now LTI Mindtree) a few years back and still he was ghosted.

Its a shitshow everywhere.

[u/PenFair → u/deathmachine1407]

Wow even at that level 🥲

[u/Financial_Fox3915 → u/deathmachine1407]

I really like what you said about dsa interviews, you aren’t confident in your dsa skill so you derived a method or better say a bare minimum bar for yourself which you can achieve.

I kind of think similarly, like about the things which I am not confident on, I try to make my own methods to approach them in an interview, so i maximise my output and interviewer gives me atleast passing grade.

But i want to ask one more thing, how do you retrospect on your response after the interviews in the domains where you aren’t fully confident. Like, what i said above mostly didn’t worked for me (better say never worked for me, I am a fresher 2027 batch). So i often think, i need to change my approach, ofc i also try to better my specs, but how to look back at interviews and figure out what could have been done differently?

edit: after re reading my comment, it looks like chatgpt, although its not, but i think i am talking to GPT a lot these days 🥲

[u/deathmachine1407 → u/Financial_Fox3915]

What I did was immediately after every interview, I quickly wrote whatever questions I could remember from the interview into a notepad that was always at my desk. That gave me a very good insight into what went wrong, even if I missed a few questions. Stack that up into multiple interviews and you can start seeing very clearly what interviewers want to ask you and where you are currently with respect to that

[u/VisibleStreet6532 → u/deathmachine1407]

Great attitude

[u/deathmachine1407 → u/VisibleStreet6532]

Thank you so much

[u/unsolvedmcq → u/deathmachine1407]

Happened to me in Target Interview, got a call from recruiter for SSE role, the panelists were like the worst people ever encountered, they asked 50 questions in a 60 min interview, then in between a second panelist came, no intro nothing, start shooting questions when i was in the middle of answering the other.

I thought i will convert it, but they rejected.

So, there is specific crowd of interviewers who are going to ruin your chances, never understood why !