Don't Make These 4 Mistakes in Your Software Engineer Interview

A software engineer interview can be difficult. From collected feedback from job interviews and programmers, these are the four common mistakes people make in software engineer job interviews.

Software Engineer Interview Mistake #1: They jump into writing code.

Before you write code during a software engineer interview, you need to do two things:

1. Ask questions.
2. Run through examples aloud.

Job interviewers often leave out critical information, such as the sample input, output data type or how to handle edge cases. If you do not ask questions, you may not be able to implement a complete solution.

Often, job interviewers are intentionally vague or might have mentioned something you do not understand. It is essential to ask questions to fully understand the problem before starting. Run through one or two examples first.

You need to know what you will write before you start coding. Don’t jump into writing code right away.

Software engineering is about communication and working together with a team to build something. In a job interview, you are working together with the interviewer to complete a solution to the problem.

Software Engineer Interview Mistake #2: They don’t communicate.

The main goal of your job interview is to convince the interviewer you have the expertise or skills to perform well on the job.

Don’t jeopardize your chances of getting a job by communicating poorly.

Before your interview, make sure you have the background to discuss technical topics. You should be able to explain how a specific algorithm works or trade-offs between data structures, for example.

You should also be able to collect feedback and use your communication skills during your job interview.

Software Engineer Interview Mistake #3: They don’t test their code.

When you write code in a workplace, you must ensure it works. Job interviews are no different.

During the software engineer interview, you should compare the results to your expectations from one or two simple inputs and one or two edge cases line-by-line. The process helps you find bugs in your code that you might not have noticed. While you might not have an interface to run your code through or the time to write fully fleshed unit tests, finding a bug before your interviewer does can be beneficial.

Software Engineer Interview Mistake #4: They aren’t prepared.

Many software engineer candidates study or prepare for months before the job interview. Invest time into interview preparation to get started on problems with fewer hints and more confidence in your technical skills.

This article was written by Rahul Sabnis for HackerNoon and was lightly edited and published with permission.