How do I start preparing for an interview? I have 2 years experience as a software engineer, but never wrote a single code?

interviewers frequently ask applicants to complete some code test. These range from multiple choice to full on coding sessions. I’d say that Google is your friend.

How do you have two years experience as a software engineer without ever touching code? This is a tough spot to be in. Before a lot of interviews, interviewers frequently ask applicants to complete some code test. These range from multiple choice to full on coding sessions. I’d say that Google is your friend. However, some of these tests don’t allow you to even use your keyboard without aborting and failing you.

Recommendations

With this problem, I do have a few recommendations. Sadly none of these are going to give you experience overnight, but if you’re dedicated, you should find some success.

First, head over to a place like HackerRank (HackerRank) or Codewars (Codewars: Train your coding skills), either of these are fantastic practice for what you might experience before an interview.

Second, go to GitHub (Build software better, together) and find projects that utilize code like that you are looking to interview for. Fork projects, fix issues, and make pull requests back to the project. This will get you much-needed experience that you need. While your there, read through as much code as you can. Sure, not all of it is gold, but you’ll start to see what is and isn’t.

Third, build your GitHub profile. By now, you’ve read through code. You know the ins and outs of what makes for a good project (hopefully). Now would be a great time to level up and create a couple of projects on your own. Ideas are often the hardest to come up with, but by this stage, you may have found code that’s useful that’s been abandoned. You could always start your own fork and continue on the software’s legacy. If you find success with this, you could always message the original maintainer and request to take over the project. But again, this is something that takes a lot of time.

Fourth, read all that you can; blog posts, articles, tech papers, code, etc. You can never have enough knowledge, ever. Always keep learning.

The Interview Cycle

So congratulations, you’ve made it to an interview. Whew, it was a long road to get here, but you did it. Now you never know what you’re going to get when it comes to an interview. It could be a single round, but often it’s multiple. Read up on interview techniques, and have answers for common questions like “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” There are many techniques that are taught to swing interviews in your favor. But at this point, you have the experience to back up the title of software engineer. You have a wonderful GitHub account. Maybe you started blogging about your experiences learning to code. These are all assets, the separate you from the rest of the pack a bit. Just remember to be yourself. Don't ever put anything on your resume that you can't back up. If you say you can do X, there’s a good chance you’ll be grilled on X during the interview. But that won’t be a problem for you. Don’t apply to jobs outside your true experience. I don’t know what you consider yourself, but interviews only get harder the more experience you have.