Programming Interviews Exposed, 4th Edition

1Before the Search

Before starting your job search, you need to prepare yourself. You shouldn’t apply for jobs without knowing what kind of job you want. Just being a good coder isn’t enough; you must understand what the market wants and how you can improve and package your own skills to make sure that the company with the job you want will want you.

KNOW YOURSELF

Stereotypes to the contrary, all programmers are not alike. Knowing what kind of programmer you are is crucial to finding the right kind of job. Although you can probably do many different kinds of programming tasks, you probably don’t find them all equally engaging. Doing something you don’t enjoy is fine on a short-term basis, but you need to be interested in and excited by what you’re doing for it to sustain you over the long term. The best programmers are passionate about their work, and you can’t truly be passionate about something that’s only moderately interesting to you.

If you’re not sure what you like or dislike, ask yourself some questions:

• Are you a systems programmer or an application developer? Systems programmers work on the code that keeps computer systems running: frameworks, tools, compilers, drivers, servers, and so on. Other programmers are their primary audience, so little interaction occurs with nonprogrammers—and usually the job involves little or no user interface work. Application developers, on the other hand, work on the pieces that those nonprogrammers use to do their own work, and often ...