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      in Talent Acquisition

      Ace Your Engineering Manager Interview: A Comprehensive Guide to Prepare

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      Engineering Manager interviews may feel the most challenging in the tech industry. They require you to have a well-rounded balance of technical, people, and business skills. 

      Just remember, you wouldn’t have come this far if it weren’t for your leadership ability and experience driving company success! This interview is your opportunity to demonstrate your capabilities and your passion for guiding other engineers to bring results. 

      Hired Engineering Manager Prakash Patel reflects on his experience, saying: “My success is measured by the performance of my team and my individual reports. My goal is to develop technical excellence across the company as an EM. I enjoy driving project execution but I make sure my individual reports receive exciting, diverse responsibilities in a way that infuses the company’s culture with our team.”

      To help you, we’ve collaborated with our partner Educative to fully prep you for your next Engineering Manager interview. 

      What this Engineering Manager Interview Guide Covers

      1. How to prepare for Engineering Manager interviews

      We start by breaking down the typical EM interview process to give you a better sense of what to expect.

      2. How to perform well during Engineering Manager interviews

      We help you understand the purpose and expectations of each area so you can put your best foot forward.

      3. Sample interview questions

      Get a sneak peek into potential interview questions in this chapter. We offer examples of technical people management, and behavioral questions you may encounter.

      4. Helpful resources

      By now, you’re well on your way to impressing interviewers. Use this compilation of articles and courses for a deeper dive into refining your interview skills. More

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      in Talent Acquisition

      Tech Candidate Spotlight – Karina Celis, Engineering Manager

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      Let’s kick off by hearing a bit about your educational background! 

      I studied Computer Engineering in my hometown of Caracas, Venezuela at the University of Simon Bolivar. Later, I did a Master’s in Online Marketing in Madrid, Spain at ESDEN College. I believe in our field we need to improve and keep up with technology every day. So, I try to do courses on programming languages or management skills and do Katas every now and then. 

      My university experience taught me the most important things for my career. I remember clearly what my first algorithm professor told us in our first class. He said, “Forget everything you have learned so far on programming if you know anything at all. Here, you will really learn all you need to know to succeed. You will learn to solve a problem, think logically, and then apply any language to it.” Boy, he was telling the truth!

      I learned to deeply understand languages, take the best of them, and work around the bad to make them great! I learned to write effective, efficient code and be critical of key functionalities and behaviors. Even today, 14 years since I graduated, I find my education to be the base of every single situation.

      What would you like to learn more about?

      I am constantly reading about Cloud Technologies, AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure! Also – plus new monitoring and reporting tools. Today’s world is not meant for failure. We have no patience when it happens. It is important to achieve low latency and high availability in all our systems. We want to make sure we are on top of any failures and can fix them promptly. 

      What led you to pursue a career in tech?

      When I was 13 years old, around 1998, we got our first computer at home. It was a 3GB hard drive, Intel 3. It was the best we could get at the time. My aunt’s boyfriend was a Software Engineer working at Unisys. He lent it to her so she could work on her degree thesis. One day it broke down and the system was not booting. My aunt was in a crisis because months of work was lost.

      I sat next to her boyfriend, watching him fix it. He re-installed the software and recovered the data. I was fascinated by this! That day I asked him, “What do I have to study to do what you do?” It was Computer Engineering. I set a goal in life to understand and work on that black box machine. I wanted to make sure it was always up and running and doing everything right to help others achieve their goals. 

      How has your skill set evolved over the course of your career?

      Since graduating, I’ve had several roles:

      Full Stack Engineer at an E-com company in Venezuela (Python and Django)

      Front-end and TV App Engineer at a startup in Madrid (Samsung SDK written in JavaScript and Java in the Back-end)

      Technical Support Engineer at SmartADServer, which is a great company to work for! (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Every now and then, I read Android and Apple apps code)

      Front-End Engineer at eDreams Odigeo (JavaScript and an in-house version of Angular). Then, I had the chance to move up the ladder as Team Leader in that company before moving to London.

      I learned so many technologies over the years and even now as a manager, I continue to do so. In my new role, my team mostly uses C# for day-to-day work. This is a language I have not worked with yet so I am looking forward to learning! 

      Related: Engineering Manager or IC? Which Tech Career is Best for Me? (Video)

      If you chose to specialize in one area, what was it and why?

      I chose to specialize in people. I help them become better Software Engineers, work effectively on a team, and hopefully grow as people too. As an Individual Contributor, I learned how much managers can impact your career. If I can make a difference in helping others achieve their goals, why not do it?

      Related: Code Your Career: Staying Competitive in the Developer Job Market (VIDEO)

      Is your new role different from previous ones?

      I changed industries. My previous role was at Expedia, a travel company. Now, I am moving into Fintech. I will still hold the Engineering Manager role but will work with different languages and manage a different team size.

      What are some of the things you’re most excited about in your new role?

      I have always been very cautious about roles in the finance world. I think traditional, older banking companies can be intimidating. But there is something about tech companies specializing in finance that intrigued me. In this industry, the software is prioritized – good, reliable, efficient software – and I’m all for that.

      What was your job search experience like before you joined Hired?

      There were usually two ways of looking for a new job. First, lots of recruiters contacting via LinkedIn. It would be endless amounts of calls with them. Then, the waiting. It sometimes felt like ages before I would finally hear back from the hiring managers to start the process.

      The second way was to apply directly to companies or go to job post sites like LinkedIn. I’d submit my CV and cover letter. Then I’d wait until one day (after I completely forgot about that job application!) I received an email from the company to begin the process.

      In summary, it was a waiting game. I must add though, I met incredible people through these searches and have collaborated with them on other endeavors. I am thankful for each and every minute all recruiters and HR professionals spent with me or on me!

      What’s your best advice for jobseekers registered on the Hired platform? 

      With Hired, the coin is flipped. You are not looking, you are being looked at. Make sure you are presenting your experience in a way that makes companies curious about you.

      Here are a few tips:

      Give constant, quick responses (even if it is a thank you or a no, thank you). 

      Salaries are negotiable, so put your expectation on the table and hear the company out. 

      Inquire about the hiring process if it is not mentioned in the first contact email or initial conversation.

      With Hired, it’s true you can find a job in less than a month. In fact, you can even find one as quickly as two weeks – I’ve done that twice! 

      Any general advice you’d like to give other tech professionals?

      Learn to solve problems, not just how to work on a specific language. Tech evolves every day but that’s not necessarily the same for logic. Also, listen to other people’s ideas. You never know who might help you see a problem in a different way!

      Congrats on the job, Karina! Interested in landing a great role in the UK like Karina did? Complete your free profile on Hired today!

      About TrueLayer

      TrueLayer is building universal APIs that allow companies to access the financial data of their end-user and initiate direct bank payments, securely, reliably, and efficiently. Founded in 2016, TrueLayer has 51-200 employees and is headquartered in London.

      Tech Stack

      .NET Core, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Python, TypeScript, React, C#

      Benefits

      Stock options, paid time off, work-from-home flexibility, management training, employee discount programs, and more. More

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      in Talent Acquisition

      Tech at Devoted Health: The Power of Collaborative Problem-Solving (VIDEO)

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      Devoted Health is on a mission to change the face of US healthcare for seniors. Watch this on-demand webinar from the Get Hired Summit to hear from members of the Devoted Health tech teams. 

      They discuss how their obsession with leverage balanced with pragmatism enables better healthcare for America’s elders, and what they look for when searching for folks to join the team. They also share the areas remaining constant (a culture of collaborative problem-solvers) and the areas where change is the constant (based on specific needs or circumstances).

      You’ll hear from these Devoted Health team members:

      Related: Hired’s 2022 List: Top Employers Winning Tech Talent  

      Read an excerpt of the conversation here and scroll down to access the full webinar. 

      What are some of the projects your teams are working on right now? 

      Jennifer 

      There’s a lot going on across the organization. I work closely with Devoted Medical. Over the last few years, we’ve started a number of programs and clinical interventions for our membership. This includes diabetes manager prevention programs and our intensive home care program, which works closely with our most complex members who have a lot of comorbidities and some functional limitations. There’s a lot going on to try to make their lives better by improving their medical experience. 

      I’ve been here four years, which more or less maps with when we started taking care of people. We’ve had enough members go through some of those programs to where we’re able to zoom out and investigate what is working well and what isn’t. That way we can make decisions about where to grow our programs and how to expand those effective interventions to other markets.

      I’ve personally been focused a lot on program effectiveness for the last month or so. We’re also devoting a lot of effort right now toward effectively and efficiently working with both our members and their physicians to make sure their medications are accessible and affordable. We’re working with the product, operations, and engineering colleagues to identify opportunities for automation like SMS reminders, but also understand and predict what members are most in need of. Given how quickly we’re able to build our software, we’re always focused on building and maintaining a robust data warehouse in an analytics layer that keeps up with all our workflows and data model improvements and allows a lot of self-serve across the organization.

      Ted

      I’m most excited about scaling and better utilizing the pipeline of medical documentation that we get. This whole healthcare system is a really challenging logistical process. It’s really important that we know as much about our members as we can so we can get them the right care at the right time. 

      Internally, we have a ton of integration set up with different provider groups and different sources of medical data that we ingest into our system. We’re starting to realize we have a lot of things but it’s getting more and more difficult to make sure folks inside Devoted are able to find those things appropriately. I get really excited about it because it’s this huge pipeline of data all the way to acquiring more documentation and setting up more types of integrations. Also internally, it’s making sure we’re indexing and cataloging that documentation with useful information so we can surface to several different consumer teams the right information. 

      For example, the Devoted Medical team is very interested in any given member’s full medical history. The Stars team, which manages the quality of care metrics we submit to CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services), is focused on making sure we’re doing preventive care for our members as part of those measures. Finding evidence we’ve provided that care not only helps Devoted with our quality of care overall but also helps with the whole coordination between all those parties to make sure we aren’t duplicating efforts across our members. 

      Tell us about the tools unique to Devoted’s data science and engineering teams.

      Jennifer

      On the data side, we use Snowflake for data storage and SQL querying. We have an internal product that copies data from our Postgres database into Snowflake almost in real-time. We use DVT for our transformation layer and Airflow for scheduling. At Devoted, we migrated to Looker for our business intelligence tooling last year. We have Jupyter Hub available for in-depth analysis and model prototyping. We use both Python and R for those things depending on the project. Then we have the ML flow.

      Ted

      We use React and GraphQL for front-end layers. We use Postgres under the hood to store most of our transactional data. In the back end, we use Go as our primary coding language. For data modeling, we have a mature setup with Protocol Buffers, which is a data modeling language built by Google. We use the metadata associated with our models to generate basic front ends, our database tables, and tons of other metaprogramming concepts. I think that’s a secret sauce – the use of Protocol Buffers and meta-programming to help us stand up things really fast.

      Related: Hired Releases 2023 State of Software Engineers Report

      Watch the full panel discussion to learn: 

      Career growth at Devoted Health 

      How the teams determined their tech stack 

      The teams’ day-to-day

      Why Devoted Health is like a layer cake! More

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      in Career Hacks

      How Two Engineers Found Success with Klaviyo and Their Boston-Based Experience

      by

      When you think of an ideal internship, what comes to mind? Do you think of a sprawling office space in a big city? Maybe you imagine rooms filled with massive whiteboards and colleagues sharing ideas and making moves? Or maybe, you think of an ideal internship as a place where everyone is friends as much as they are colleagues with a fantastic work-life culture?

      If you answered yes to any of those questions, then the Boston-based e-commerce marketing automation platform, Klaviyo, may be the place for you. Their summer engineering internship is a dynamic opportunity for aspiring engineers to find their footing in the industry and get a taste of the local tech scene in the Northeast. 

      We decided to sit down with a couple of Klaviyo engineers, one of whom started as an intern, to find out what it is that makes the program so special. In our conversations with them, we discovered that the hands-on work, vibrant office space, and incredible culture at Klaviyo helped make their internship experience memorable, and their work today as engineers so satisfying.

      Building Real World Applications

      Everyone we spoke to at Klaviyo agreed that part of what makes Klaviyo’s engineering internship unique is that interns get to work on things that have real business applications and problem-solutions for the company. Klaviyo’s goal for their interns is that by the end of the summer, they will have a project they worked on where they can really see their contributions taking hold.

      Maya Nigrin, a former intern and now senior software engineer, recounted how these very real engineering endeavors and projects made her feel like she was progressing in her career.

      Maya went on to share that never felt like she was being treated like an intern or somebody that didn’t know what they were doing. The fact that she was trusted to write code, do a good job, and take on difficult projects gave her the confidence needed to grow herself both as an engineer and early career professional.

      A Vibrant Office Space

      One of the biggest headlines over the past few years at Klaviyo is without a doubt the arrival of their downtown Boston office. With multiple floors fitted with everything from coffee, beer, and snack bars, a large outdoor balcony/terrace, open format workspaces, and even arcade games, ping pong, and shuffleboard, there is little that the sprawling office space doesn’t offer.

      In our conversation with Dmitry Mamyrin, a veteran engineer with tons of experience in the industry, he remarked on how much he enjoyed the layout and overall aesthetic of the space.

      Definitely not a bad view to have while writing some code or working on a project!

      Keeping a Level Head

      For Dmitry Mamyrin, it was the way in which his fellow colleagues dealt with high-intensity situations that made him admire the culture so much. Referring to a problem he and his team were addressing, Dmitry remarked that “everyone was so cool-headed during the event.” It made him realize how much he wanted to be a part of a culture with people who, “think critically and seriously, but don’t freak out and continue the process when out-of-the-ordinary events occur.” From our conversations with Dmitry and Maya we could tell that they are impassioned engineers who work alongside a cohort of similarly passionate colleagues who love what they do and the customers they do it for.

      As Klaviyo continues to grow, so too does its summer engineering internship and the opportunity it affords everyone who participates in it. For more information on Klaviyo and internship application details head over to their company profile today! More

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      in Talent Acquisition

      My Learnings from Helping 1000 Software Engineers Negotiate Job Offers

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      As the Founder and CEO of Rora, I’ve helped thousands of tech professionals negotiate job offers over the past five years. A common theme across these conversations is that the negotiation process is shrouded in secrecy – leading job candidates to feel anxious, awkward, and afraid. 

      That’s why I’ve written the below guide – which will share negotiation strategies to help software engineers best position themselves to negotiate one offer or several.

      Why salary and job offer negotiation matters

      When people think about negotiation, it’s common for the focus to be financial. After all, not negotiating can cost you over a million dollars over the course of your career. It’s natural for getting the highest compensation possible to be your top concern. 

      Negotiating just a $5,000 increase at your first job can actually lead to a $1M difference in lifetime earnings when you take into consideration how investments compound, and how your future pay will also be higher because of higher bonuses and raises, etc.

      The chart below shows the difference negotiating a $5,000 increase in your first year can have 45 years down the line, assuming you receive a fixed annual raise each year.

      However, the process of negotiating impacts your career in more ways than just financially. Taking time to go through this process and ask the right questions gives you a chance to learn about the company and negotiate a scope, role, and mentorship that will set you up for successful growth. We’ve seen this countless times throughout our work with software engineering clients.

      What we’ve seen

      One of our clients – a Senior Software Engineer – accepted an offer but, within one year at the company, he was reorganized to different teams (and managers) four times. He quit soon after hitting the one-year mark. 

      In another unfortunate situation, an engineer interviewed for what he believed was a machine learning engineer role, complete with an interview process to match (with complex technical ML questions throughout). Upon starting his new role, he discovered that he’d spend his days doing little more than running SQL queries – it was a bait and switch. 

      What do these stories have in common? They’re prime examples of how negotiation – or the lack thereof – has a massive impact on your career. In these cases, deeper digging as part of the negotiation process would have uncovered aspects of the role that weren’t a fit and allowed the candidate to move on to something better (or ask for more money to make it worth their while). 

      In fact, we’ve seen exactly that situation: clients who initiate the negotiation process sometimes realize that the company or role they’re interviewing for is the wrong fit and continue their search, often finding a better, higher-paying role within a couple of months. 

      3 steps to an effective negotiation 

      Companies have a vested interest in hiring the right person, but they also have a financial interest in adhering to a budget. After helping over a thousand software engineers negotiate higher and better offers, I want to share three negotiation steps for productive experiences.

      Step 1: Build leverage

      Leverage your BATNA

      Your first step is to build leverage. Put simply, this is providing proof of the value you bring to the table and why the company would benefit from giving you what you’re asking for. Common examples of leverage are having competing job offers, having a very niche expertise, or not actively looking for a new job (so in order to take a new role it’d need to be particularly great).  

      What jobseekers frequently fail to do is increase their leverage, or BATNA. 

      What does BATNA mean? 

      It stands for your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.

      The best BATNA is the confidence in security outside of this one job offer. That could be in the form of self-employment or other employment security. This doesn’t mean you have to go out and start your own business from scratch just for negotiating power! It does mean, however, that your strongest negotiating power comes from having a financial and professional identity outside of a full-time job: 

      a side hustle

      freelance work

      advisor engagements

      mentorship

      volunteer commitments

      part-time work

      For example, one of our clients had been laid off and – a few months later – received an offer for a more senior role than she’d previously had. However, during the negotiation process, she picked up on some red flags along the way. Because she had ongoing freelance work on the side (even though it wasn’t paying what a full-time role would), she was comfortable enough to turn down the offer and keep looking. Seven weeks later, she received a higher offer from a better company she was much more excited to join. 

      It’s also imperative to build self-confidence: your thoughts create leverage and, over time, self-worth. Holding your standards high creates financial value. If you believe in your skills and talents and that you deserve what you’re requesting, you’ll be set up for more success.

      Related: Try Hired’s salary calculator

      Be open to possibilities 

      That said, you do need to keep your options open. It may seem exhausting to remain constantly on the lookout for your next job, but knowing you’re not tied to any one option will give you stronger leverage. Spend some time researching companies you’d like to work for and people you’d like to work with. 

      Keep track of the companies and people to stay in touch with – a simple spreadsheet should suffice – and check in with them annually. It may feel awkward or “disloyal” to your current company, but remember that your career comes first and you’re under no obligation not to explore. 

      Also, make sure not to decrease your leverage. Don’t schedule your first interviews at your top-choice companies; start with companies you’re less excited about to get some practice. At the same time, avoid glorifying companies: no company or role is perfect, and it’s always worth having options. 

      Consider the companies you’re interested in and then explore their competitors, too. Give a chance to companies that you’re less enthused about; it’s great to have a backup plan and it’s worth building your confidence by talking with companies that are interested in you.

      Finally, don’t let lifestyle creep cut into your leverage. You hold leverage by not needing to accept a wrong-fit job, so be sure you’re spending and saving wisely. While it may be tempting to spend more as you make more, be realistic and practical. When your savings and financial runway allow you to be choosy about jobs and only accept the best, you’ll be glad you did.

      Leverage the company’s BATNA

      Next, you’ll need to think past your own BATNA and dig into that of the company. This will help you better suss out how much leverage you have to negotiate. In general, jobseekers don’t do enough due diligence to understand the BATNA of the companies they’re considering and it does them a disservice when it comes to negotiating. 

      How do you do this? Ask your recruiter or potential future teammates these questions throughout the process:

      Why is this role open? 

      Did someone leave? If so, why?

      How long have they been trying to fill it? Is it urgent?

      Is the hiring manager currently back-filling this role?

      Are there any other candidates at the offer stage? How do they compare to you? 

      What are the company’s highest priorities and needs, both immediately and in the long term, that you are most equipped to help with? 

      What do they need that you don’t bring to the table? 

      You have greater leverage when the company believes their BATNA to be weak and you know yours to be strong. Their BATNA may seem weak if the role has been open a long time, is urgently needed, and you bring the necessary experience and skills to achieve their goals – and their other candidates don’t measure up. The more you know about their situation, the more leverage you have. 

      Step 2: Create and invest in building social capital

      Most engineers underestimate the impact of power and influence in negotiating a job offer. They want their skills to stand for themselves. Plus, companies design their hiring and compensation practices specifically to prevent influence – as it inherently leads to biased decisions – but power and influence play a role regardless. This shows up in a few ways.

      The individual you typically negotiate with (likely a recruiter or HR professional) is intentionally separate from the person you’ll actually work for (your manager). While this may help reduce bias (companies don’t want a manager with a strong bias toward a candidate to push for that candidate to be paid outside of what the company deems fair), it also disempowers the candidate by forcing the negotiation to be distributive rather than integrative. 

      It’s true that managers don’t usually have much control over the compensation offered, but the common refrain of “your compensation is up to HR” is a misconception. That said, the argument for higher pay can’t come from the recruiter themself; to have an effect, it needs to come from the hiring manager or leadership team. 

      A manager who is especially excited about a candidate can influence a lot more than HR or Recruiting. This includes the leveling of the role, where in the pay band (or outside of the band) an offer falls, whether the role is designated as critical, if a signing bonus is offered, deadlines, and more.  

      The significance of deadlines

      On the topic of deadlines, it’s important to be aware that the hiring manager defines offer deadlines. If a manager wants to extend your deadline for needing to make a decision, the recruiter will wait. 

      One of the most common ways recruiters create pressure and out-negotiate candidates is by setting false deadlines. In reality, timelines for interviews, offers, and start dates are much more negotiable than most candidates realize. 

      Not long ago, an engineer we worked with received word from a third-party recruiter that she needed to respond to a job offer right away – and that because she hadn’t responded yet, it showed a lack of interest in the company. 

      Rather than get caught up in the pressure, the candidate reached out to the hiring manager, who happened to be both on vacation and completely unaware of the alleged deadline. The hiring manager encouraged the candidate to take another week or two to think everything over, allowing her to close out another interview process and make the most informed decision about which opportunity was best. 

      If a company isn’t willing to be flexible and give you the time you need to think things over – what’s it going to be like to work there? This is an area where self-confidence and leverage come strongly into play: if you know your worth and what you’re willing to accept, you can push back and get what you need. 

      Step 3: Make a strategic ask

      Think beyond the money

      The biggest wins often come from non-monetary asks. Don’t focus on just your annual compensation, but on your compensation five years from now – or even further out. 

      Think like Louie Bacaj. A former engineering leader at Jet.com, Louie has published his earnings over time. At first glance, it looks like a consistently steady increase, but if you look closer you can see some strategic decisions that kept his pay stagnant – or even slightly reduced – in the short term, but ultimately led him to a huge opportunity with a high payoff. 

      For example, when he joined Jet.com in 2015 he actually took a step down in pay – and made a lateral move in terms of title. However, he had learned that the new role would give him management experience and he was really excited about joining a startup on the ground floor. Within two years, he’d surpassed his previous earnings and had more than doubled them within four years. 

      As counter-intuitive as it may be for me, as someone who owns a negotiation company to say: sometimes, the non-monetary aspects of a role – and where it will take your career – are worth a temporary step down in pay. 

      Level up

      Another non-monetary area to consider in your negotiations is level. This may require additional interviews but often pays off! 

      Recently, an engineering leader was offered a Senior Engineering Manager position at a Series B startup but asked to be considered for a Director-level position. After four more interviews, she received a Director offer. Not only did she end up with a $50K/year pay increase, but she also got the satisfaction of knowing she was joining at the right level. 

      Avoid a bad fit

      We’ve also had clients identify bad or wrong-fit jobs through the negotiation process, saving them from the stress of finding out once they’ve already started. One client negotiated with a CEO who was increasingly uncommunicative, so the client rejected the offer – and found out soon after that the person he’d report to would be leaving the company. 

      Collect career capital

      Career capital – the skills, connections, and experiences that set you up for future success – should also be an area of focus. Just like Louie Bacaj, you may find that while a role isn’t a massive increase in compensation, it brings connections or credentials that will help you grow (and maximize your earning potential) in the future. 

      Freedom in flexibility

      Of course, you shouldn’t forget flexibility. The ability to work remotely (or even part-time)  can have an impressive impact on your mental health and family life – or give you time to focus on that side hustle and keep increasing your BATNA! 

      It all comes back down to leverage; this applies to how you should (or shouldn’t) evaluate a career option. Two important variables to assess here are:

      The role scope/opportunity for you to make an impact 

      The company’s opportunity for growth and impact 

      The best career choices are those that offer the chance to make the highest impact or provide the opportunity to be paid to learn. Over time, this leads to financial gain.

      Take smart risks

      In our experience helping thousands of people negotiate, the data shows less than a 1% chance of losing your offer from negotiating. To further reduce that More

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      in Talent Acquisition

      Tech Candidate Spotlight: Nathan Reynolds, Integration Engineer

      by

      Thanks for joining, Nathan! Let’s start by talking about your educational background.

      I have a relatively traditional path in technology. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. After a few years of working, I got an MBA to advance my career.

      My MBA was surprisingly more impactful than my Bachelor’s degree. It’s helped prepare me for customer-facing roles like implementation.

      What would you like to learn more about?

      I’m always interested in learning more about web development, technologically.

      As for interests outside of the tech realm, I am constantly learning more and more about coffee. My next adventure will probably be in roasting my own beans!

      Related: Thinking About a Career Transition? General Assembly’s 4 Immersive Tech Programs to Help You Pivot

      What led you to pursue a career in tech?

      I’ve always been interested in computers. My first aspiration was to be a game developer. I eventually discovered I prefer B2B software because it allowed for more varied work. It is also an industry that is easier to build a career in.

      How has your skill set evolved throughout your career?

      I started my career in a traditional IT role maintaining servers, updating old applications, and fielding service requests. Then, I eventually moved into implementation and fell in love. I have continually learned new technologies throughout my career starting with a Java/Weblogic/Oracle SQL stack and moving into React/Node/Kotlin/Postgres. I’m always expanding my skill set!

      Related: Hired Releases 2023 State of Software Engineers Report

      Is your new role different from previous ones?

      I’m now an integration engineer rather than an implementation engineer. Much of my work will remain the same but with a slightly different focus. The industry I’m working in is very closely related too — B2B software.

      What are some of the things you’re most excited about in your new role?

      I’m excited to work at a business with a counter-recessionary business proposition. I’m looking forward to helping businesses optimize their costs and weather economic hardships.

      What’s your best advice for jobseekers on the Hired platform? 

      Really tailor your resume to the specific type of role you want. Being as specific as possible helps recruiters pick up the keywords they’re trained to look for.

      Related: Want More Interviews and Better Matches? 5 Key Tips!

      What would you tell someone curious about Hired?

      You have, literally, nothing to lose. It is nice having companies reach out to you rather than constantly sending out dozens of applications daily. That being said, you still need to put forth an effort to land the job.

      Any general advice you’d like to give other tech professionals?

      Be open to learning new things. Don’t over-fit to any one position. You may think your end goal is one specific position but trying other things will allow you to validate that idea.

      About Pricefx

      Pricefx provides the leading SaaS Pricing Platform with best-in-class Price Management, Optimization, and CPQ capabilities covering all key processes for B2B and B2C companies. Founded in 2011, Pricefx has 501-1,000 employees and is headquartered in Chicago.

      Tech Stack

      Java, Groovy, JavaScript, Spring, ETL, AWS, JSON, React, REST, SOAP

      Benefits

      Health/dental/vision/life/disability insurance, maternity/paternity benefits, 401k plan/matching, mental health benefits, paid time off, mentorship opportunities, management training, and more. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Talent Acquisition

      Tech Candidate Spotlight: Rory Scott, Leader, Software Engineering

      by

      Let’s kick off by talking about your educational background!

      I have a degree in Sociology and Media Studies. I am a self-taught/mentored software engineer and started in this industry in the data and ETL space. Then, I gradually shifted to infrastructure and back-end development, eventually going into people management.

      Which educational opportunities have made the biggest impact on your tech career? 

      Connecting with the people around me and being able to spot opportunities in companies is where I’ve had the most success. I’ve actually been able to drive my own career growth more than educational opportunities have. The biggest educational impacts I have had were on a mentorship and opportunistic basis.

      Related: Job Searching? Online Networking Strategies to Get you Started

      What would you like to learn more about?

      I stopped studying jazz guitar in college and wish I had stuck with it a little more. I consider myself a pretty good player and would love to dive into that space again.

      What led you to pursue a career in tech?

      I traditionally worked with very small companies where I had to wear many hats. As a data person, I often didn’t have software, tooling, QA, or infrastructure engineers to help build what I needed. It was often up to me and my team(s) to fill those gaps. It wasn’t always pretty or elegant but we learned a lot and got the job done. This paved the road for my career in tech.

      How has your skill set evolved over the course of your career?

      It has evolved immensely. I started out only being an excel expert, automated through macros, then moved on to database management. Then, I went on to automate ETL, build services to automate the data munging, and finally, build internal platforms for other software teams to use. 

      If you choose to specialize in one area, what was it and why?

      Developer Productivity is a space I am extremely passionate about. I’ve seen really good platforms, really bad platforms, and just about everything in between. For engineers who have never been able to experience what life could be like with a solid platform, I love showing them how their life can be improved, bottlenecks removed, and wait times reduced to virtually nothing.

      Is your new role different from previous ones?

      It’s actually very similar to my previous role. I am managing a platform team made up of a handful of extremely talented folks. However, in some ways it is different. For example, instead of being globally distributed, the team is centralized in one US state. The industry is also very different. Instead of retail, we work with security.

      What are some of the things you’re most excited about in your new role?

      Using my interviewing process as a basis, both the team and my manager are extremely good at and passionate about what they do. They care deeply about people and enjoy many of the same cultural ideals that I have. That includes empathy, empowerment, and psychological safety.

      What was your job search experience like before you joined Hired?

      Before Hired, the process was what you’d expect. You’d send many resumes and cover letters, hoping to hear back from a percentage either way. Once you could speak with someone, it was typically pretty positive, but it was a percentage-based game if you didn’t have a referral.

      What’s your best advice for jobseekers registered on the Hired platform? 

      I had more than one really good experience with the Hired platform. My advice for others would be to trust it, use it, and not neglect common courtesies in terms of speaking with people — that goes for whether the opportunity seems like a good fit or not. 

      What would you tell someone who’s curious about Hired?

      I would 100% recommend it and would use it again. It’s a passive way to cast a wide net. You know that anyone who reaches out to you has a real need and wants to talk to you.

      Any general advice you’d like to give other tech professionals?

      Tech is fun, exciting, and always changing. One thing that shouldn’t change, however, is how we treat each other. To quote my favorite characters: “Be excellent to each other. Party on dudes.”

      About Cisco

      Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible. Founded in 1984, Cisco has 5,001+ employees and is headquartered in San Jose.

      Tech Stack

      Python, Spark, Javascript, React, AWS, Kubernetes, Java, Go, Docker, Microservices, Kafka, iOS, Android, Kotlin, Kibana, Datadog, Terraform

      Benefits

      Health/dental/vision/life/disability insurance, 401k plan/matching, tuition reimbursement, paid time off, stock options, employee discount programs, job training, and more. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Career Hacks

      The IoT Adventures of One T-Mobile Engineer – From Intern to Product Manager

      by

      From LEGO® and iPads to some of the most complex engineering products in the world, Hari Annamraju has always been interested in the way things are built. For someone like Hari, it was never enough to stand on the sidelines as a student or an impassioned fan. He wanted to live the engineering life and every aspect of it.

      Luckily for Hari, fortune found its way to introduce him to T-Mobile and the company’s revolutionary aspirations in developing and emerging technology. Although he started his career with T-Mobile as an intern, he is now working as an IoT Product Manager Intern spearheading some of the bravest innovations in engineering.

      Given Hari’s incredible three years with T-Mobile, we were eager to chat with him about why he chose to pursue the internship, what he’s learned since being there, and what he hopes to do with his experiences.

      From chasing what he’s passionate about and getting second-to-none exposure to growing as a leader and making lifelong friends, this is Hari’s story as a T-Mobile intern.

      Pursuing a Meaningful Passion

      One thing Hari reiterated during our interview is that passion is one of the most important things someone can have. It was clear that he was brimming with plenty himself.

      The year was 2020 and the gloom of quarantine was just beginning to break the horizon. But in these dark times, something became illuminated to Hari. He noticed that this was a time when everyone wanted to be connected and people were craving human interaction more than ever. 

      When he finally came across T-Mobile, a light went off in his head. What better time to join a company connecting people across the country than now?

      With his ambitions in engineering coming to a head with a new-found pursuit of preserving human connection, Hari dove headfirst into T-Mobile’s emerging technologies internship.

      Second-to-none Experiences

      In the three years that Hari interned at T-Mobile, he got the opportunity to work on projects that directly impacted his fellow employees as well as innovators and developers across the world.

      The first project Hari worked on was a development called Employee Connect. The question for the project was posed; how can we transform the way all 75,000 employees at T-Mobile work on a day-to-day basis?

      The answer was fearless: create software that helps employees align with corporate goals, mature in their careers, and align with one another to create seamless execution on projects and help employees see direct results that make them feel valued for their work.

      From leading scrums to flexing programming muscles that he never knew existed, Hari’s first project as a T-Mobile intern was eye-opening. It dunked him into the deep end of the pool and gave him an experience that welcomed him to the engineering industry with a splash.

      Although I was already impressed hearing about the two summers that Hari spent working on Employee Connect, it was when he started talking about a platform that would change the way developers build products that made me sit up in my chair.

      Offering both a software development toolkit and a hardware development board, DevEdge empowers developers to create the next generation of IoT products while using the Power of T-Mobile’s network. Whether you’d like to control a fleet of drones or you’re creating a mobile Bike-theft defense system, DevEdge helps designers get it done. And Hari was there to make sure that happened.

      But hands-on practical experience wasn’t all that Hari would gain during his time as a T-Mobile intern.

      What Does It Mean to Be a Leader?

      Another alluring feature of T-Mobile’s internships is that they aren’t just building future engineers, they’re building future leaders. For Hari, not a single summer went by where he didn’t find himself growing as a leader and sharpening his abilities to inspire direction.

      His first taste of leadership with T-Mobile was as a scrum master and in his contributions to the Employee Connect project. Some of this work even included him advising his senior colleagues and offering suggestions on workload management.

      It was clear that in the three years he spent at T-Mobile, Hari turned himself into someone people could really follow and take note of. In describing what it means to be a leader, Hari said that it’s not necessarily about directing people, but more so influencing their decisions. 

      The key phrasing here, to “influence someone’s decision” rather than telling them what to do, is what separates Hari apart from other young leaders. Staying humbled enough to win his peers’ respect but intelligent and adept enough to grab the reins when needed.

      While his leadership position may have been chiseled during his time in the UofMagenta program, it was when he worked as an IoT Engineering Intern in Washington state this past summer that his ability to lead really came to life. 

      Sitting in a boardroom with four of his fellow interns, looking over a view of the Seattle cityscape, Hari and his team were charged with creating a new product using their DevEdge platform. Their own “startup” as Hari referred to it with a chuckle and a grin.

      Who would be there to lead that team, none other than Hari Annamraju?

      Friendships, Networking, and an Uplifting Community

      When Hari spoke about the friendships he forged during his time at T-Mobile, it was hard not to see the company as a thriving social community as much as it was a national powerhouse in communication and tech.

      He reflected upon one of the first colleagues he befriended, someone he would chat with often on topics ranging from highly complex engineering concepts like remote controlling full-sized vehicles and fighting wildfires with 5G to banter about the Oscars.

      What was also touching about Hari’s first year at T-Mobile was the farewell he got at the end of the summer. After writing a goodbye/thank you message on the company’s messaging app, Hari was delighted to receive several reactions, comments, and responses from fellow colleagues letting him know that the feeling was very much mutual.

      It’s clear that the culture at T-Mobile is all-for-one and one-for-all, if not through Hari’s early experiences than through his recent exploits as well.

      This idea was underscored, emphasized, and by all means, punctuated by Hari’s recent interaction with a Director at the 5G Hub at T-Mobile – a division looked at as the company’s Excalibur in the world of interconnectivity.

      The conversation seemed like two friends swapping ideas in their neighborhood garage. In reality, they were discussing potentially life-changing consumer IoT applications but it carried on as a very amicable and passion-flavored exchange that two casual acquaintances would have. 

      It was then that I realized the kind of prosperous and collaborative environment that T-Mobile has created. An environment in which wins are better celebrated when stacked on top of each other.

      It didn’t matter that Hari was an intern or that he was interacting with a Director, the culture at T-Mobile purports the idea that no matter who you are or what your position is, you can work, learn, and grow with whoever you want.

      What Hari and T-Mobile also seem to purport time and time again is that anyone can do it, you just need to be passionate enough to take the chance.

      So what are you waiting for? Start browsing open roles inside and outside of T-Mobiles thriving engineering space today and take yourself from entry to executive. More