Introduction
This week, I got to interview someone within the tech industry. The name of the person that I interviewed is Taha Khan. He is a senior software engineer at Amazon, and we interviewed through the phone. I reached out and interviewed Taha since I figured he represents a good figure, or a milestone, that I myself would want to eventually meet.
I asked many questions but decided to only include the bolded ones on the bottom in this writing since they seemed the most relevant. The answers written down below may not always be exactly as physically stated since it was based on my note taking speed; however, it captures the sentiment correctly.
What did your career path look like? Did you go straight into a software engineering role?
“First job, yes. I wrote software for Northwestern Mutual, and I worked on stock stuff. Helped create an app that allowed investors to decide what to invest on. Basically, I made benchmark testing for theoretical spending and growth. I now work at Amazon working on the Alexa software”
How many applications did you apply for until you got your first job?
“Back then, I sent in about 350 applications. I eventually got my first job due to a referral from a friend. I know I know. Knowing who can refer and vouch for you is incredibly important. That’s the truth. Admittingly, I did poorly on many interviews. There weren't a lot of resources back then and LeetCode was barely ever mentioned or talked about.”
What are some of your most significant challenges in your role?
“When you start your first job, you do not have the right tools or the knowledge to survive right off the bat. Schools don’t teach you any industry knowledge or protocols since they only care about theoretical and basic foundations. This problem is compounded by the fact that a lot of US companies don’t like to provide training since they see it as a cost measure rather than as an investment. They mostly just hope that some other companies trained you first in the past… so it becomes this game of merry-go-around where they all hope someone else has trained you first. In other words, you need to pick up the pace asap and grind.”
What is some industry standard/norm changes you’ve seen so far?
“There’s two that I can think of. The type of people that’s been joining lately and the frequency in the usage of AI tools. Nowadays it seems people only join software engineering strictly for money. Secondly, the frequency of which we use AI tools for tasks has increased.”
Any industry trends you see so far?
“There is a strong distaste for outages. In the past it might have been acceptable or considered a fact of life but now it is unacceptable to have downtimes in your software, app, program, etc. The industry also wants to move onto easier to understand languages such as python. This is due to many bad products that’s been released due to complications caused by complicated languages. Simple languages are more readily accessible, learnable, and maintainable. “
What advice do you have for those who want to join the software industry?
“Always learn. You can’t be complacent in this career. In addition, always work on your problem-solving skill; however, I do want to say that not all problems require a technical solution. This is because the more you code, the more you have to support those code. Sometimes, less is better.”
Post-Interview Reflection Report
Taha was pretty straight to the point. A man who likes to be concise. I can appreciate this. The takeaway I got was that this is a rigorous career. You must constantly learn and avoid becoming complacent, or risk being laid off. Looks like joining the industry is rough as well even back then (pre-2020) just as it is now. To help me get prepared, I should make many friends, network, and build a portfolio. I’ll also have to go beyond fundamentals and delve into some specific relevant industry knowledge such as protocols and tools companies may use (or at least become familiar with). Fortunately, I already expected all of this when I decided to switch careers which helped me to mentally prepare for this reality. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, and I will still make the conscious decision to pursue this path.
An interesting snippet Taha mentioned that stuck with me was how people nowadays only join software engineering for money. I sometimes wonder if all the doom and dismay from recent graduates are simply due to them being unprepared for the actual reality. The hype trend from the pandemic days when every tech influencer boasted about making 6 figure salaries on a 10-hour work weekday really did not help either. The truth is much different. This career is not to be cruised on in auto pilot. Success requires immense work, and I will have to constantly learn and stay on top of the trend if I wish to succeed. It is a good thing that I have passion for it to begin with.
No comments:
Post a Comment