Anita Duong

I don’t care how “clean” your code is. If you aren’t coachable, you aren’t hirable. Last week, a SWE candidate got glowing remarks across all their technical rounds. Many of the interviewers thought he should be up-leveled. Then we heard about the behavioral. “He was pretty arrogant about Agile.” Silence. “Now that you mention it, he wasn’t very receptive to my feedback on his API design either.” More silence. “He’s super talented, but he’d require significant coaching.” The Hiring Manager chimed in: “Are we sure that’s going to be possible?” Finally, I came off mute. “I’d rather hire a coachable L1 with decent skills, than an arrogant L2 who can lap me in a code sprint.” No offer was given. We forwarded the candidate our honest feedback, hoping he might course correct and apply again 6 months later. He never responded. Understand: Feedback is the very soul of great software development. From both customers and teammates. If you can’t receive it, clean code can’t save you. --- P.S. I'm offering free 1:1 mentorship calls for select Junior SWEs in the industry who want help earning their first promotion. If you value feedback like I do and you're hungry to improve, find a time here: https://lnkd.in/eaKzTEux

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I’ve seen talented engineers getting rejected because they couldn’t optimally solve a Leetcode problem in '10 minutes' I don’t like this approach. In fact, I hate it. There’s no creativity and no real gauging of real-life problem-solving. People are doing 100s problems in the name of interview prep, almost memorizing the solutions. The best software engineers I know or work with don’t need to be an expert in every algorithm. They excel at: - working well with others as a team - bringing new & fresh ideas to solve problems - get creative and mold existing tech into solutions - thinking about the end user and optimizing their work All of these are quite important for a successful project. True excellence as an engineer goes far beyond Leetcode problems. Communication, creativity, and a deep understanding of product development should also be considered. Do you also feel the interview process is broken?

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Code Review Drama 👀 Code reviews are like reality TV... Reviewer: “What’s this? You used 3 for loops!?” 😱 Me: Narrator voice “It was at this moment... they realized.” 🎬 Pro Tip: Optimize your code using built-in methods like map, reduce, and avoid unnecessary loops. Clean code = happy reviewers! #CodeReview #CleanCode #DevLife

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Software Engineering is still as much of an art as it is engineering. Writing an elegant algorithm or writing code that reads like prose is magic and just so fulfilling. Y'all know the feeling. You could've shipped that first draft, but instead, you iterate, refine, and polish until you're not just satisfied, but excited to merge and share your work. YOU have created this beautiful thing and release it out into the world 🪄 #softwareengineering #building #art #engineering

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You know what my SE bootcamp DIDNT teach me? 👇 1.) Reading comprehension will make or break a good dev. From reading documentation, to reading slack instructions from your senior dev, if you are a fast reader like me, you will probably want to slow down and really take your time, gliding over one or two words can totally change the meaning of either. 2.) Test code. Writing test code is an important step and it wasn't really talked about in my bootcamp. But in my experience, it is something repetitive and fairly easy that a junior dev can do to learn the code base and what it does on a deep level. 3.) Other ways code is used. You will RARELY be building a website from scratch in your professional dev life. If I was running a bootcamp, I would have a functional mock legacy code that everyone could fork off and I would be giving them fake tickets to complete instead of building cool looking websites for every project. I would also have them use code to automate a process or send out an automated report, this would have been a very useful to practice jumping in and solving real problems with code. I loved my bootcamp and its instructors, this is just my two cents. Happy Thursday!

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