Technical mock
A coding or system design problem run the way the round runs: you drive, I probe, and we stop with ten minutes left so the feedback is specific rather than general. You get the signal an interviewer would have written down.
Free 30-minute sessions
Interview prep for big tech
One-to-one sessions for engineers working toward a loop at a large tech company: the coding rounds, the design round, and the behavioural round that decides more offers than candidates expect. Thirty minutes, no charge.
What a session can be
Pick one when you book. Thirty minutes is enough for one of these done properly, and not enough for two.
Behavioural mock
Two or three questions of the kind that open a behavioural round, then a read on what your answers actually demonstrated. This is the round strong engineers most often lose, usually by describing a team's work instead of their own decisions.
Interview preparation
What to study and in what order, given the loop you are facing and the time you have left. Most candidates over-prepare algorithms and under-prepare design and behavioural, and the ratio is fixable.
Career advice
Whether to switch, what level to target, how an offer compares, or how a CV reads to the person screening it. Bring the decision you are stuck on.
Who this is for
Worth booking if
- Engineers with a loop already booked who want to rehearse under time pressure rather than read more advice.
- Engineers a few months out who want a study order instead of a reading list, and an honest read on which round will fail them first.
- Engineers switching from a smaller company or from research, where the format is unfamiliar even when the engineering is not.
What it is not
- A referral. I do not have one to give, and a referral from a stranger is worth less than a prepared candidate.
- Questions from any company's actual question bank. I would not pass those on if I had them.
- A guarantee. Nobody can offer one, and an hour with me changes your preparation, not the committee.
How it works
-
Book a slot
Pick a time and say which of the four you want, plus one or two lines of context: the company stage, the round, the date.
-
Send anything relevant first
A CV, a job description, or the problem you fell over last time. Thirty minutes goes further when I have read something beforehand.
-
Thirty minutes, one to one
Video call. Mocks run to the clock on purpose, because the time pressure is the part that is hard to practise alone.
-
Written notes afterwards
A short summary of what I would work on next, so the session is something you can act on a week later.
Where this comes from
Seven years building distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and embedded firmware, most recently as a Software Development Engineer at AWS, and earlier at Samsung Research. I have been on both sides of the table, built the contest platform the ICPC runs for more than fifty thousand students a year, and chaired programme committees for two international conferences.
Book a session
Thirty minutes, one to one, no charge. Choose a time below, and say in the notes which of the four you want and what you want out of it — the more specific, the better the thirty minutes goes.
Open the booking calendar on Cal.com
(opens in a new tab)
Loading the calendar here. The link works either way.
Sessions are free while I have the time for them. Times are shown in your own timezone, and you will get a confirmation and a calendar invite straight away.