All Of My Interviews After Coding Bootcamp
At the start of 2019, I enrolled full-time in the Data Science and Machine Learning program at Lambda School — an intense, nine-month-long coding bootcamp.
After graduating, racking up a considerable amount of data science/analytics projects over the course of the program, and interning at 2 small startups… the job search began. I’m going to show you my entire job search from start to finish as a college dropout and coding bootcamp graduate looking for my first job in the tech industry.
Job Search Stats:
Timeline: October 2020 — July 2021 (9 months)
Total # applications sent: 150–200
Total # rejected applications: 100+
Total # ghosted applications: 65+
Total # of companies interviewed: 6
Total # of interviews: 10
Total # of technical/coding interviews: 6
Total # of job offers: 1
Interview #1
Company: Deep Labs
Position: Data Analyst
Rounds of interviews: 1
Timeline: November 2020 (>1 month)
Applied via: LinkedIn
Summary: Timed take-home SQL/Python challenge
Offer: No
Round 1: Deep Labs sent me an email a month after applying, indicating that they liked my resume. Attached was a link to a HackerRank technical assessment that I had to complete. It was a timed challenge with SQL query questions, Python coding/syntax questions, and multiple choice software engineering logic questions. I wasn't prepped for SQL interview questions at the time and I failed pretty hard. NEXT!
Interview #2
Company: Galvanize
Position: Data Science Intern
Rounds of interviews: 1
Timeline: January 2021 (>1 month)
Applied via: LinkedIn
Summary: Timed take-home SQL/Python challenge
Offer: No
Round 1: Galvanize is another coding bootcamp so I was pretty confident about this one. Received an email 15 days after applying with a positive message and a link to a technical assessment (basically CodeSignal or HackerRank but via their own service) containing Python/SQL coding and syntax questions. More difficult than the Deep Labs interview even though it was an intern postition. Thought I did pretty well on this but was rejected with no feedback. ONWARD!
Interview #3
Company: Penthera
Position: Data Analyst / Product Manager
Rounds of interviews: 1
Timeline: January-February 2021 (1 month)
Applied via: LinkedIn (Premium)
Summary: Phone Screening (Zoom/Video Call)
Offer: No
Round 1: I fit the requirements of this role pretty well considering there were Product Manager responsibilities so I applied anyways. Reached out to the job poster using a premium feature on LinkedIn and this is what landed me the interview. He scheduled an intro call with me a few days later. He noted my lack of product management experience but I was able to sell myself to the point where the interviewer said “I was skeptical at first based on your experience but your chances are looking a lot better after this call”. Right as we were saying goodbye… I called him by THE WRONG NAME. His smile dropped right before the Zoom call did and that’s the last I heard from Penthera. AGAIN!
Interview #4
Company: Ritual
Position: Associate Product Manager
Rounds of interviews: 1
Timeline: February 2021 (>1 month)
Applied via: Company Website
Summary: Writing exercise/assessment
Offer: No
Round 1: 4 days after applying I was sent a writing assessment with 3 questions:
What 3–5 metrics should Ritual be focused on and why?
What is one improvement you would make to the Ritual website? How would you know if it was successful?
How does the Ritual bundle discount work? Why do you think we structured it that way?
I went HARD on these questions (especially considering my lack of PM experience) but they rejected me and didn’t respond when I asked for feedback. Was pretty bummed about this one. Glad the entire process was only nine days. ITERATE!
Interview #5
Company: Full Beaker
Position: Product Data Analyst
Rounds of interviews: 1
Timeline: March-April 2021 (1 month)
Applied Via: LinkedIn
Summary: Phone screening
Offer: No
Round 1: Thought I nailed this one. They seemed super interested in me and my background but emailed me a few days later saying that they had given the position to an employee refferal. Not too sad about this because the pay was okay at best and I did’t quite vibe with their business model… ONE MORE TIME!
Interview #6
Company: VMware
Position: Data Analyst
Rounds of interviews: 6
Timeline: March-July 2021 (4 months)
Applied via: LinkedIn
Summary: 2 phone screens. Statistics interview, SQL live coding interview, take home data analytics project, 1:1 w/ hiring manager.
Offer: YES!!!
Round 1: Got an email from a recruiter at VMware more than a month after applying asking to schedule a 45 minute phone call to discuss my background and qualifications. The call went super well (VMware is one of my absolute dream companies so I came prepared to win) and I was told during the call that I would be moving to the next round!
Round 2: During the previous phone screen I was told it would all be statistics questions and that the interview was with a Senior Data Scientist. I was also given some topics to brush up on such as types of data distributions (normal vs binomial), hypothesis testing, confidence interval, and other concepts related to statistics/analytics. Along with some questions about times I’ve worked with Python and SQL. Crushed it. Next.
Round 3: I was made aware beforehand that this would be a SQL live coding interview. Naturally this made me incredibly nervious. I spent the 8 days in between interviews preparing and managed to make it through the entire interview without failing to solve a single query. (Thank you Mode.com SQL tutorials!)
Round 4: This interview was the big one. I was given a dataset and was told to analyze it and create a 20 minute presentation that I would be giving to 8 members of the hiring committee/team I would be joining. The analysis portion of take home project took me around 10 hours to complete (statistics, data cleaning, experimentation, EDA, and KPI creation) and putting together the presentation took another 8 hours. I gave it literally everything I had. And they seemed to like it…
Round 5: I got an email from a recruiter saying that the team enjoyed my presentation and that there was likely some “good news” coming. I was a strange mix of excited and terrified for few days while waiting on a final call with the hiring manager / director of engineering. A few days later we hopped on a video call and I was given an informal offer to join VMware as a Data Analyst. An official offer letter was emailed to me a few days later and I had my first day on June 28th, 2021.