I have never had a "technical" interview.

Yes. Before we continue, I want to remind you that this article was inspired by Hashnode's weekly challenge to encourage developers to share their first interview experience and lessons learned from it.

Back to it,

I've had about 4 job interviews in the past, written, oral, but never a technical interview.

I started coding mid 2018 immediately I finished my compulsory 1 year NYSC. Prior to this time, I always had a serious phobia for coding and usually developed migraine whenever I looked at a screen filled with codes.

At this time, I had resolved to take the bull by the horn and plunge into coding because I believed I could do it this time.

I had the opportunity to intern with a hub in my city at that time. Through the internship, i was privileged to work with the tech team on internal front end projects which also involved teaching and coaching others, I was also transitioned from just an intern to a front end developer.

This lasted for a year + before I moved on for my masters program.

Alongside, I've picked up some relevant soft skills as well, leadership, team spirit, creativity, proactiveness and resilience.

I'm still on the journey of learning and practicing daily and hopeful that I'll land a technical interview soon and eventually ace it.

I still have imposter syndrome, A LOT, being that I've never had a 'real' technical interview. I find a lot of encouragement from some tech twitter personalities like Dave Thomson, Emma Bostian, Jatin Rao and a couple of others. Their words encourage me everyday, to keep pushing, and helps me face the brighter side of things.

A few tips I've worked by are:

Keep learning:

Despite not having landed a role yet, I keep practicing daily, solving algorithms (some are really complex though).

Don't get caught in tutorial hell:

I struggled with this for a long while, saw a lot of tutorials, but never built anything of my own. I'm learning to practice every new thing I learn in order to truly understand how they work.

Write:

Initially, Imposter made me feel I've not known enough to write, but I decided to write anyway, even if not for the experts, for newbies like me. This was why I started this blog, and named it "baby steps". An avenue for me to write about things I know while simplifying it in the barest form.

Be consistent:

Although I have quite a lot of things calling my attention, I devote at least an hour everyday to code or read an article or learn something new.

I'll get an interview:

I'll prepare, and one day, my time will come.

Thanks for reading. ❤