Are you competitive?

I'm a generic software development engineer. I'm a top-tier dancer, coach, judge and competitor (or I was until about two years ago). I've always maintained that I'm not competitive, because I'm not. That doesn't mean I don't care about winning. It means that I care much more about achieving.

My career as an SDE has been pretty focused on making sure I have a job that can pay for my passionate hobby. I've relied on my normally excellent interviewing skills to make sure that I land on my feet and only take time off when I plan on it. As such, I worked a bit on my tech skills and technology to not get left behind. But I never excelled. That simply wasn't a priority. My job was a job, nothing more.

To give you some insight, my SO and I did something dance related about 5 days a week. We taught both group classes and private lessons a couple days a week. We had regularly scheduled practice another couple days out of the week. Then we would try to just get out and dance socially if there were any days left in the week. If we had an event weekend, depending on whether we were on-staff or not dictated our schedule for the weekend. On-staff meant attending the staff meeting shortly after arrival, and getting our workshop, judging and competition schedules for the weekend. It also gave us a chance to figure out how often we would be in the ballroom and how much time we had for private lessons and how much downtime we had. Downtime was when we were in our room alone or with our close friends.

I consider my dance career to have been an exceptional experience. I learned so much. I met my SO and my closest friends through dancing. I learned how to be confident in front of people, handle a crowded workshop, teach grown adults a new skill, and how to be a leader. I learned how to accept my fears and move on anyway. I learned that talent + knowledge + work + grit will frequently equal success. For much of my dance career, I didn't really work at it. I have a small amount of talent, and I had a small amount of success. When my SO and I decided to work at it (getting coaching for ourselves; deliberate, dedicated practice time) and we stuck with it - we had a lot more success. Just as important, I learned that I am mostly goal oriented. By the time we decided that other parts of our lives were more important, I had managed to achieve all but one of the goals I had set for myself.

My SO and I are both introverts, and are shy by default. We both learned how to (mostly) not to let our defaults control our actions. I love meeting, teaching, sharing, and experiencing people. But it drains me. It's like a flashlight and going to an event weekend was leaving the flashlight on 24/7. By the end of the weekend, a recharge was required. For us, that usually meant a weekend doing as little as possible.

Sometimes, things change

While we had decided to focus on other parts of our lives, we hadn't anticipated just how much things would change. Setting aside the devastation that COVID has visited in general, being at home removed from all your normal time occupiers frees up some cycles in the brain to process things that might have gone unnoticed previously. Add in going through a few catastrophic SDE job interviews, and you might start second guessing all your comfortably held notions all of a sudden.

Suddenly, all my imposter syndrome worries did a pile-on, leaving me anxious and wondering what happened. I used to be good at interviewing. I mean, I'm already back in school to finally finish my degree, but that's still a couple years away from being done so that won't help me today. I know, I'll just stick with what I've got for now and work on my AWS certification. No need to actually think about why I completely blew those interviews. Here's a hint - there were no questions about AWS certification involved.

Luckily, I realized something. Well, several somethings. First, interviewing is changing. Second, there's more competition. Third, my interviewing skills are out of date. Fourth, I can close the gaps in my fundamental computer science knowledge.

Interviewing is changing

If you haven't heard the stories, several big named software companies have legendary, even infamous, interviewing processes. You will be grilled technically on your software development and computer science fundamentals. You will be grilled on your system design skills and understanding. Your personality will be checked, reviewed and cross-checked. Like consumer electronics and automobile technology, all the cool stuff eventually filters down to pleebs, too.

I was not applying at a tier 1 company, aka FAANG companies. I wasn't even applying at what I consider to be a tier 3 company. More like a tier 4. The technical interview wasn't an interview. It was a HackerRank test. Oh. I suck at those. @!#!$!!

There's more competition

Something I had previously dismissed because I'm just not willing to move the West Coast - interviewing at any of the big names. We can ignore the fact that I wouldn't actually make it past the technical interview for now. Did you know that some of the big names hire in other places? I knew that, but I didn't know that, if you know what I mean? Anyway, I was recruited to interview with Facebook and Amazon and I didn't have to move to Seattle or Portland or something. That means I could potentially work for a tier 1 company without having to move. That means someone living in a non-Silicon Valley kind of place has a shot.

Time to skill up

Here's the thing, interviewing is a skill. Period. The fact that interviewing now means I'm going to do a timed coding challenge while people sit there and stare at me... Looks like it's time to learn a new skill.

It would appear that just talking about my last 3 roles, what I accomplished, biggest challenges, times when there was disagreement, blah, blah, blah isn't going to cut it now. I need to be able to describe my actual work? Why I made the decision I did? What were the trade-offs? How did it perform? Was the work delivered successfully? What was the impact of it? How did it improve things? Did you measure the results? Guess it's time to rework the CV with those questions specifically in mind. More importantly, I need to learn how to discuss my resume with those details at the forefront. Looks like another skill I need to learn.

When a plan comes together

What I came to understand, why I felt so anxious, restless, unsettled - I didn't have a goal. I realized that I have largely neglected my career. For the previous 17 years of my career, my focus had been on being employable and getting a paycheck - because my goals were all about dance. That's probably the most significant thing I learned. I can address that shortcoming, too.

I started back to school a little over two years ago with the goal of completing my undergrad in Computer Science. That's a long term goal. I also need something to focus on in the interim. I will address my knowledge gaps in ADS and System Design. I've started working through algorithms and data structures. I'm on track to be acceptably fluent in those within a reasonable time. I will do mock interviews - luckily, I've got enough resources to be able to do mock interviews. As I learned in dance, there is no substitute for putting yourself out there on the floor and dissecting the video afterwards (good news - after 15 years of watching myself on video, I have gotten past feeling like I'm going to throw up when I watch my performance).

They say, that if you write down your goals, you are far more likely to succeed than if you just keep them in your head. Here are mine:

• Complete my training in ADS and System Design by Oct. of 2021.
• Complete at least 15 mock interviews by Dec. of 2021.
• Employed by a tier 2 company (or better) with a 50% increase in total compensation by Mar. 2022.
• Bachelor's in IT/CS/CT by Dec. 2025
• Software development manager by Dec. 2023.