Weekly Update, 18th January

Hey, everyone! How's it going?

This week we'll be having another episode for our series on Web Dev Careers! I will be interviewing technical lead Jake Corn (here's his meet up page). We'll get to know a bit more about his experiences with hiring, managing, and training new developers. Plus, we'll also be talking about issues with maintaining code quality on a team and the pros and cons of test-driven development (TDD).

Here's the link to join us today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fmvr338pfQ

Since we're diving into the topic of hiring new devs, let's talk about the importance of practicing for technical interviews and some other awesome resources. Once you start hearing back from companies, it is time to bring your A-game and sharpen these skills!

During this prep time, I recommend you review algorithm challenges, pair programming, and get to know the latest updates of the technologies that you use. Here's a list with some great resources that will help you with that:

- FreeCodeCamp challenges are always a great place to start for reviewing the basics and some simple algorithms. They also have a section for more advanced algorithms like Project Euler.
- Code Wars is my favorite platform for practice coding challenges because of the variety of challenges and the gamified interface. I also like how it lets me review other people's answers after to help me realize other possible solutions for the same problem :)
- Some more popular options are Coderbyte, HackerRank, and LeetCode. I used to use HackerRank for interviews and I like how it walks you through challenges step by step from the most basic problems to really advanced ones.
- Github: If you only go to one site for your coding interview prep, I recommend going to Github and search for interview question lists that relate to whatever topic that is applicable to that job. For example, you can search for 'Python interview questions' or 'front-end interview questions' and you will see lots of lists that people have put together from their own experience in interviews, or released from the list of questions that they have actually used for the interview.

If you are looking for books on the topic, one that I recommend is the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle McDowell, which is a great in-depth read on how to handle these types of interviews. And you will also find a lot more about how to reach a professional level, get interviews, tackle them, and get hired in my book “Learn to Code. Get a Job. : The ultimate guide to learning and getting hired as a developer.”

Wishing you guys a great week,
-Gwen