Dear new developer,
This post has a lot of great career tips including how to select companies to apply to, what to do in an interview if you don’t know the answer to a question, and how to challenge yourself in a new job. This piece of advice in particular resonated with me:
Show how you think
Most interview questions are there to see how you think. So show that! Explain your thought process, draw diagrams, write out the intermediary code, explain pitfalls in your approach, etc! Be vocal, and ask clarifying questions. That’s part of being a good developer after all!
When I was hiring, especially for newer developers, I really wanted to hear how people thought through a problem. That process is important in two ways beyond actually solving the problem. The first is that it shows how you handle something tough that you haven’t encountered before (which happens almost every day on the job). It also shows an interviewer how you communicate. Since a lot of the challenge of building software is communication, learning how potential team members do it is crucial.
The whole post, “The Career Advice I Wish I Had” is worth a read.
Sincerely,
Dan
Letters To A New Developer 