To get a job at Luxoft, I went through 6 interviews and passed 3 test ones: continuation of the story of developer Sasha Kopaygorodsky

This text is a continuation of the story of Sasha Kopaygorodsky ( Alexander ), a former blogger, editor and musician. A few years ago, Sasha moved to Poland and decided to retrain as a developer. In the first text , Sasha told how he studied and automated processes in the company where he worked. In the second part, he tells how he got a job in the Polish division of Luxoft.

“I myself suggested resuming the process in a couple of months”

In the last text, we settled on the fact that I interviewed at several large companies - EPAM and Motorola. At Motorola, I reached the last stage, they tried to send me to one team, then to another, but apparently something didn’t work out and a better candidate was found. I had a desire to gain experience in a large company, understand processes, delve into legacy code, and work with microservices. One year of experience in such a team opens doors anywhere. During that period at my last job, one of the clients suddenly asked me to write a mobile application. I didn't understand how to do it at all. I had knowledge about React JS, although my profile is a backend. However, I took on the project. At this time, a recruiter wrote to me from Luxoft and offered me an interview. Passed the first interview They wanted to conduct an additional meeting with me to discuss additional issues. At some point in this process (it lasted a week and a half), I realized that I simply would not have time to make a project at my current job, but I was very interested - it was a cross-platform mobile phone application written in React Native. When I realized that I could not cope, Luxoft said that I could not continue the process and offered to resume it in a couple of months. They told me, "Yes, of course." that I could not continue the process and offered to resume it in a couple of months. They told me, "Yes, of course." that I could not continue the process and offered to resume it in a couple of months. They told me, "Yes, of course."

“Damn, did you come to the Java programmer at all, or did we mix something up?”

After 2 months, I responded again and I was scheduled for a technical interview again. The first time I was interviewed by “our” people – from Russia or Ukraine, I don’t know for sure. The second time I was interviewed by a senior developer from Brazil. He had all my data: what I said in the last interview, and what I could not answer. The interview was almost identical to the first, only the test task was different. The developer said that I have improvements. Of course, they were, because I repeated everything that was at the first interview, and prepared very carefully. The interviewer said that I fit the definition of a strong junior because the projects I did weren't big enough. He also added that I can be taken as a junior, but within 3-4 months I will be able to grow to a regular (in the hierarchy of developers - a strong junior, who is close to the position of a middle developer - ed.). After this interview, I was assigned a call for an offer. I didn’t understand this, because Luxoft is an outsourcing company, and if you pass the first interview, then you only communicate with the client. After the offer call, a series of interviews with various projects began. I had only 4 interviews with different projects: they were all related to outstaff, work, in fact, for another company through Luxoft. On the first project I interviewed, there was generally some kind of nonsense in the style of working with low-code ( low-code is an approach to creating, configuring and modifying systems and applications that practically does not require writing code- ed.). The problem is that I would not have grown as a programmer on this project at all. The second interview was the most stressful and interesting. It was conducted by two Russian guys, one has a higher education in computer science and is very proud of it, the second does not have, but is also proud of himself. They began to ask me questions and at the same time argued among themselves about terminology. Then they asked me to write an implementation of the stack, mocking each other and me for every reason. So they kept me for 2.5 hours. And in the end, one of them said: “Damn, did you come to the Java programmer at all, or did we mix something up?”. I did not understand if this was a joke or not, but I realized that my patience had come to an end. At the same time, each interview in the company is accompanied by feedback, so I could not afford to answer “to the fullest”. I told them that he is ready to learn and that the team leader who will take me will quickly understand what's what. There are different types of interviews: some want the programmer to write implementations, others give tasks on logic, and some (like the last project) ask questions - the goal is to ask as many questions as possible and get as many answers as possible. I quickly turned on, I liked it. I answered a lot of questions, but missed some. I was told that they would think and report the result. Literally two hours later, a recruiter wrote to me that they were taking me to the team. I was very happy about this, but on Monday they sent me a test task. It was very stressful: they seemed to have taken on the project, and then some checks. I did the test and successfully got the job. Summing up, at Luxoft I passed 6 interviews and 3 test tasks. Luxoft was the 10th company where I came for an interview, and the first one that said “Yes” to me. You will be told yes if you work on the bugs.

June tips:

1. Leave a good aftertaste from the interview with you, prepare a short speech. After the technical interview, I did a self-presentation. It sounded something like this: “On the one hand, I understand perfectly well that my experience at some points may be irrelevant. On the other hand, I've made a bunch of apps myself. I have implemented my own project. I know one thing: if I spend a lot of time on some thing, then I do it consciously. Anyone who takes me to the project will get a very motivated person who compensates for ignorance with great desire, time and the ability to think logically.” Later, my line manager told me that one of the reasons I was hired was my motivation to work and this speech after the interview.

2. Don't wait until you're 100% ready for an interview. If you wait until you are prepared, you may never have the courage to apply for a job. It is possible to be unprepared, but it is important to have minimal experience in order to respond to your CV. I sent more than 100 CVs without work experience and it didn’t work for me.

3. Get at least a minimum work experience:

   • For a long time I did not understand what open source projects are and how to get into them. I got into this topic when I was making a React application: I found a person who wrote a certain library and it partially suited me, so I started digging into the code and changing something. It was then that I got acquainted with such a concept as “contributing” ( from English - to contribute to something ). The creator of the library said: “So come on, contribute the changes, it will be cool, add functionality.” Then I realized that it was simple. You can just google such open source projects and try to commit. This is something that can give you the experience you need.

   • If your current job has tasks related to programming, then definitely go to your boss and offer something useful: you can automate processes, write a website. It will be very cool when you realize that your code is useful. Even if you work at a service station or car wash, offer to file a website with a choice of services and a price calculator. Then you will get the opportunity to support this application or site for additional money. In addition, such projects add self-confidence.

4. Check out the interview questions and answers. Read in Russian, and then try to read in English. Be sure to upgrade your English.

5. Find a strong skill in yourself, your unique profile. Let it be a responsibility or a skill in managing people.

6. When you get a job, ask your colleagues questions, communicate with them as closely as possible. After all, they will also give feedback when your trial period is over. When a person is in contact with everyone, tries to figure it out and does not panic, this will have a good effect on his assessment.

7. Don't panic when you get a job. If we are talking about large corporations, do not worry if you have already got into the company. They have a three-month trial period, but the developer will not initially write anything important until he stays there for a month and a half or two, because only waiting for access to the system can wait a month.