My Technical Interview Experience

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 7)

2009-12-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 7 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark talks about the interview process at Rainbow Studios. He also talks about the best things you can have as an applicant for a game programming position and comments on the lack of availability of writer positions at game companies.

Question: Can you tell us anything about the interview process at Rainbow Studios?

Mark: Yes I can.

Question: Is it pretty scary?

Mark: It depends on your perspective. It’s actually very similar everywhere. For a non intern position, typically what happens is you make an application through our system. You have to apply online through our system or it doesn’t get into the database and there are issues. So you can’t just send your resume to me because I’ll tell you “no, you have to apply through the whole system”. So it comes through there then the HR / recruiter filters it and sends it to the hiring manager (someone like me) and I look at it and maybe I pass it around to a couple of my tech guys and they say “oh, yeah this guy looks pretty good” That’s the first step.

If you’re local, there is a reasonable chance we’ll bring you in and you’ll have essentially a whole day of interviews. You’ll interview with coders, you’ll interview with designers, you’ll interview with managers, you’ll interview with what could be 15 people over the course of 6-8 hours.

If you’re not local then we’ll probably call you first and you’ll get questions similar to what our programming test has. We’ll ask you about 3D math, we’ll ask you about C++, we’ll ask you these things and see how you do. If you get by that, then we’ll fly you to our location and we’ll do the same thing, the 6-8 hour on-site interview.

Question: What is the best thing you can do when trying to apply for a position in the game industry?

Mark: The best thing you can do is get solid technical skills, essentially programming - C++, graphics, whatever you want to do though. Could be graphics, AI, UI or physics – there is a spectrum of stuff. Being a skilled programmer is your best chance of getting in.

People have a hard time getting top technical talent and retaining top technical talent. So if you are top technical talent you will have opportunities at different locations in the country. We want the best coders just like anybody else. The trouble is entry level positions don’t open as often as I’d like them to. This is a bad time in the industry. If you look at the job listings right now you’ll see senior this and that or senior so and so. Has to have shipped atleast 2 titles. All this kind of stuff. And it’s a little bit discouraging but your still best chance is to be a good coder, have a good demo, have a good resume, have a good cover letter, be able to talk and answer questions on all of this kind of stuff I’ve been talking about. You know C, C++, matrix / 3D math, calculus, some understanding of physics wouldn’t hurt anything.

Question: Are there usually any open positions for writers or story boarders in the game industry?

Mark: I usually say the writing position is probably the hardest job to get in the industry because usually, what happens is, a lot of the designers themselves will have writing skills. So if the game needs some writing a designer will do it. You can be a free lance writer and you can sometimes get script writing jobs for games such as, for example, we did some games based on the movie Cars. In working with Pixar, they are really concerned about their property, about their characters, about their story line and that’s what’s really what most important to them. They could care less really about the game play. They want their characters to show well, their worlds to show well, to be consistent with the universe they’ve created. So we had to write a script for our game for this. However, we happened to have a guy who is a designer who is also a script writer by trade on our staff. So he wrote the script.

So that’s why it’s hard to get a job as a writer because so many people can do some writing on the side and a lot of games don’t require a lot of writing. Sometimes you’ll get a big ticket property or a game based on a movie that might require some sophisticated writing but I wouldn’t hold your breath for writing jobs in games – it’s tough.

As far as story boards go, that’s more of what I consider a concept art kind of position where your basically a 2D artist an illustrator almost. We have a concept group – I think it’s 4 guys right now. Positions there come open every now and then. As you can image there is a lot of applicants because the technical skill required is not that high. It’s basically drawing, right? I joke that those guys have the best job in the company because all they do is sit there and draw all day long. They don’t really have to deal with the technical restrictions of the platform. They’ll do things like posters, a lot of 2D illustrations, backgrounds, that kind of stuff. They’ll do a lot of concept art which is where you’re trying to get an idea of what things look like. So the art director works directly with them trying to come up with the color, the shapes, the forms, and just the environment so to speak.

As far as story boards go, we do some of those, but again it’s going to be picked up by some of the artists on the team that have big varied backgrounds. So you can’t just come out and say “I’m a story board artists give me a job”. Really as an artist, the best thing is to have good 3D skills and really as much technical as possible.

To be continued...

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 6)

2009-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 6 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark talks about the development process for the game Pool of Radiance 2 and comments on the role of database / tools programmers at Rainbow Studios.

Question: I saw your name so I decided to a little of a research and this old game from back of 2001 kept popping up - “Pool of Radiance 2”. Can you explain more what went into the process of that game?

Mark: Pool of Radiance 2 was meant to be a sequel to Pool of Radiance 1 which came out about 10 years before that. I don’t know how many people are familiar with what they used to call the Gold Box games? This was built on top – well, as an extension of that. We actually made the game we wanted to make, it was an absolute blast. TSR, who was owned by wizards of the coast - the guys that make the magic cards at the time - were switching from second edition rules to third edition rules while we were doing this development. People who know D & D know what that means. In the third edition rules they added a whole bunch of stuff and simplified some stuff and made some things a little more complicated.

But anyways it was really fun because we had a history with SSI who published all of the old Gold Box games and they hooked us up with the Wizards of The Coast guys. Our first goal was to demonstrate to Wizards of the Coast that we knew the D & D property so we wrote up a game design with the story line and we chose a place called Mythgenor which is in the middle of forgotten realms which is a space in the D & D world. We demonstrated that we could do our research and figure out a storyline that would fit into their world. We went back and forth with them on stuff and eventually made a lot of trips up to Seattle where they were at the time and we talked to the guys and eventually convinced them that we did know what we were talking about – that we were D & D guys. After we got over that first hump then it was gravy. We’d have a blast and go out drinking with these guys and they’d send us home with like three cases of magic cards. That’s how I actually started playing that game. Tons of free cards - let’s start playing!

So it was a really good relationship but it was based on our history having done three or four D & D games in the early 80s. We did the original Neverwinter Nights and we did a game called strong hold which was actually a really good game that got very little publicity. Anyways, so we did a bunch of D & D games with SSI before so they knew about us and we knew all those guys so it helped us get on the inside track for the sequel.

Question: Do you guys have any need for database because that’s really what my specialty is? Database modeling, building databases, querying etc?

Mark: Not very much. We have an IT group but the number of openings in our IT group is so small that positions never come up. But the game industry has a whole bunch of IT openings – that would be IT, not games right? We do some stuff in our tools group that sits on top of a SQL server, but again you’d have to be a pretty good coder to get into the tools group to work on that stuff. So if you have C++ skills that’s a possibility. We do occasionally look for tools coders or even interns for our tools group. So that’s a possibility, it’s not great, but it’s a possibility.

Question: When applying, do they have to do the same test as the game programmers?

Mark: You would have to know C++ and you really should know something about 3D stuff. A lot of the tools work actually just supports the game engine and does a lot of preprocessing of the assets. You might have to take a 3D model out of 3D Studio Max and export it into a format we need. You need to understand how it works and how it’s going to look when it gets inside the hardware. There is a lot of stuff that goes underneath the hood that the tools actually have to accomplish, so it requires some of that understanding.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 7)

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 5)

2009-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 5 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark talks about where the most opportunities for game developers are and also spends a lot of time answering a question about design positions.

Question: What areas in the US have the most opportunities for game development jobs?

Mark: Well certainly the San Francisco Bay Area and LA have a lot. However, these places are expensive and traffic is really nasty but there are certainly a lot of them. After that, Chicago has a bunch of studios, I know there is some stuff in Florida, I know Austin has a bunch of studios. But right now I think California still has the most.

Question: You guys don’t look for entry level designers? How do you get into design?

Mark: We don’t look for entry level game designers very often. No one is going to say – I’m sure Blizzard isn’t going to walk up and say – Starcraft 3, you design it! I don’t think that’s going to happen. Really the best entry level design position is a level design position and companies do hire for those. OK, Starcraft3, here is a couple of levels for you to work on and here are your guidelines. Here is some stuff that has already been done, here is where your levels fit in the progression of the game and so on and so forth. These are the things you can work with. That’s something you can expect an entry level designer to get his head around. So if you want to go into design my recommendation is to try and get a level design job somewhere and you will see those advertised from time to time.

Question: When it comes to design, is there anything you should really specialize in?

Mark: As opposed to what?

Question: As opposed to like coding?

Mark: Well, the most marketable folks are programmers. It’s the hardest discipline and good ones are hard to find. So if you’re a really good coder it’s much easier to get a job. After that, it’s getting tougher and tougher for art positions to be honest. A lot of the work is going overseas to India or China because it’s cheaper. These companies set up these gigantic outsourcing houses. The labor rates are really low so it’s just really difficult.

So on the art side, one of the things you can do is become a technical artist which is a cross between a programmer and artist. That’s where you really understand what shaders do and materials do, and you could even code a little if you’re asked to do it. Ultimately, you comprehend the details of how the art interacts with the hardware. It’s harder but if you could come out the other end as a technical artist with maybe some scripting ability, a little bit of programming ability, a real understanding of the way memory works and why you have constraints on your art, that will help.

Design jobs fall sort of in between programming and art but there just aren’t that many of them. Like I have 19 coders reporting to me and 4 designers. So, that’s kind of a ratio for you. There are more artists, there are closed to 30 artists on the title. I think design is fun, I did design because when I started there weren’t any designers there were only coders and artists and the coders always did the design since they kind of knew what was going on they had control over everything.

Anyway, that’s how I got started and I’ve always made games my whole life. For instance, when I was in high school I made an extension to monopoly. It was like 14 feet long and it took up the length of our living room. It had these extra properties and new rules. My point is that if you have stories like this you should consider putting them into a cover letter. I have photographs of the board, this huge thing here, you could see this board stretching out forever. So I’ve just done games and game design forever and when I started I just did design as a matter of course.

But yeah design is tricky and level design is the best chance. Also know how to write and know how to write well. It does a lot more for you then you think it does.

Question: I’ve done some video game reviews for a couple of sites - is that something I should put on my resume?

Mark: You can mention it, but don’t put the actual content on it. Put it on a web site somewhere. Gigantic long resumes are not worth anything because no one looks at them. But you could certainly say, “I did this it’s on my website”, or “see the website of the publication”.

Ultimately though, that’s good stuff. That’s akin to being a tester but a little better in my opinion.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 6)

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 4)

2009-12-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 4 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark talks about things you should take into consideration when applying to Rainbow Studios and when looking for your first game job. He also briefly talks about how those with no game development experience can get started developing a portfolio.

Question: What advice do you have for a former computer science graduate who is very interested in pursing a career in the game industry but doesn’t have any experience in graphics or game programming? Do you have any recommendations for what languages and technologies that person should pick up and what kind of projects they should work on for their portfolio?

Mark: Like I said before, I want to see a game. A good way to do it is you can write an XNA app because that’s easy to get started – that’s C sharp or you could do something in visual studio because that’s better because that’s C++. Make it 3D like the guy next to you said, that’s a huge start.

Question: Do you have any advice on how to stand out when applying?

Mark: When you apply, be sure to write a good cover letter. People underestimate the value of a good cover letter – I’ve been to a lot of these career fairs where people walk around with a dazed look on their face and they hand out their and they expect that resume to be an application for a position. Well, first of all, we can collect 100 resumes in 10 minutes if we really wanted to and secondly, how do you stand out among the 100 resumes?

One of the things to do is write a good cover letter. Look at the job description and in the cover letter tell us what your experience is, tell us why you’re qualified, what your history is, what your background is, and tell us something about you that will stand out. I always tell people let your inner geek show a little bit. Why do you love games? What in your personal history do you have that says you love games and here is a silly thing you did that demonstrates that? You dressed up as Mario for a Halloween costume party at some point, put it in your cover letter just for the heck of it. It doesn’t have to be featured but it could be in there, and someone will go “hey what about that guy who was Mario” and suddenly you’ll be remembered.

So, when you do applications, do think about a good cover letter, it actually goes a lot farther than you think it does because all the resumes for a new college graduate look the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I took these classes and yeah, yeah, yeah, I did these projects and so on and so forth - they all look the same! How are we going to pick your name out of a hat? So really think about what you can do to stand out in our industry. You play games right? You know what games do. What can you create, what can you create that’s part of what games do.

Question: So going back to the cover letter, it’s safe to assume that at Rainbow Studios the cover letter will go to the hiring manager? I know at a lot of companies it only goes to the recruiter.

Mark: Definitely. I know both of the HR people and I can walk down to their office and talk to them. In fact, and this is an interesting piece of information right here, if you make an application to rainbow studios and you don’t hear anything, you can send an e-mail to me (mark.buchignan1@rainbowstudios.com) and say “hey I made an application, what happened to it?”. I will get on my horse and I’ll walk down and talk to the HR person and say “hey, so and so called and they said they made this application, do you know what happened to it?”.

We’re actually pretty small, so your application doesn’t go into a huge HR mall and get lost somewhere - not at Rainbow. We only have around 125 guys and that’s not really that big. With the big companies like EA, Activision, or even THQ, sometimes your application goes into this gigantic database and stuff gets filtered and processed and sometimes out pops an application for a job that may be open. At least in our case, or in most small companies’ case, you have a better chance of getting a response and getting seen since there are actual humans on the other end instead of an automated system. I know we have humans on the end because I know the person that everything comes to.

Question: What other game companies are available in Arizona and the southwest United States?

Mark: That’s a very good question – not very many. We’re the biggest game development employer in New Mexico and Arizona as far as I know. However, there are a few other companies. I don’t know the status of Cheyenne Mountain in Mesa, they were working on this MMO but I’m not sure what’s going on with that. There is a smaller company called big bang entertainment that’s like 20-25 guys. They’re a bunch of people that split off from Rainbow. I know all of the guys and I know they’re like right up the street from us practically. There is a company called 2XL which I think is doing IPhone games right now. But there are only a handful of companies of any size at all.

It’s not the best area to try to get into games because your options are definitely limited. But you can move to California where it’s expensive, or you can move to New York, Chicago, Florida or Austin or wherever the other concentrations are.

The most important thing for you guys to do is get the first job. Everyone wants to get the first job anyway, but that’s the most important thing. It’s not where you want to live or how much you get paid, it’s get the first job. I don’t care where the first job is. If it’s in the middle of Nebraska, or if it’s in Australia, or if it’s in China. Get the first job! Because what you really want to do is go through a complete development cycle and have a game that you helped complete on your resume. Then you have experience, then you’re a bona fide person in the industry and that one shipped game will open more opportunities then any number of classes or any number of guys like me telling you what to do.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 5)

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 3)

2009-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 3 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark talks more about what you need to know when it comes to the mathematics of game programming. He also talks a little bit about the art side of creating games and mentions how those with audio skills fit in.

Question: You said that 3D math, in particular matrix operations and linear algebra, is kind of like the base requirements for an applicant. What would push an applicant over the top compared to others who know the same thing. Is there anything you look for?

Mark: Well, really, honestly it comes down to, be good at it. Because what’s going to happen is your going to take the linear algebra class, you’re going to get some grade, you’re going to learn some stuff. You’re probably not going to learn that much about what goes on under the hood. What if someone asks you to make a projection matrix?

Question: Well let’s say, for example, there is a computer graphics class that I took, and it dealt with that kind of stuff.

Mark: Can you make a projection matrix?

Question: Yeah I’ve dealt with that.

Mark: Well, “dealt with it”? If someone said, “can you make a projection matrix?”, can you do it? You asked me what would put you over the top - that would be impressive. That would be an over the top thing. The first level is understanding how the stuff works and how to use it. Now, what they’re going to do is confirm that you know how to use it, and then they’re going to say “why?”, or they’re going to say “how does this actually work?”, or “what does this really mean?”. So they’re going to dig underneath the hood and find out where the limit of your knowledge really is. The deeper you can get into that, the more impressive it will be. So honestly, you can’t probably be great at everything, so you might want to learn the basic level of everything there is and then dig down in some areas that are interesting.

Question: So, an inner understanding of how graphics matrices and such work?

Mark: Right, just go deep in one area so you can say, “well I know how this stuff works, but THIS I really studied and I can tell you more about it”. I look for that a lot too. You can’t be a generalist in this business and get your first job. People aren’t going to know what to hire you for. Well, he knows a little bit of that, he knows a little bit of this but I don’t know what we’re going to put him on, maybe he can do that, maybe he can do this. Where as if you get a guy who comes along and says, “I like graphics and I know how this works and here’s why”, they’ll go, “we can put this guy in this graphics job”. It’s much easier.

Question: I was talking to a friend of mine who actually works for a game studio and he was telling me that it’s better for a graphics major who is applying for a graphics artist position to have the ability to render, rig, sculpt, texturize – all at the same time. Not just one portion of it. Is this true and can you talk about the art side a little?

Mark : On the art side, yes - you should be able to model and texture. The more you know about shaders and materials, the better off you’ll be. So yeah, definitely be able to run Maya or 3D Studio Max or both. I thought you were a coder?

Audience Member: Yeah, I just have a great appreciation for all aspects of it though.

Mark: The more the better - but just don’t be a generalist, that’s all I’m trying to say. Be really good at something. If you’re a top notch modeler and you can texture, that’s fine. If you’re a modeler but you’re great at texturing, that’s fine. But don’t be good at this, and good at that.

Remember, we’ve got 50 applications for an intern position that is essentially 20 hours a week for 10 bucks an hour. What do you think we’re going to get for our regular entry level job? You have to stand out in that heap of resumes we’re going to get and the only way to do that is to be really good at something. In your case, have a portfolio where you show your best, best stuff. I’d rather see four awesome pieces then a 100 pieces of stuff with 4 awesome ones mixed in somewhere. So don’t put stuff just because you happen to have it up there - put your top quality work, because that’s what we’re going to want - your top quality work.

Question: I’ve been experiencing a lot of difficulty when it actually comes to organic modeling, do you have any advice on how to increase understanding on that?

Mark: Send me an e-mail and I’ll ask the guys at work about that because I’m not an art guy - my background is programming, game design, and management. The last thing I do is artwork. I always tell a story, it’s kind of a joke, I have sort of an art credit. On the screen - I don’t remember when it was, maybe about 13 years ago - I drew three concentric rectangles in code. That is my art credit. That is as good as I get. No, seriously send me an e-mail and I’ll put your question to some of the art guys and I’ll give you a chance.

Question: What needs do you have for people with a specialization in audio applications or music audio for games?

Mark: Creation of audio or programming of audio?

Audience Member: I mean either or both I guess.

Mark: We have an audio department with 4 people in. Those openings don’t come up very often for essentially content creation. We have an in house composer, we have a manager, and we have a couple of guys who do stuff. We have a video guy, a video expert. So as far as creation of audio content goes, those jobs are few and far between with us. There just aren’t as many needed, so there aren’t as many jobs in general. Whereas we have 40 odd coders and 60 odd artists or whatever it is.

As far as programming, it’s a little bit different. That is a valuable skill. If you’re really into it and you start learning some of the off shelf packages and start understanding how to code audio – especially if you get into the mathematics of it - that’s of value. So, it’s much more valuable on the code side then it is on the creation side.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 4)

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 2)

2009-11-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 2 of the Rainbow Studios Q @ A session, Mark spends a lot of time answering questions on what you should take into consideration when developing a portfolio / demo. He also talks about the hiring status of the Rainbow Studio's internship program and how those with hardware oriented skills are utilized at gaming companies.

Question: Do you guys value experience with things like openGL and directX? If you do, what is the best way to demonstrate that you have said experience?

Mark: Yes. Build some kind of a little graphics engine. If you build it in C++ and you talk to DirectX or you talk to OpenGL and you have a little 3D demo where you solve some typical 3D problems - cameras and translations and all this kind of stuff - that’s very good. It’s a real good idea to build a game demo to get into the game industry. This is outside of class. This is not an assignment. This is something you did on your own with maybe a couple of buddies or something like that. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated or complicated, just fun to play and it has to be self contained and complete. Be sure to finish it, that’s important.

One of the mistakes people make is sometimes they’ll build a demo in 2D, which is not in and of itself bad, because it’s still a game and it’s still fun and so on and so forth, but we live in a 3d world in my industry, and you cannot demonstrate 3d building in a 2d game. What you’re talking about is really good because you would build a 3d demo and it really does not have to be a sophisticated thing. I’m trying to emphasize that you do the 3d stuff, it’s clear that it’s 3d, and it’s clear that it works.

We went to Devry the other day and we were judges in a senior project competition thing. They put us in a room with two projects and one of them was built on top of Unity engine? I think there is a system called Unity that they built there game on top of. It was all Javascript and it was kind of cool, it did a lot of different things. However they didn’t write the code themselves, they just wrote the Javascript. It was a fairly sophisticated 3d flying game. At the other end of the room were these guys that built this sort of thing that was based on Cooking Momma. Have you guys have heard of that game? It really took off as a cooking game. Anyway, the guy built the 3D engine from scratch. It was very simple, but we knew that he understood the concepts by talking to him afterwards and by looking at what he had done. So as far as technical achievement goes, we certainly graded this simplistic cooking game engine much higher then the built on top of unity engine because of that 3d aspect.

Question: Is a demo required when applying to Rainbow Studios?

Mark: Recommended yes. Required no. But we definitely want to see what you can do under your own initiative.

When I evaluate my people, one of the things I look for, is what I call, initiative and ownership, a combination of those two things. That means you can step up and do something that people are maybe not doing or don’t have time to do and you can finish it – see it all the way to the end. Building a demo on your own - your own idea and maybe your own 3D engine - is a great way of showing initiative. If you finish it, it shows the ownership and the drive to take it all the way to the end.

Most management folks or most leads don’t have time to baby-sit people. They want people to take a task, finish a task, and say “what do you want me to do next” or even “I see this is broken or this needs work”. OK, then go ahead and do that. So, I think it’s really important to have a demo. If it’s 3D it’s even better.

Question: Does it absolutely have to be 3D? Because me and my team are in the process of developing an iPhone application that is basically going to be XBox live mobile and PS3 mobile. Basically it’s your dashboard on your phone so that you can connect with all of your friends and can see all of the games they’re playing, etc.

Mark: That’s very cool. I think that’s an awesome idea that’s not 3D. So, what you’ll have to do is make sure you study because people are going to ask you 3D questions whether your demo is 3D or not. So for you to understand the principles is important. For you to build this thing is really neat also. So no it doesn’t have to be a 3D demo, but a 3D demo shows that you know what you’re doing because there it is on the screen. It’s just a little bit harder for you to prove it when you don’t do the 3D demo.

Question: I was wondering if you guys are still hiring for your internship program?

Mark: The internship applications are closed. We have like 50 applicants and we’re trying to plow through them and figure out who we’re going to interview. We’ve sent out a number of tests so far and we’re doing the grading.

How many of you guys know Asheesh? I work with him a lot on his game programming. I speak in his classes and I’m going to talk with him after this about what we can do to help aim people at classes that will help them learn the stuff that we need them to learn for them to get into the industry. We’re not unique in this kind of stuff – C, C++ and 3D math is what you need to know. You go to any game studio and they’re going to tell you that. So, even if we don’t hire or we don’t have open positions, if you learn that stuff that will give you a chance at some other studio (and there are a ton of game studios).

So to answer your question, right now no, but check back because we honestly have a hard time predicting what our needs are going to be from moment to moment. Projects start up, things shuffle around, something happens at corporate. Whatever, there is just a lot of stuff that goes on.

Question: Do you have any need for more hardware oriented people than software programmers?

Mark: If the hardware person is the person who likes to get down in the guts of a machine like the PS3 or the Xbox 360 and do, essentially, software optimizations that take best advantage of the hardware, than yes. Now I know you have parallelization classes and embedded systems classes and that kind of stuff - that stuff is valuable. If you understand parallel processing and you can show how to optimize code so that it works best on multiple processors, that’s very valuable. That’s kind of a cross over between hardware and software. That’s as close we get.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 3)

Feedback

2009-11-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Being that tomorrow is a holiday and a lot of people will be busy with their families, I'm going to skip a post and instead take the opportunity to gather feedback from people about the blog. What do you like? What do you dislike? Do you have any ideas for future posts? If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section of this article. I hope everyone has a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 1)

2009-11-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was able to attend an information session with video game studio Rainbow Studios at my school. Rainbow Studios is a subsidiary of THQ and is one of the largest video game developers in the Southwest United States. The event was hosted by lead designer Mark Buchignani who conducted a question and answer session with students. I tape recorded the event and will be posting the entire transcript in a multi-part series over the course of the next 4-6 weeks.

For those that are interested in acquiring a programming job in the video game industry, I highly recommend reading these posts as they contain very specific information on how to create a portfolio, what languages and math you need to learn, what classes you should take, what questions you should expect in interviews, and much more. Mark was extremely passionate and opinionated, and gave very thorough and insightful answers that I think you will enjoy.

In the first part of this series, Mark introduces himself and talks about degree requirements for applying to a position in the gaming industry. He also answers questions on what math and programming languages you need to know, and if you should use the Unreal gaming engine for portfolio development. Without much further ado, I give you Mark:

Mark: Hi everyone. My name is Mark Buchignani and I’m a lead designer at Rainbow Studios. Currently, I’m responsible for all of the coders and all of the designers on our MX vs ATV product which is an off-road racing game that we issue every couple of years. The next one will be coming out on December 1, 2009.

I wanted to start off by asking you guys to tell me what you’re currently majoring in [At this point, Mark goes around the room and asks each audience member what their major is. Most respond with CS and CSE, and there are also some EE, Math, and others mixed in].

As far as I’m concerned, if you can code, I don’t care what your degree is in. If you look around the game industry, in fact, there are tons of people with either no degree, or a degree in physics, or math, or some other hard science, or even you get different people – I saw a resume from a guy who looked pretty good who’s coding now. He started out with a degree in Russian doing translation. So you know, it just really depends upon on your passion and interest and if you want to drive yourself forward to become a good coder and to learn the math necessary to do this job. Certainly a CS degree of some kind or a EE degree or something like that helps. Or really even a physics or math degree helps. But to get in and to be good, you really have to be into it. You really have to want to make games, and push yourself to learn the stuff you need to learn to make games.

So, I don’t know, any questions from anyone at all? I could just talk but it’s better if you guys ask questions and I answer them.

Question: I had an opportunity to speak with another studio when I was visiting California for a conference and one of the things they rather highly suggested was downloading the Unreal game engine and trying to build a portfolio from stuff you make with that…

Mark: He’s talking about using an off the shelf engine like Unreal for building levels and that kind of thing. That is a good idea to show what you can do as a designer. If you want to be a designer really what you want to show off is your ability to design games and make level designs or levels.

Question: So there is no programming element to realizing it?

Mark: There is but scripting for unreal is OK, but really unreal is a first person shooter. If you want to do something that isn’t a first person shooter, it’s a lot of work. It’s not that it can’t do it, but it’s a ton of work. It’s almost better to sit there and build something yourself. Build something out of XNA or build an iPhone app or build a Flash game. Build something that shows your initiative – you can just sit down and make something you want. Because otherwise you’ll be shoehorning it into the Unreal engine, and sometimes that’s successful and sometimes it isn’t. Yes that’s valuable and yes that’s a portfolio piece, but I wouldn’t look at that as a really valuable thing for a coder to do - unless you really did a ton of mods to it yourself, I mean, actual programming mods, which you can do if you get down to the guts. So it really depends on your interest but that is a possibility.

Question: Could you elaborate on the math you need to know in order to be a successful game programmer?

Mark: The math is really 3D math. You should know linear algebra and some calculus (as applied to Newtonian physics). So dot products and cross products and that sort of thing. Anything you can learn about the way cameras work and camera matrices is a BIG plus. Some of that stuff you can get out of things that are available like XNA and you can play around with it. Some of that stuff you can get out of books or on the web. So ultimately, the answer is linear algebra and calculus. Really know your matrix operations and really understand what the rows and columns mean and how it all works. If you can get the dot product and cross product questions right, they will ask you questions under the hood about what goes on, how you construct these matrices and how they work. There will be translation matrices and the whole nine yards. If you have a good linear algebra class definitely take it. The guy who talks math who works for me says: “take it once, you won’t understand it, and then take it again”. Now I don’t know if you have time for that, but it takes a lot of study to get linear algebra to penetrate - it’s not natural stuff.

Question: What programming languages do you recommend developing an expertise in if you want to be a successful game programmer?

Mark: We have an evaluation test that we give to entry level folks or intern applicants. On there is C++. It’s not Java. It’s not C#. It’s C++. My understanding is that you can graduate from any of the three universities that I recruit at with a degree in CS doing Java pretty much only. That’s all well and good if you’re going to do Java apps out in the real world, but for the game industry that won’t get you in the door. You have to do C and you have to do C++ and you basically have to do what is known as unmanaged code. Memory management is a huge deal in our business especially on consoles where you have limited resources. You really have to know where everything is, where everything is going, and when it’s being cleaned up and deallocated. Allocating and deallocating is part and parcel of that. The other thing that you don’t have to do in managed code is pointers. In fact, in XNA they may not even let you make pointers. If you don’t know what a pointer is and you don’t know how a pointer works, then you’re way behind as far as we’re concerned. So those are the two huge areas - memory management and pointer usage.

We just had a handful of open reqs for interns and got a pile of applications. We went through them and sent out these tests and we found that most people don’t know about memory management and pointers. We look at this and say, we don’t have time to be teaching what we consider are relatively basic principles to entry level folks in our business. So it’s going to be up to you guys to step outside of the boundaries of these standard curricula if you want to get into the game industry and do some of this stuff in an unmanaged environment. I know there are courses here and you’ve taken some of them. One of the students here says there is an embedded systems course, for example, which does everything in C. That is a good course to take and learn about this sort of stuff.

Click here for Rainbow Studios Q & A (part 2)

On-campus Interviews (part 3)

2009-11-19T00:00:00.002-08:00

In part 1 of this series on on-campus interviews, I provided the definition of an on-campus interview and talked about its role in the technical interview process. In parts 2 and 3, I'm going to give specific examples of on-campus interviews that I had while I was in school. In this post, I'm going to talk about my experiences with Microsoft and Cerner.

Microsoft

Not surprisingly, Microsoft had the most challenging on-campus interviews of any company that I interviewed with. The interview is 25-30 minutes long and is highly technical. Usually, they like to test you on your top two choices for positions. Software development engineers will get coding questions, software development engineers in test will get testing questions, and program managers will get design questions. I interviewed on-campus twice with Microsoft and both of my interviewers were high level managers.

One cool thing about Microsoft on-campus interviews is that the interviewers will hold an information session for the candidates night before the interviews. There will be food served and all of the interviewers will give a brief presentation on what to expect during the interviews and how to prepare. They’ll also give you more in depth descriptions of all three Microsoft software positions and give you a chance to ask questions. During the last one I went to, the interviewers even told us what to expect for the first two questions (“tell me about yourself” and “tell me about something you’ve done”). I highly recommend going to this.

It’s also worth mentioning that not too long ago I heard that Microsoft was testing a new methodology where it would be possible for the candidate to receive an offer during on-campus interviews. I believe the interviews would be a bit longer and there might be a couple of them. I’m not sure if this program was continued or not, but nevertheless it’s still an interesting premise.

Cerner

Cerner is a healthcare information technology company that develops software used for processing medical records in hospitals. I interviewed on-campus with them for an internship position. The interview was 15-20 minutes long and only contained easy behavioral questions. After I passed the interview, I was invited to one of their interview events.

Other Internship Interviews (part 2)

2009-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

The interview will be 20 minutes in length. You will be asked one behavioral question and one technical question. There may be time at the end for your questions about NI. Since the interview is so short, we recommend that you check out www.ni.com/employment for information about National Instruments and the Engineering Leadership Program prior to your interview. If you perform well in the first interview, you will be invited back for a 45 minute interview on Friday, March 2. This interview will be more casual in nature. You will be asked more behavioral and technical questions similar to those from the first interview. You will also be asked about your career goals and aspirations.

They also recommended wearing a suit to the interview. As opposed to my other internship interviews which were for software jobs, National Instruments would be interviewing me for a computer systems position. At the time, I was a double major in computer science and computer systems engineering but was more focused on finding a software development internship. I decided to give a shot though because National Instruments had a great reputation and was perennially listed on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for List. As mentioned previously, there was one behavioral question and one technical question during the interview. The behavioral question was general and asked me to talk about my school experience. The technical question went as follows: how would you transfer a temperature reading from a non digital thermometer to a computer? I did the best I could to remember any signal processing that I learned in my CSE classes and ended up giving an OK answer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough to advance to the 2nd round of on-campus interviews.

Charles Schwab

One of the more bizarre interviews I experienced was with financial giant Charles Schwab. The interview was for an internship during the spring semester assisting in the maintenance of their mainframe computer system. What was strange about the interview was that not one question was asked to me. Both of my interviewers rambled on about the details of the position but didn't really give me a chance to give them any information about myself. I could understand if they wanted the interview to be conversational and allow me to chime in to show off some of my technical knowledge, but I didn't have much of an opportunity to interject because they kept talking! I ended up not getting the position and really had no idea what they based it on.

IBM

In the fall of ’07 I had an on-campus interview with IBM which I obtained through a career fair at my school. This interview was for a much larger office than the IBM location I did my internship at. There isn’t much new to report here as far as the interview goes, it was standard behavioral and resume questions. What’s notable is one crucial mistake I made that was almost the exact opposite of the error I made with Boeing. I had made the incorrect assumption that my female interviewer was a human resources employee. During one of my responses to her questions this slipped out somehow. She rightfully got offended and went on to tell me about how she started out as an admin and worked her way up to management. I felt pretty bad. The lesson to be learned here is to be careful of the assumptions you make about the person that’s interviewing you.

On-campus Interviews (part 2)

2009-11-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 1 of this series on on-campus interviews, I provided the definition of an on-campus interview and talked about its role in the technical interview process. In parts 2 and 3, I'm going to give specific examples of on-campus interviews that I had while I was in school. In this post, I'm going to talk about my experiences with National Instruments, Raytheon, Honeywell, General Dynamics, and IBM.

National Instruments

I interviewed on-campus with National Instruments for its Engineering Leadership Program in Austin, Texas. This was the only company that I interviewed with that had two rounds of on-campus interviews. The first round consisted of a 20 minute interview that contained one behavioral question and one technical question. If you passed the first round, then the following day you’d have another interview that would be 45 minutes long and would consist of more behavioral and technical questions, as well as questions about your career goals and aspirations. National instruments recommended wearing a suit to the interview. My interviewer was an engineer who was a former alum from my school.

Raytheon

I had one on-campus interview with Raytheon that was only 15 minutes long. In it, I was interviewed by a recruiter and only asked a couple of behavioral questions. He told me that Raytheon used their on-campus interviews to place candidates at hiring events and that it could take a while to hear back about an invitation. I had applied for the interview on my schools career site.

Honeywell

My Honeywell on-campus interview was with a senior engineering manager from their embedded operating system group. I had applied for the interview on my schools career site. The interview was around 30 minutes long and consisted of behavioral and resume questions. A couple of days afterwards, I received an automated e-mail message that denoted my success in the interview and asked me to apply to a generic “Engineering Software Internship Opportunities” job requisition on the Honeywell website. About a month later I was contacted by a Honeywell recruiter for an on-site interview.

General Dynamics

I had one 30 minute on-campus interview with General Dynamics C4 Systems located in Scottsdale, Arizona. I had obtained the interview via my schools career site. The interview was conducted by a recruiter and contained mainly resume and behavioral questions. Successful candidates were invited to interview on-site at one of the General Dynamics C4 Systems hiring events.

IBM

I obtained an on-campus internship interview with IBM in Tucson through a career fair at my school. I handed my resume to the IBM representative and chatted with her for a while. Towards the end of our conversation she asked me if I was interested in signing up for an interview slot the next day. The interview didn’t contain any technical questions, only resume and behavioral questions.

Click here for On-campus Interviews (part 3)

Resume Development (part 3)

2009-11-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

In part 1 of this series on resume development, I talked about how to effectively develop the education section of your resume. In part 2, I talked about how you can develop the experience section of your resume. In part 3, I’m going to talk about how you can develop the class projects, skills, and activities section of your resume.

Class Projects

The class projects section of your resume is where you’ll list all of your major school assignments. This section is crucial in the early going because it will occupy space on your resume when there isn’t much else to add. It’s a good idea to add projects to your resume as soon as you complete them while they’re still fresh in your mind. Also, make sure to save all hard and soft documents associated with a project for later reference while studying for interviews. Always try and be conscientious of the classes you choose with respect to what projects you’ll be doing in them.

Skills

The skills section of your resume will contain all of the programming languages, operating systems, application software, and tools that you have experience with. While many of the items you list will be learned from your computer science course work, you can also pick up new skills by doing projects outside of school. Some ideas include: installing Linux / UNIX as your primary operating system, developing and hosting a personal web site, setting up a computer network, programming a game, coding apps for social networking sites / cellular API’s, or building your own computer. Anything significant that you do can also be added as a separate item on your resume.

Activities

The activities section of your resume is where you’ll list all of the extra curricular activities that you took part in while in school. By the time you graduate, you want to have at least one item listed under this section to show employers that you’re not one dimensional. You could join a club or an academic fraternity, or you could sign up for community service with organizations like habitat for humanity, big brother / big sister, or the salvation army. It’s not a bad idea to participate in at least one activity that involves your major. You’ll meet like minded people and will be able to gather information on classes, professors, and local companies.

On-campus Interviews (part 1)

2009-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

An on-campus interview is an interview that is conducted by a company at your school. Like a phone screen, it’s a first round interview that will decide whether or not you get invited to interview on-site. Companies that recruit heavily at your college usually are the ones that will offer on-campus interviews.

Applying

There are two ways that you can apply for an on-campus interview. The first way is through your schools careers web site. Companies will post their interview dates at the beginning of the semester and there will be a deadline for which you can apply for a slot (most on-campus interviews require that you be at least a junior to apply). Once the deadline passes, the company will notify you to let you know if you’ve been selected or not. If you’ve been selected, you’ll likely receive an e-mail from one of the companies recruiters which will give you some background information on the interviews and ask you to choose from a list of times to interview. Usually you’ll have between 2-5 days to prepare for the interview after you’ve been notified.

The other way that you can apply for on-campus interviews is through career fairs. On numerous occasions I handed my resume to a company at a career fair and was invited to interview on campus. Most companies won’t announce when they’re doing this so it’s always a good idea to be in your best form while attending career fairs.

The Interviews

On-campus interviews will usually be held at your schools career services department. The dress code will depend on the company that you’re interviewing with (if you’re unsure of what to wear, a suit is always a safe bet). The interviews are usually conducted by recruiters or alumni engineer employees. They could contain resume, behavioral, or technical questions and can last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. From my experience, most of the on-campus interviews I had were more resume / behavioral oriented than technical. On-campus interviews are not for specific positions and instead are used by companies as a general screening tool. If you pass the interview, your resume will be forwarded to groups around the company and it’s likely that you’ll be invited to interview on-site.

Conclusion

On-campus interviews are excellent opportunities that you should always take advantage of since the pool of applicants competing for interviews is much smaller than it would normally be had you applied using other means. As I’ve stated previously in Choosing a School for Computer Science, this is why it’s important to take into account what companies recruit at a school that you’re thinking of attending.

Click here for On-campus Interviews (part 2)

Other Internship Interviews (part 1)

2009-11-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

Previously, I've talked about my internship interview experiences with Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Lockheed Martin. Aside from these interviews, I also had some brief encounters with other companies while I was searching for an internship. In this post, I'd like to talk about my interview experiences with Honeywell, Boeing and Stryker.

Honeywell

I initially established contact with Honeywell at a career fair and was later selected for on-campus interview. Honeywell's protocol for on-campus interviewing involves sending an engineer from the discipline that they're interviewing for to evaluate candidates at a targeted school. If the candidate interviews successfully, their resume will be forwarded to groups around the company that are hiring (this is how most companies handle on-campus interviews). My interviewer was the manager for a group that developed the operating system for Honeywell’s flight control software. The interview was very basic consisting of only behavioral and resume questions. A couple of days after, I received an e-mail which denoted my success in the interview and asked me to apply to some job requisitions at Honeywell.com.

About a month later, I was contacted by a recruiter for an on-site internship interview with Honeywell Process Solutions. The Process Solutions office is responsible for assisting businesses in developing their manufacturing technology. This was my first on-site interview since my Intel interview and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had done a school project at Honeywell Aerospace so I knew it was a very large corporation that employed thousands of engineers who worked on everything from aircraft engines to advanced fibers . During my project, one of the things I found interesting was how Honeywell assimilated their new employees. Recent college graduates spent their first couple of weeks doing requisite training and setting up their computers. After they finish, they’re free to latch on with any group that has positions relevant to their qualifications. I’m not sure if every office in the company uses this protocol, but this is how it was done at the particular location I was at.

My on-site interview consisted of four thirty minute evaluations with 1-3 interviewers each. The interviews were very similar to Lockheed Martin in that there were no technical questions and only behavioral / resume questions. I performed well and was able to receive my first professional job offer. I was excited but didn’t anticipate having such a small amount of time to decide. I had never received an offer before and figured that I’d have at least a month or two to make a decision. With my Microsoft interview scheduled over a month away, I had to turn it down.

I had one other experience with Honeywell which was a phone interview for a summer internship with their Aerospace office. I’ve since forgotten which type of position it was for and what specific group it was with, but what I do remember was that the interview was extremely laid back. The three guys I was speaking with were constantly making jokes with myself and amongst each other. The tone of the interview was very non serious and it seemed like they were just trying to see if my personality would fit in with them. This goes to show you that your technical ability won’t always be the only or main attribute you’re going to be judged on in an interview.

Boeing

I was able to score a phone interview with Boeing at one of my school’s job fairs. The interview was a typical human resources phone screen consisting of behavioral and resume questions. What I remember about this interview is how I messed up the “do you have any questions for me?” portion of the interview. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to say something stupid when you don’t have a question ready and try to wing one off the top of your head. To prevent this situation I always tried to be prepared with a couple of generic questions in case I didn’t have any specific ones. In the interview, I asked the recruiter if she knew what software engineering methodologies were used at Boeing. She replied that she didn’t have any expertise on the subject and could not answer. Then, inexplicably, I followed up with another technical question that she was unable to respond to. I’m not sure why I did this. I might have been nervous or I might have legitimately thought that she would be able to answer the question. Instead, she got a little bit mad and kind of snapped at me. I didn’t hear back from Boeing after that.

Stryker

Stryker is a medical technology firm that’s based in Kalamazoo Michigan. Of all the companies that I interviewed with, Stryker had the most interesting screening process. For first round evaluations, Stryker uses Gallup interviews. A Gallup interview consists of tightly worded behavioral questions requiring one sentence or less responses. Examples of Gallup interview questions would be “How do you deal with defeat?” and "Do you see yourself as a leader?". The interview is very psychological in nature and similar to the multiple choice personality tests that are used for electronic applications at retail stores like Blockbuster and Home Depot. I was asked Gallup questions by Stryker at both career fairs and during one phone screen I had with them. I’m not really sure what I think of this interview style but it’s definitely one of the more unique things I experienced during my job search.

Click here for Other Internship Interviews (part 2)

Phone Screens (part 5)

2009-11-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of this series on phone screens, I talked about how phone screens fit into the programming interview process and defined the three types of phone screens that it’s possible to receive during first round interviews. In part 2, I presented a flow diagram which illustrated the many different ways that companies can conduct phone screens. In parts 3, 4 and 5, I’m going to give specific examples from my technical interview experience on how certain companies perform their first round phone screens.

Google

I had two phone screen opportunities with Google. The first one occurred during the semester before I graduated. I was contacted by a Google recruiter about a software engineering position in Mountain View, California. Initially, the recruiter wanted to set up an appointment to speak with me on the phone but since my schedule was hectic she sent me the information in an e-mail. The e-mail contained advice on how to prepare for the interview and some links to recent Google projects (I’ll go into more detail about what she said in the e-mail when I talk about my Google interview experience). Next, she scheduled me to have a technical phone screen with a Google software engineer. In the interview, I was asked three coding / algorithm type questions. The first question was of low difficulty, the second question was of medium difficulty, and the last question was of high difficulty. I was unable to pass the interview and did not advance in the interview process.

My second phone screen opportunity with Google occurred three months after my initial opportunity. I was contacted by a recruiter about an Adsense Embedded Tools Specialist position. I had a short non evaluated interview with the recruiter and then was scheduled for an engineer interview. In the engineer interview, I was asked questions about my software development history and resume, and was also asked questions pertaining to my experience with Adsense. I passed the interview and was set up with a second engineering interview where I was asked one easy coding question. I did well on this interview and was invited to interview on-site.

Lockheed Martin

On three different occasions during my technical interview experience, I was invited to recent college graduate interview events with Lockheed Martin (I talk about one of my Lockheed Martin interview experiences in this post). One of the invitations was for an office that was local to me, while the other two were out of state. On each occasion, I wasn’t given any phone screens and only spoke with a recruiter to confirm logistical information. It seems as though Lockheed Martin is not afraid to bring candidates on-site without screening them first.

Microsoft

The only phone screen I had with Microsoft was for the Microsoft Scholarship Program (I talk about the phone screen extensively in this post). I had one phone screen with a recruiter before being invited to interview on-site. What was unique about this particular interview was that it was the only instance throughout my technical interview experience where I was asked technical questions by a recruiter. Despite this, you shouldn’t expect to be asked technical questions in a recruiter interview.

Network Appliance

I had one phone screen experience with Network Appliance. I was contacted via e-mail by a recruiter who scheduled me to interview with an engineer for a software development position in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The interview lasted forty-five minutes and was conducted on speaker phone with multiple participants. I was asked resume questions and behavioral questions, and was also asked questions pertaining to my experience with / passion for writing data storage software. I didn’t pass the interview.

Resume Development (part 2)

2009-10-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of this series on resume development, I talked about how to effectively develop the education section of your resume. In part 2, I’m going to talk about how you can develop the experience section of your resume.

Experience

The experience section of your resume will list all of the jobs you’ve worked at and outline all of the projects you’ve done at each job. It’s very important to gain some kind of relevant work experience before you graduate and start applying to full time positions. Below, I’ve listed ways you can develop the experience section of your resume for each grade level of college:

Freshman – It’s very difficult to acquire relevant work experience as a freshman. Your best bet at obtaining early programming exposure is to search within your school for positions in IT or web development. Bookmark your school’s on-campus job web site and visit it periodically. You can also check and see if your department has any openings for undergraduate research assistants. I highly recommend writing a cover letter when applying as a freshman because your resume will be too under developed to have a significant impact on its own.

Sophomore – When you reach the beginning of your sophomore year, you can start applying to small local companies. These types of places are usually open to hiring students for part time work / internships. Check your schools job listings to identify local companies that recruit at your school. Start attending career fairs. Again, write a cover letter. You can also look for and apply to scholarships that are packaged with internships. Usually, your major’s department will have listings of these type of awards.

Junior – As you enter your junior year, your resume should be developed enough so that you feel comfortable applying to any type of company. You can now expand your search distance beyond the state you live in. If you don’t have any work experience up until this point, it’s imperative that you obtain an internship during the summer between your junior and senior years. You can start searching for a summer internship as early as the fall semester.

Senior – Ideally, you don’t want to be in the position of having to enter your senior year without having had any relevant work experience. If you do end up in this predicament, one trick you can use is to push your graduation back an extra semester. This will give you another summer to try and find an internship.

Click here for Resume Development (part 3)

Phone Screens (part 4)

2009-10-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of this series on phone screens, I talked about how phone screens fit into the programming interview process and defined the three types of phone screens that it’s possible to receive during first round interviews. In part 2, I presented a flow diagram which illustrated the many different ways that companies can conduct phone screens. In parts 3, 4 and 5, I’m going to give specific examples from my technical interview experience on how certain companies perform their first round phone screens.

Apple

Out of all the companies that I interviewed with, I had the most phone screen experience with Apple. I interviewed mainly with iPod and iPhone quality assurance / development teams and also spoke with some OSX and iChat teams. Typically I was contacted via e-mail by an Apple recruiter who set up time to speak with an engineer or occasionally a hiring manager (I don’t ever recall having a recruiter screen with Apple). The hiring manager interviews were usually brief and seemed to serve the purpose of making sure that I was interested in the position and fit its requirements. The engineer interviews were very technical and most of the time tested my C++ / C coding skills (Objective-C is the main language used at Apple.). In development interviews it’s possible to receive tough algorithm questions. Though I never received an invitation to interview on-site with Apple, it was apparent that it would take at least one or two successful engineer interviews before being considered.

One thing that really surprised me about my phone screen experience with Apple was the fact that I was given take home assignments from my interviewers on two different occasions. Both assignments contained coding questions to be completed in C. Apple was the only company to do this throughout my interview experience.

Paypal

I had one phone screen experience with Paypal for a software development position at a local office. I was given an intense evaluated recruiter screen and then a tough engineer screen with one interviewer and multiple others listening in. During the engineer screen I was asked to talk about all of the school projects I had listed on my resume, was given knowledge based questions on UNIX and commonly used programming languages, and was given one coding question. I passed the interview and was invited to interview on-site. This was one of the more tough screening processes I went through for a local office.

Sun Microsystems

In the only phone screen experience I had with Sun Microsystems, an engineer called me to interview me on the spot for a low level development position on a SPARC team. This was the only instance where someone called me to conduct an interview without first scheduling it. If this ever happens to you, you should never take the interview on the spot and should always reschedule it so that you'll have some time to prepare and will be able to take the call in a comfortable environment. The interview was recorded to be played back for the hiring manager and consisted of elementary hardware and operating system questions. I did not hear back from Sun after this interview.

Click here for Phone Screens (part 5)

IBM Internship

2009-10-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

My internship at IBM turned out to be a great experience (click here to read about my interview with IBM). The location I worked at was formerly known as Object Technology International – a company that developed the integrated development environment Eclipse – until IBM bought them in 1996. After the merger, the office would eventually switch its focus to providing mobile Java solutions for major cell phone carriers such as Sprint, Nokia and others. It also worked on porting IBM application software to mobile platforms.

The office was located in a large twenty story building in the business district of the city that I live in. IBM owned three floors in the building – two for sales and one for software development. The software development floor housed 40-50 employees in a small cubicle farm that was surrounded by labs and conference rooms. Everyone, including managers, worked in a cubicle. Most of the workers were OTI holdovers and had been at the office for years.

The office environment was very laid back. Work schedules were flexible and there was no dress code. A lot of people worked from home on Fridays. Every month we had a dessert party to celebrate birthdays. Though most of the office was older, there were three other interns and two recent college graduates who were in their early to mid 20s. Part of what made the internship so enjoyable was that we all became good friends. We ate lunch together everyday and hung out quite a bit on the weekends.

The compensation and benefits were very good. The pay was substantially higher than any of the other offers I received. As an intern, you got your own cubicle and laptop, and accrued paid time off for each hour you worked. In the kitchen, there was a fridge filled with free soda, juice and water. Employees were able to receive savings from a wide variety of vendors through the IBM discount program. With this I was able to get 20% off of my monthly phone bill.

All interns were given a meaningful project to work on. For my assignment, I helped develop a set of extension classes for Sprint’s API. The majority of my time was spent working on an mp3 player that would later be added to one of the new Blackjack phones. All of my code was written in JavaME and developed in Eclipse. For testing, we had access to various smart phones which simulated the environments that our programs were being written for.

The management style in the office was very easy going. There was no micro management and project leads were very hands off. Each intern was assigned a mentor whom they worked closely with on their project. My mentor was a recent college graduate who had interned at the office before. He was a great guy and I was able to learn a lot from him. Interns were also required to give status updates during bi-weekly staff meetings.

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I learned a lot about how companies managed large software projects and was able to gain real world experience developing commercial applications. I was also able to form quality relationships with people that I still keep in touch with.

Phone Screens (part 3)

2009-10-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of this series on phone screens, I talked about how phone screens fit into the programming interview process and defined the three types of phone screens that it’s possible to receive during first round interviews. In part 2, I presented a flow diagram which illustrated the many different ways that companies can conduct phone screens. In parts 3, 4 and 5, I’m going to give specific examples from my technical interview experience on how certain companies perform their first round phone screens.

Adobe

I had two on-site interviews with Adobe which were prefaced by numerous phone screens. I was first contacted via e-mail from a recruiter in the Mobile and Devices Business Unit in San Francisco. I was given a light recruiter screen and then was scheduled to interview with hiring managers from two different Flash Lite teams (both for quality assurance positions – one for black box testing and one for white box testing). Both of the hiring managers checked to see that my technical background fit their positions requirements and gave me detailed explanations on the job roles and what would be expected from me. After the hiring manager interviews, I had one engineer interview with each team. For the black box testing position, I was given a live coding exercise using Adobe Connect. For the white box testing position, I spoke with one of the teams technical leads (with others listening in on speaker phone) and was given resume, behavioral, and knowledge based questions (object oriented programming, quality assurance, differences between certain programming languages, etc.). I passed both screens and was invited to interview on-site with both teams.

I performed well during the on-site interviews but was not offered. I was then passed on to a recruiter from the Platform Business Unit who set me up with three more hiring manager interviews: one with InDesign in Seattle, and two with Flex in San Francisco (all three for white box quality assurance positions). The InDesign hiring manager interview was very similar to both of my Flash Lite hiring manager interviews while the Flex ones were a little bit more technical. For instance, I was asked to write some simple code in HTML and was asked how I’d test a microwave. I continued interviewing with InDesign and was set up with an engineer phone screen consisting of resume, behavioral, and knowledge based questions.

As you can see from my experience, Adobe likes to have a recruiter set up one or more interviews for the candidate with hiring managers from different teams. The hiring manager interviews may or may not contain light technical questions. If you pass the hiring manager interview, you’ll have an engineer screen that will be very technical and could contain all types of questions. If you pass the engineer screen, you’ll most likely be invited to interview on-site.

Cisco

The only phone screens I had with Cisco were for the Associate Systems Engineer program. The systems engineer role at Cisco is a sales oriented technical position that interfaces heavily with customers. I had one twenty minute evaluated recruiter interview that was pretty intense and contained some tough behavioral questions. After that, I had a fifty minute interview with a senior systems engineer that was also behavioral intensive and contained customer role playing exercises. I passed both interviews and was invited to interview on-site.

Click here for Phone Screens (part 4)

Resume Development (part 1)

2009-10-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

As I’ve mentioned previously in the post Start Your Technical Job Search Early, it’s an excellent idea for you to start writing your resume as soon as you begin college. Though you don’t have any content to put on it yet, you should still pick out a template and write out headers for the five main resume topics: education, experience, class projects, skills and activities. This will allow you to develop your resume gradually and put you in the mindset of making academic and life decisions based on how they’ll affect your future job search. However, before you’re able to make sound decisions, you must first have a firm understanding of the type of information that will populate your resume in the early going. In this two part series, I’d like to talk about the initial content that will comprise your resume and also mention some of the tips and tricks I learned over the years to help you start developing your resume.

Education: GPA

Your GPA is the most tangible attribute on your resume thus making it easily evaluated by recruiters and a very safe way to get noticed by companies. Needless to say, it’s always in your best interest to keep your GPA as high as possible. This is especially important early on when your academic performance will comprise the majority of content on your resume. However, I know that it can be difficult to maintain a respectable GPA as you try and juggle your computer science course work along with other activities. Below, I’ve listed some strategies that will help you keep your GPA as high as possible:

Stretch Out Your Curriculum – This might come as a surprise to you, but I recommend extending your coursework through one extra semester and graduating in 4.5 years instead of 4. Almost all of the computer science majors I knew took at least 4.5 years to graduate and some took a lot more. Problem is, they initially planned on graduating in 4 years but ended up having to retake classes that they dropped / failed. It’s not to say that they weren’t intelligent enough - they simply got bogged down by the tremendous amount of work that comes with a computer science degree. By preemptively choosing to stay one extra semester, you take a lot of pressure off yourself academically and also allow yourself more time to experience things outside of school. I guarantee you that companies won’t hold it against you if you graduate one semester later, so take advantage of this and make your life in college a lot less miserable than it has to be.

Take Summer School – Another way to ease the strain of a difficult curriculum is to take at least one course during every summer. This especially works out well if you take a challenging class like physics that would normally have an effect on your grades in other courses. You’ll still have plenty of time to enjoy your summer vacation and will have eased the burden of the spring and fall semesters considerably.

Pick Your Teachers Wisely – Avoid teachers who put no effort into their classes, give tons of work, and have unreasonable grade scales. Choose instructors that care about teaching and who will challenge you - but also want you to do well. If possible, take a class during another semester if a maniac is teaching it during the current semester. Talk to people and use sites like Rate My Professors, Pick-A-Prof, and Myspace Teacher Ratings to help you determine which teachers to avoid..

Take a W When Needed – It’s OK to withdraw from a class every once in a while. If you’ve mistakenly overloaded yourself with too many credits, it’s not a bad idea to drop one class so you can focus on the others. If you have a nightmare professor who is consuming all of your time, there’s nothing wrong with abandoning ship and giving it a go during another term. Too many times I saw classmates hang onto classes they were doing poorly in and ended up failing when they could’ve taken a W and saved the hit on their GPA. Try and recognize as early as possible when you’re going to withdraw from a class so that you don’t waste time that could be spent on other classes. A limit of 1 withdrawal per year is a good rule to follow.

Education: Degrees

It’s easy to get caught up in the school of thought that says the more undergraduate degrees you have on your resume the more impressive it will look. I was certainly guilty of this as I had a double major in computer systems engineering and a minor in math up until my junior year. The truth of the matter is that the amount of time and work it takes to complete another degree will far outweigh any positive effect that it might have on your resume. In the end, you’ll probably only be applying to jobs that are pertinent to one degree anyway. If you’re super passionate about another field of study then you should double major or minor in it, but if you’re doing it just to build up your resume, then it’s not really worth it.

Click here for Resume Development (part 2)

Phone Screens (part 2)

2009-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of this series on phone screens, I talked about how phone screens fit into the programming interview process and defined the three types of phone screens that it’s possible to receive during first round interviews. In part 2, I’m going to talk about how phone screens are actually conducted by companies.

Of all the different aspects of the programming interview process, the structure of first round phone screens is probably the most varied and unpredictable. All companies have their own methods for conducting phone screens and sometimes groups within a company can differ. During my technical interview experience, I had first round phone screens that consisted of many different combinations of the three interview types that I mentioned in part 1 (recruiter interviews, hiring manager interviews and engineer interviews). There were occasions when I was given all three types of interviews, and there were occasions when I was only given one type of interview. Below, I’ve listed a flow chart to give you an idea of how first round phone screens are usually conducted:

Initial Contact - If a company is interested in interviewing you, a recruiter (or sometimes a hiring manager) will notify you via phone or e-mail. They’ll likely schedule you to have a recruiter interview, a hiring manager interview, or an engineer interview. On rare occasions, they could also invite you to interview on-site without any screens (this is most likely to occur if you live within driving distance of the office).

Recruiter Interview - If you have a recruiter interview and pass it, then it’s likely that you’ll be scheduled to have an engineer interview. It’s also possible to have a hiring manager interview before the engineer interview, though rarely did I have both a recruiter interview and a hiring manager interview. There is a small chance that you could be invited to interview on-site after the recruiter interview, though as mentioned previously this will depend on your proximity to the office location.

Hiring Manager Interview - If you have a hiring manager interview and pass it, then you’ll be scheduled to have an engineer interview. If there is a recruiter interview, the hiring manager interview will always take place after it. I was never invited to interview on-site immediately after a hiring manager interview, I was always set up to interview with one or more engineers from the hiring managers team.

Engineer Interview - The engineer interview is the most important and the one that you’re most likely to have during first round interviews. It’s the only type of phone screen that you could have more than one of and with more than one person. The engineer interview always takes place after the hiring manager interview and the recruiter interview (if they occur). In most cases, you’ll have one engineer interview conducted by a single member of the team with others listening in on speaker phone, or you’ll have two or more engineer interviews with separate individuals. If you pass your engineer screens, then you’ll be invited to interview on-site.

During my interview experience, the most common scenario that occurred was to have a recruiter e-mail me and set up one or more engineer interviews. Less than half the time, I was given a recruiter or hiring manager interview before my engineer interviews. For offices that were within driving distance, I often didn’t have any screens or only had a recruiter screen.

Click here for Phone Screens (part 3)

IBM Interview

2009-10-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

In early March of 2007, about a month and a half before my Microsoft interview, I was contacted via e-mail by a software engineer from a local IBM office about an internship opportunity. The position was for developing mobile applications in Java. I submitted to the job requisition that was given to me and waited over a month and a half without receiving a response. Finally, I sent an e-mail to the original sender asking if the internship was still available and didn't get a response. He had included his managers name in the original message so I googled it and found his e-mail address. I e-mailed the manager and asked him about the internship. Surprisingly, he responded to me the next day and told me he was still trying to get approval for the position. He said he’d get back to me as soon as he knew the verdict.

A couple of days after my correspondence with the IBM manager, I was notified about my offer from Lockheed Martin. I only had one week to respond but was able to get the deadline extended an extra week (When you receive an offer, usually there is a one week response deadline for internships and a two week response deadline for full time offers. If you need more time, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask the recruiter for an extension - they’ll almost always give you an extra 1-2 weeks). This allowed me to stall a little to see if IBM would get back to me. Sure enough, the IBM manager did respond to me and we set up an interview one day before my Lockheed Martin deadline.

On the day of the interview, I made the 20 minute commute to the downtown area of the city that I live in. I decided to wear a suit because I heard IBM was a bit more conservative than other tech companies. I parked in the garage and made my way up to the 6th floor of the 20 story building. The manager let me into the office and took me on a quick tour. He showed me some of the labs and conference rooms and introduced me to a couple of his employees. He was a pretty easy going guy and I got along with him right away. The interview was very similar to the ones I had at Lockheed Martin in that there were no technical questions and only behavioral / resume questions (I doubt that IBM interviews this way for technical positions at its larger offices. In fact, later on I found out that the head technical manager was supposed to interview me but called in sick.). The interview lasted 40 minutes and when it was over he offered me the position. I asked if I could have one night to think it over and he agreed.

Even though I didn’t accept the offer on the spot, I was almost 100% sure that I was going to choose IBM. I asked for time to decide because I wanted to absolutely confirm that I was making the right choice. When it came down to it, at IBM I’d have the opportunity to work on commercial software and would have a much shorter commute. I felt that though Lockheed Martin was a great company, IBM had a reputation that was matched only by few others and would look better on my resume. The following day I left a message for the hiring manager at Lockheed Martin to inform him of my decision and thank him. I accepted the offer at IBM and was now officially finished with my internship search.

Phone Screens (part 1)

2009-10-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Phone screens are the first step in the programming interview process and are used by companies to determine whether or not they want to invite a candidate to interview on-site. How it works is that someone (usually a recruiter) will contact you via phone or e-mail to express interest in interviewing you. You’ll set up an appointment for the interview and a representative from the company will call you at the scheduled time. The interview could last anywhere between fifteen minutes to an hour and could contain behavioral questions, technical questions, or both. It’s possible that you could have multiple interviewers, or one interviewer with others listening in (you’ll know if you’re on speaker phone). The amount of phone screens that are conducted before the on-site interview varies by company. From my experience, I’d say the average is between two and three.

There are three types of interviews that commonly take place during first round phone screens:

The Recruiter Interview

A recruiter is someone who’s responsible for finding candidates to fill vacant positions within a company. They’re the ones who initially find your resume and send it to the hiring manager for review. There are two types of recruiter interviews that you may receive during first round phone interviews. The first type is not so much an interview, but is more to verify your interest in the position and make sure that you fit the qualifications. It will consist of mostly application type questions and will only last between 10-15 minutes. At the end of the interview, the recruiter will schedule another interview for you with a hiring manager or engineer. The second type is an evaluated interview that consists of mainly behavioral and resume questions. Though recruiters are not technical, they’ll still ask you to talk about school or work projects to gauge how you sound describing them. If you do well during this interview (which typically lasts between 20-30 minutes), you’ll be given another phone interview with someone who’s technical.

The Hiring Manager Interview

The hiring manager is the person who’s in charge of the group that’s hiring for the position that you’re interviewing for. They’re the ones who initially select you to interview and who ultimately decide how far you advance in the interview process. Usually, the hiring manager is someone who use to be technical but now is in more of a people managing / business role. If the hiring manager decides to screen you, they’ll spend a lot of time giving you a very detailed description of the position and its requirements. They’ll query your work and academic background to make sure you’re a proper fit for the role. They might ask you some behavioral questions to get an idea of what your interested in and what type of person you are. They might also ask you some light technical questions, though from my experience I’ve noticed that hiring managers usually like to defer technical questions to their engineers. Ultimately, the hiring manager wants to get a feel for how you’ll fit in the group both technically and personality wise, and also wants to verify that you’ll be interested in and motivated by the position.

The Engineer Interview

This interview will be conducted by one of the engineers from the hiring managers’ team. It will be someone who is very technical and who is currently in a role similar to the one you’re interviewing for. You’ll be asked in great detail about former technical projects you’ve completed at school or work. You’ll be tested on any languages / tools that you have experience in which are relevant to the position. You’ll be asked knowledge based questions about data structures, algorithms, and object oriented programming. It’s possible you’ll be given programming questions or brain teasers. These will be your most technical phone screens and the most important in determining whether or not you get invited to interview on-site. Engineer interviews typically last between 25-50 minutes and are the ones you’re most likely to have more than one of or with multiple people.

Click here for Phone Screens (part 2)

Start Your Programming Job Search Early

2009-10-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

You’ve just arrived on campus for the beginning of your freshman year and your mind is racing with anxious thoughts. You worry about your dorm, your roommate, your classes, your teachers, and many other things. The last thing you’re thinking about is where you’ll be working at when you finish school in four years. But the truth of the matter is that it’s never too early to start thinking about your future. Below, I’ve written a short check list of things that I recommend doing when you first start school. Most of these tasks aren't very time consuming and I guarantee that if you complete them, it’s going to help you immensely when you apply for jobs later on.

Sign-up with Career Services

All schools have a career services department which is responsible for providing students with resources to help them gain employment after they graduate. Most require that you register with them in order to receive access to job listings, career fairs, resume counseling, and much more. It’s in your best interest to get registered with your schools career services department as soon as possible. After you’ve registered, set up an appointment with a career counselor so that you can learn about all of the resources that are available to you.

Start Your Resume

It’s to your advantage to start writing your resume as soon as you begin college. Though you don’t have any content to put on it yet, you should still pick out a template and write out headers for the five main resume topics: education, experience, class projects, skills and activities. This will allow you to develop your resume gradually and put you in the mindset of making academic and life decisions based on how they’ll affect your future job search. If you strategically plan out your resume from the beginning, you’re going to be miles ahead of the people who start thinking about it in their junior and senior years. You’ll also retain more detailed information if you write it as you go rather than if you write it all at once and have to remember things from years ago. The best way to go about starting your resume is to schedule an appointment with career services. They can give you templates and other useful advice to help you get started.

Check Out Your Majors' Department

It’s imperative that you become familiar with the department of your major because it’s going to contain job related resources that will be specific to your course of study. To find out what your department has to offer, your best bet is to check its web site and advising center. At the very least there should be a list of job postings, scholarship information, and academic opportunities. The computer science department at my school had its own career center which published a newsletter, offered career counseling, and held job fairs. Make a note of or bookmark any useful resources that your department has to offer.

Make a List of Prospective Companies

It's a great idea for you to start tracking companies that you might be interested in working at. This will allow you to have a much better understanding of the industry and the types of positions that will be available to you when you start applying for jobs. It will help you figure out what type of place you want to work at and what niche area of your major you want to focus on. Start out by keeping tabs on the local companies that actively hire at your school. These are the places where you’re going to have your best shot at acquiring an early internship. You don’t have to do everything all at once - simply create a word document and come back to it every time you discover a prospect. The best way to find prospects is to check your schools’ job listing sites, look at career fair rosters, and talk to people. For each company that you find, do a little bit of research on them and try to get an idea of what type of positions they usually look for. As you progress academically and your resume develops, you can become more selective and widen your search distance.

Conclusion

The point of the above tasks is to get you in the habit of making decisions with your resume and career in mind. Though this might seem trivial to you right now, the effect it will have over the course of a 2-3 year period will be immense. For brand new students and incoming freshman, this might be the most valuable information that I can convey to you throughout the entire blog.

Choosing a School to Study Computer Science

2009-10-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

In this post, I’d like to talk about two things that you should take into consideration when choosing a school to study computer science. It should be noted that the following information might be more applicable to those who are applying to graduate schools or those who are transferring to four year schools from junior colleges. However, it may also be pertinent to high school graduates who have programming experience and are pretty decisive about choosing computer science as a major.

Find Out Which Companies Recruit On-campus

If a company recruits at the school that you attend, it increases your chances of having a job opportunity with them significantly. You won’t have to hope and pray that your resume gets noticed on a company’s job web site among thousands of other applicants. Instead, you’ll be competing with a much smaller number of candidates and will be able to communicate with the companies recruiters directly through career fairs, information sessions, and other events. Check a school’s website for job postings and career fair rosters to get an idea of which companies actively recruit at it. If you’re unable to find or access this information, call or e-mail the computer science department and have them provide it for you. You can also check websites for companies that you’re interested in as sometimes they’ll list schools that they recruit at. Obviously, you'll want to find a school that has plenty of tech companies that recruit at it.

Proximity is Important

It’s important to choose a school that’s close to areas that are fertile with tech companies as it will boost your chances of receiving interviews with said companies. The reason for this is because it’s expensive for companies to fly out recruits for on-site interviews. Ideally, hiring managers want to interview as many candidates as it takes to find the right person for whatever position they’re trying to fill. Recruiting budgets are limited though and companies are able to save money on air fare and other travel expenditures by finding talent that’s closer to home. I once had an opportunity to attend an on-site interview event with a large corporation at an office location two thousand miles away from where I live. This particular company had it set up so that the candidate made their own flight arrangements and had a budget of how much money they could spend. Through miscommunication between myself and the recruiter, I ended up missing the window for which I could purchase a ticket for my flight because the price got too expensive and was unable to attend the event (and this was still with ample time before the interview).

Another way proximity can influence the technical interview process is by cutting short or eliminating first round interviews if a candidate lives close enough to the office location. I had numerous on-site interviews with local companies where I didn’t have to partake in any phone screens simply because I lived within driving distance. If companies don't have to spend money on your travel and lodging, they'll be more willing to interview you on-site without screening you.