I can’t pass tech screens, Should I change careers?

This is an important question I think, and it's too bad that it's not getting more traction here.

If you are doubting your capability ... don't. You are capable of this, period. You know the drill: study Sedgewick/whomever, do LC problems, make sure you understand graphs and DP, etc., etc. The interview process these days is bullshit, it just is. Build those interview muscles.

Also, make sure you properly are managing the usual life stuff: diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, etc. Don't discount those factors.

Now, that said, if you are questioning whether spending the next 6 months of your life studying algorithms -- or, for that matter, the next 30 years of your life doing the software engineering hustle -- is the best way to spend your time/life/energy, that's a very important question, and I can relate. Time spent doing one thing is time you won't spend doing something else. You have one life to live and you have to get real with yourself how you want to live it. If you eventually pivot, OK, but pivot thoughtfully, and for the right reasons. But I don't think you should make the mistake of thinking lack of capability is a factor here.

I may be reading through the lines, but given how pressed private industry is for devs you're probably doing poorly on the non-technical part of the interview and they're leveraging the tech screen as an easy out for a decision that they already wanted to make.

How much time do you spend preparing for non-technical phone screens & behavioral interviews?

Keep at it and try to distinguish what kind of culture the company has in the first call with the recruiter. Don’t even bother with a tech screen until you know that.

These are good places to start:

https://www.keyvalues.com/

https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards

Apply to a university and do research programming. You get paid less but nobody will want to do your job, they want to chase startup money. You will have a degree and easily get in because you aren't talking to a recruiter, you're talking to a PhD who prob went to the same school you did. It's the most satisfying work too, writing algorithms for a cancer lab or whatever they're doing at your university. Anyway that's my advice, I too couldn't get any jobs in the beginning

If you enjoy coding and are at least ok for your experience level, the problem isn't you, it's the interviewing process. I'm sorry you've had so many poor experiences, but stick with it, especially since you enjoy building things.

There's an enormous github repo <https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards> dedicated to highlighting companies that don't do "whiteboarding", which means "the kinds of CS trivia questions that are associated with bad interview practices."

I didn't read through this reddit post but it might also have some good resources: <https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/532yjp/w....

I don't have a CS degree, I did some self-teaching off-and-on for about 5 years, did a bootcamp 3 years ago, and have had a decent career since then. I say that to say this: you're probably better than me at this stuff, so to repeat, the problem isn't you, it's the interview process.

I find my brain shuts down during interviews. There's also a bunch of misdirection, multiple times I've been told "we're not going to do any whiteboarding" only to be handed a whiteboard marker.

Don't be discouraged, stick with it and make sure you push back against this screwed up culture when you gain experience and have the opportunity to make hiring decisions.

I have experienced exactly the same and have faced a lot of recruitment nonsense over the years. In my opinion it's all a numbers game, some interviews I absolutely smash both the tech and hr part, others I fail miserably even on easy questions because of various circumstances.

Some companies (for example Apple) won't even give you any hr interview they just call and say "let's go through some tech questions" and some guy starts asking you everything you've learnt in uni over 30mins. Others ask you to do a project at home and present it to them. Most commonly they send you a hackerrank which even if you smash there is always the chance you won't hear from them.

Last bit brings me to my next point, recruiters don't see you as anything more than a resource and will change their mind at any point during the process. Recently I had a call with a company's HR they were super impressed and wanted to invite me in for face-to-face and said they will inform me their availability asap... well that was 3 weeks ago and haven't heard back.

My advice is don't get discouraged or believe anything a recruiter tells you. Once I asked for a very reasonable salary for my experience and the recruiter got pissed off telling me even seniors don't make this in their company. Well guess what the next recruiter that called I got offered position for this exact money I asked for with no questions asked.

Just keep applying and slowly improve your problem solving skills and eventually you will land the right position. Most Interviews are extremely unrealistic anyway and even if you fail it doesn't mean anything about your skills, just means they found someone who would work for them for less money... Keep trying and best of luck!

Maybe you should try to find an opportunity that isn't dependent on what you're bumping up against repeatedly.

I'm in the same boat. I know I would do the job well, but I'm not a good test-taker. And even when I manage to perform really well on the tech screen, I still get rejected.

Stay strong, OP.

Interviewing just sucks sometimes. You got this, keep practicing and interviewing, you'll land something eventually.

Show me what you have built