Job done
Last Friday I had an interview for the role of Senior Developer.
It took an hour and a half, starting* with me being handed a sheet of paper with a simple brief** and being told that I had ten minutes to write a presentation followed by ten minutes to give it. They then left the room and I scribbled like mad for about 7 minutes***, spent three minutes typing it up on the desktop PC available in the meeting room, totally failed to get the projector working, and then just gave the presentation in an ad-hoc manner. Apparently I talked for eight and a half minutes, leaving me a handy ninety seconds for Q&A at the end.
There then followed an hour of competency based interview, which largely consisted of questions of the format "Can you give an example of a time when you were investigating an ancient temple and had to deal with its guardian spirits?" - the interviewers would then make notes as I rambled, ticking off any mentions of things like "Remembered to put in place warding symbols", "Got everyone out alive" and "Thwarted plans of evil competitor". Apparently they usually prompt you if you don't cover all the points that you can get ticks for, but I seem to have managed to blather enough not to need much of that****.
And after an hour of that we finished with me asking some questions for what they want out of a senior developer that bog-standard developers don't do*****. And then I staggered, somewhat sweaty, out of the room, staggered back in to log myself out of the PC I'd used for my notes, and then staggered back out again to phone Julie and talk to her about how it had gone. I thought it went well - I tend to come across very well in interviews, and like I know what I'm talking about******, so I'm generally not too worried about actually passing them. But this doesn't stop me being a ball of nerves until I actually hear the results.
Which brings us forward to today, when after a few days of worrying about it, I got an email telling me that I have the job, and will henceforth be a Senior Developer, with the power of life and death over mere Developers*******.
Which means that I get a pay rise (Yay!) they stop paying me overtime (Boo!) and I get to be more responsible (mostly Yay!).
You have no idea how relieved I feel right now.
*After the interviewers had introduced themselves, of course.
**"You are the lead developer on a project that will change multiple applications, deal with masses of coders both onshore and off, change the nature of the space-time continuum and be delivered next Tuesday. Whare are the points that need considering, what are your first actions and how will you be a good lead developer?"
***Looking at my notes I had eight points for consideration, eleven initial actions, and seven things I should be doing to be an effective lead.
****Or, of course, they were doing it subtly that I didn't notice through the waves of stress that were washing over me at the time.
*****Leadership, apparently. Plus taking a wider interest in things and being aware of the bigger picture. All of which sounds like fun to me.
******In this case helped by me taking the list of core competencies from the job description and having Julie drill me about them the previous night.
*******Actual powers of life and death may not apply.
Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
comments there.
It took an hour and a half, starting* with me being handed a sheet of paper with a simple brief** and being told that I had ten minutes to write a presentation followed by ten minutes to give it. They then left the room and I scribbled like mad for about 7 minutes***, spent three minutes typing it up on the desktop PC available in the meeting room, totally failed to get the projector working, and then just gave the presentation in an ad-hoc manner. Apparently I talked for eight and a half minutes, leaving me a handy ninety seconds for Q&A at the end.
There then followed an hour of competency based interview, which largely consisted of questions of the format "Can you give an example of a time when you were investigating an ancient temple and had to deal with its guardian spirits?" - the interviewers would then make notes as I rambled, ticking off any mentions of things like "Remembered to put in place warding symbols", "Got everyone out alive" and "Thwarted plans of evil competitor". Apparently they usually prompt you if you don't cover all the points that you can get ticks for, but I seem to have managed to blather enough not to need much of that****.
And after an hour of that we finished with me asking some questions for what they want out of a senior developer that bog-standard developers don't do*****. And then I staggered, somewhat sweaty, out of the room, staggered back in to log myself out of the PC I'd used for my notes, and then staggered back out again to phone Julie and talk to her about how it had gone. I thought it went well - I tend to come across very well in interviews, and like I know what I'm talking about******, so I'm generally not too worried about actually passing them. But this doesn't stop me being a ball of nerves until I actually hear the results.
Which brings us forward to today, when after a few days of worrying about it, I got an email telling me that I have the job, and will henceforth be a Senior Developer, with the power of life and death over mere Developers*******.
Which means that I get a pay rise (Yay!) they stop paying me overtime (Boo!) and I get to be more responsible (mostly Yay!).
You have no idea how relieved I feel right now.
*After the interviewers had introduced themselves, of course.
**"You are the lead developer on a project that will change multiple applications, deal with masses of coders both onshore and off, change the nature of the space-time continuum and be delivered next Tuesday. Whare are the points that need considering, what are your first actions and how will you be a good lead developer?"
***Looking at my notes I had eight points for consideration, eleven initial actions, and seven things I should be doing to be an effective lead.
****Or, of course, they were doing it subtly that I didn't notice through the waves of stress that were washing over me at the time.
*****Leadership, apparently. Plus taking a wider interest in things and being aware of the bigger picture. All of which sounds like fun to me.
******In this case helped by me taking the list of core competencies from the job description and having Julie drill me about them the previous night.
*******Actual powers of life and death may not apply.
Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
comments there.