Ahmad Baracat

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My tips for landing a software engineering job

Read all this list before you start applying, especially Patrick McKenzie’s article (linked in the salary negotiation section).

Get your resume in shape

Show don’t tell. Focus on the objective data. Cut the weasel words. Exercise attention to detail.

Let’s look at a few examples from real resumes and how we can improve them:

For more concrete examples, have a look at Gayle McDowell’s (author of Cracking the Coding Interview book) resume advice and this article by Lewis Lin describing the writing culture at Amazon.

Land an interview

Don’t apply directly, get referred instead. Genuinely reach out to people on LinkedIn. Attend conferences or meetups or host ones if you don’t find meetups locally.

Prepare for interview

Pro Tip: watch mockup interviews on Youtube (I personally like this channel), but also try to do mockup interviews with others (either friends or other software engineers whom you might pay for their time).

Salary negotiation

I am not an expert :), but I highly recommend going through the following 2 articles:

Other resources

If you are Arabic speaking, I have created 2 short courses to get you started in Data Science as well a short course with career tips (the course I wish existed when I graduated university), which are free to access.