Lockdown Episode 2
A tiring week, possibly partly due to the having a very busy week last week which has crept it’s way into this. I really need to do better at this thing people refer to as relaxing. Aware of the impending lockdown announced over the weekend, me and my family ran off early this week to ensure we had enough supplies ready for us to survive the harsh winters of the UK. I mean who knows when lockdown will be lifted, they say 1 month but it could easily turn into 3 months like last time. Who even believes the government anymore and that they know what they are doing? So having an early week scramble to spend time with your loved ones and buying supplies meant a bit of setback on the jobhunt. On Wednesday I found out I had an interview, my first ever! I must be doing something right which is a little strange as I did apply for this role about 2 months ago.
Upon finding out obviously my first reaction is to panic and then focus my energy on practicing my Javascript and spending a lot of time working with my dear friend India who was also interested in improving Javascript skills so a win win situation all round. I had no idea what the interview would entail but for sure there will be tech tests so the best thing to do is to brush up and make sure you are razor sharp when called upon.
There was also a couple of jobs advertised on the Makers student hub and subsequently spent my weekend drafting up applications and practicing for my interview. A busy week and I’ll be glad to have a day off once I feel I have brushed up enough on my skills.
So I had my first interview and tech test this week, a first for both. Right before I had my phone interview I had booked a review which I planned to do in Javascript. I had practiced a bit prior but still not up to the level I was on the course, it took me a while to get going due to unfamiliarity with Javascript and setting up my environments but overall it wasn’t a total trainwreck as I expected. My feedback was that I needed to be more familiar with Javascript syntax which I wholeheartedly agreed with. My process and planning in general was steady but I need to refactor more with less hardcoding to pass my tests.
The phone interview went really well I thought, the standard interview questions were asked and answered and I felt I had really comprehensive answers prepared. Because I enjoy the many different aspects of software development it was very easy to talk about what inspires and motivates me to code and to be in the tech industry. I then got invited to do a tech test which needed to be completed by the end of the week. With a few tech tests in the repository provided it was confusing as to which tech test was required to be completed. Asking for clarification took a while to come back with answers and then to start work on a backend node project building an API. Now I’ve worked with API’s previously while on the course but to create one myself? I didn’t know where to start and was confused if I needed a frontend too to interact with the API.
Postman came to the rescue this week, for those who don’t know, Postman is an application used for checking API’s. I’m sure there are other uses for Postman but as I’ve used it for just over a day that’s all I am familiar with.
I didn’t get much else done this week as I was frantically working on the API, getting more familiar with nodeJS and express. I feel a bit more comfortable using those technologies now and feel I will definitely use them in the near future to build some applications. Even if all goes bad, I will have learnt something new, which is just how I take any new experience. Obviously hoping I will get a job soon but I am also content and eager to learn and develop my craft further, there is always light at the end fo the tunnel.
Now off to relax and enjoy a hard earned weekend!
