During the HackYourFuture program, you will have technical interviews as tests. These interviews take place after completing a project and are conducted by an external mentor who was not involved in your project. All interviews will be performed online.

The Goals of tech interviews

• Build confidence: Gain experience with the technical interview format to feel more prepared for real job interviews.
• Practice technical communication: Develop your ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly and demonstrate your work professionally.
• Understand your tech level: Get a feedback about your current technical knowledge and identify areas for improvement.

Who conducts the interviews

Your interviewer will be a member of the HackYourFuture community approved by the HackYourFuture staff to conduct interviews. All interviewers in HackYourFuture first go through an initial training before starting to interview. Most of the time, the interviewer will be an external party who was not involved in your learning process. To reduce bias, your interviewer will never be your project mentor.

How long is the interview?

The technical interview lasts up to one hour, but it may finish earlier. Finishing early doesn't indicate whether you performed well or poorly - it depends on both the interviewer and you.

The structure of the interview

The general structure of the interview as follows:

1. Technical Questions - You will first be asked conceptual technical questions related to the project topic. Example questions: "What is a variable?", "What is the difference between an object and an array?"
2. Project demo - You will then be asked to share your screen and demo the project. Make it short, only a couple of minutes and pretend like you are presenting it to someone who has never seen it before.
3. Code demo - The interviewer will ask you to demo the code. Generally you want to:
   • Explain the project's folder structure. What is each folder responsible for? Mention important files and their purpose.
   • Start with a high-level overview, then go deeper into specific parts of the application.
   • At some point, the interviewer will stop you and start asking question about the code.
4. Code discussion - After your code demo, the interviewer will ask you about certain lines of code. Questions like: “What does this line do?”, “Why did you implement it like this?”, “Why did you use a switch statement here?”. etc.
5. Exercise - You will be asked to do a small exercise. The exercise will be different each interview. Exercises can be: general thinking (How would you implement X), “find the bug”, “What does the code do”, etc…
6. Conclusion & Feedback - At the end of the interview, the interviewer will provide immediate feedback on your strengths and areas for improvement.

Guidelines

• All interviews will be performed in English
• You will receive an email with a link to the interview. You will be expected to show up to the interview on time by joining the video call link.