You’ve hit a major milestone as a computer scientist and are becoming a capable programmer. You now know how to solve problems, write algorithms, and analyze solutions; and you have a wealth of tools (like data structures) at your disposal. You may now be ready for an internship or (possibly) an entry-level software engineering job. But can you land the internship/job? It depends in part on how well you can solve new technical problems and communicate during interviews. How can you get better at this? Practice!
This course is part of the Object Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond Specialization
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Object Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond SpecializationUniversity of California San DiegoAbout this Course
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Learner Career Outcomes
31%
started a new career after completing these courses
50%
got a tangible career benefit from this course
33%
got a pay increase or promotion
Flexible deadlines
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Shareable Certificate
Earn a Certificate upon completion
100% online
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Course 4 of 5 in the
Intermediate Level
Approx. 21 hours to complete
English
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, English, Spanish
Skills you will gain
Live CodingProgramming InterviewAlgorithmsProblem Solving
Learner Career Outcomes
31%
started a new career after completing these courses
50%
got a tangible career benefit from this course
33%
got a pay increase or promotion
Flexible deadlines
Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
Shareable Certificate
Earn a Certificate upon completion
100% online
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Course 4 of 5 in the
Intermediate Level
Approx. 21 hours to complete
English
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, English, Spanish
Offered by
University of California San Diego
UC San Diego is an academic powerhouse and economic engine, recognized as one of the top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. Innovation is central to who we are and what we do. Here, students learn that knowledge isn't just acquired in the classroom—life is their laboratory.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
5 hours to complete
Welcome & What is a Software Engineering Interview?
Welcome to our course on effectively communicating your technical abilities. This course focuses on landing a technical job and excelling in a technical role. To succeed in job interviews, you’ll need to be able to confidently articulate your ability to solve challenging problems and come up with new solutions under potentially stressful conditions. After getting a technical job, the role of communication increases even more. You’ll need to work with other members of the team, communicate technical challenges and successes, and potentially sell the value of your work to those outside the company. Our goal is that by the end of this course each and every one of you understands the importance of technical communication, and has received constructive feedback on areas of potential improvement. In achieving this goal you will also learn about algorithmic thinking on the fly, how to evaluate a good interview answer to a difficult technical problem, and how “soft” skills impact interview outcomes. In this module, we’ll begin to see what a technical interview looks like, from the perspective of a major tech company. We’ll then focus on how to best get the interview in the first place. If you're not in the job market right now, you might want to skim the videos in this module and skip ahead to the Resume Critique (for insights about how to present yourself in writing) or the Introductions assignment (on effectively presenting yourself in person).
5 hours to complete
15 videos (Total 87 min), 5 readings, 6 quizzes
2 hours to complete
Welcome & What is a Software Engineering Interview?: Lesson Choices
2 hours to complete
1 reading
4 hours to complete
Live coding: the technical phone interview and beyond
Now that you’ve gotten warmed up, it’s time to practice your coding skills. One of the things you’ll almost certainly be asked to do during a technical phone interview is to code up a solution to a problem in a shared text document (e.g. Google doc) while you are on the phone with the interviewer. This experience can be intimidating, unfamiliar and humbling if you are not prepared, so this week we will give you lots of practice and tips for getting through this part of the interview with flying colors.
4 hours to complete
12 videos (Total 64 min), 3 readings, 6 quizzes
2 hours to complete
Explaining what you've already done
This week, we’re going to focus on how to speak about your experiences working on projects and how to speak about the technical problems you’ve experienced and how you’ve solved those problems. We’ll introduce the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Results) model for presenting your work, and discuss how to and how not to present the problem you worked on and the solution you developed. We’ll also discuss the communication skills that are critical to this task. It’s a fun week with lots of examples (both good and bad), which ends with an assignment where you will present your own work on video and submit this video for peer review.
2 hours to complete
16 videos (Total 67 min), 1 reading, 1 quiz
2 hours to complete
Explaining what you've already done: Lesson Choices
2 hours to complete
1 video (Total 4 min)
6 hours to complete
Algorithmic thinking on the fly
As we saw in week 2, coding on the fly can be a difficult task! In this final week of the course we’ll revisit the skill of live problem solving by looking at how to solve more challenging algorithmic problems (and write the code associated with the solution) on the whiteboard. You’ll recognize these problems as “classic” interview problems you’ve probably heard a lot about, designed to test your problem solving skills as well as your analysis and coding abilities. Don’t worry, we’ll teach you how to approach them with confidence through a 6-step process to addressing technical questions (hint: you don’t have to produce the perfect solution on the first try!). We’ll show you how to use this process in a number of examples. But of course, there is no substitute for practice, so we’ll set you up with how to train and evaluate yourself.
6 hours to complete
17 videos (Total 127 min), 5 readings, 5 quizzes
Reviews
TOP REVIEWS FROM MASTERING THE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INTERVIEW
by MHMay 16, 2016
I found this course is very useful. It covers all of the important points of facing technology job interview, even including how to deal with psychological emotions and build strong growth mindset.
by JCJul 18, 2017
I learned a LOT more than I thought I would. Practicing mock interviews while recording myself put me in a completely different mindset and let me know how much I need more practice.
by RAJul 16, 2016
awesome course! having had so many bad interviews lately, this course points out all the mistakes you can make in an interview and how to improve and practice your skills.
by SSAug 4, 2020
It is a must do course for all the student who are preparing for SDE interviews, The teachers are fairly awesome. Recommended for all students studying computer science.
About the Object Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond Specialization
This Specialization covers intermediate topics in software development. You’ll learn object-oriented programming principles that will allow you to use Java to its full potential, and you’ll implement data structures and algorithms for organizing large amounts of data in a way that is both efficient and easy to work with. You’ll also practice critically evaluating your own code, and you’ll build technical communication skills that will help you prepare for job interviews and collaborative work as a software engineer. In the final Capstone Project, you’ll apply your skills to analyze data collected from a real-world (social) network. Google has contributed real-world projects and the involvement of its engineers as guest lecturers to these courses. A small, select group of top learners who complete the Specialization will be offered practice interviews with Google recruiters. Invitation to a practice interview does not guarantee an actual interview or employment.
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