Shattered or How to bomb interviews as a senior developer

Yesterday I interviewed for a senior developer position at a large corporation. I was confident, in charge, and ready to rock.

Thirty minutes into the interview I left shattered and destroyed.

What happened?

I bombed.

How I bombed the interview

Bombing an interview can happen at any stage of your career. It can happen if you prep. It can happen if you don't prep.

Bombing isn't always just on you. It can also be because of the team that you are interviewing for, their lack of preparation, and the interview style.

Prepping

I prepped by reviewing everything on the job listing.

Most of the bullet points were about Agile, testing, and leading a project so I reviewed those skills and made sure they were mentioned on my resume.

There was a single line mentioning the MEAN stack so I brushed up on my MongoDB and Express.js.

I felt confident and prepared.

I washed my power suit, picked out my jewelry, and settled on a simple red lipstick and gold eyeshadow look.

The interview

I had been to the location before, so I knew how to get there and the amount of time needed to walk to the building. I arrived a few minutes before my interview to check in and calm myself.

I met one of the interviewers and went to the conference room. He started to explain the the team and project.

And I realized something wasn't right.

He was going into a deep dive of security terms. I rolled with it. I did security years ago so I was able to keep up and add to the banter.

He then talked about the tool the team was making and their stack, Java 8 and Oracle.

They wanted a senior Java engineer who knew a little about front end development not a senior front end developer.

It had been years since I worked with Java. It wasn't even listed on my resume.

They carried on and quizzed me about JavaScript and everything left my brain.

I couldn't remember the base datatypes, hoisting left my mind, first class functions were not there. I scribbled frantically on my scratch paper trying to pull up anything. These were terms I knew, things I just did without thinking, I could not define them anymore. They were just a part of how I coded.

Then I was asked about databases.

I finally asked them what they were looking for. It was obvious I was not it. They agreed and we ended it early.

Afterwards

I calmly walked out and drove home.

I called my recruiter and they apologized to me. They didn't know the team wanted a Java engineer as that is not what they asked for. The recruiter was also confused to why they even interviewed me as my resume has none of the skills they actually wanted.

I bombed because I should not have been interviewed for that position. It still hurts and is frustrating. Remember not every job is for you.