Silicon Valley Code Camp : October 19 & 20, 2019

Soham Mehta

Interview Kickstart
About Soham
Soham is the founder of Interview Kickstart, which is a bootcamp for technical interview preparation. The bootcamp is laser-focused on re-teaching Data Structures, Algorithms and System Design, to working engineers, who desire to work at high-growth, career-launching tech companies in Silicon Valley. Prior to InterviewKickstart, Soham was a Director of Engineering at Box and an early engineer there. He helped Box's technical teams grow from 5 to 250 engineers over a span of 5 years. This meant living and breathing the interviewing machine exploring all its nooks and corners, and ups and downs. Prior to Box, Soham has also worked at eBay and Microsoft.
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Speaking Sessions

  • How to Defy Ageism in Software Engineering

    1:00 PM Saturday   Room: Town Square C

    Over 40 and struggling to find a programming job? Ageism is real in software engineering.

    In this session, Interview Kickstart coaches will discuss strategies and tips to deal with ageism during your job search. Finding the right companies, building the right skillset and approaching it with the right mindset are all crucial to success. Strategy too, is critical e.g. while we want everyone to wear their age with pride, sometimes it can also be better to hide it.

    In this session, you will also hear experiences of some senior engineers who found stellar roles by taking the ageism bull by its horns. And sometimes avoiding the bullfight altogether.

  • Panel Discussion With FAANG Engineering Hiring Managers

    2:15 PM Saturday   Room: Town Square B

    Join a candid and exciting panel discussion of FAANG hiring managers on hiring practices and what they are looking for in a candidate. Come with your best questions, and receive direct answers from horse's mouth!

    Do communication skills matter for an engineer? Why do they ask such hard technical questions? What happens in a hiring committee? What can you do to increase your chances of clearing the interviews and working with some of the most driven teams on the planet? What if one of the 5 interviews is bad - do I still get an offer? How many times can I try? Can I write on a computer instead of a whiteboard? What about management interviews? Does Github profile help? What about referrals?

    The panel will be arranged and moderated by Soham and Ryan, founders of Interview Kickstart.

  • Engineering Management Interviews

    3:45 PM Saturday   Room: Fireside B

    Already an Engineering Manager (Sr Manager, Dir, VP) and wanting to get into a better company?
    Or are you a senior engineer wanting to jump ship to management?
    Or are you early in your career and wondering if Management is for you?

    This session will provide a lot of insights into how to switch into and stay in Management, across companies.
    What does the interview process look like?
    Do you still have to code?
    What about Systems Design?
    What is the evaluation like?
    Do you need to prepare for leadership questions? Are they even possible to prepare for?
    What do top companies look for, that others don't?


    Speakers:    Soham Mehta  Yannis Minadakis

  • How to Switch Your Technical Domain

    5:00 PM Saturday   Room: Fireside B

    Embedded to Full-Stack?
    Backend to ML?
    Fronend to Backend?
    Testing to Development?
    Data Warehousing to Data Engineering?

    Stuck in a domain that doesn't pay well?
    Stuck in a domain that's outdated?
    Stuck in a boring technology that is no longer the hot thing?
    Stuck in a peripheral role and wanting to go to the core teams?

    Expert at stuff that very few people care about?

    Come to the discussion about how you can get out of and into a newer domain. Learn tips and tricks from engineers who have made the switch and are enjoying well-paying careers at top companies, despite starting in domains that weren't as sexy.

  • Graphs for Technical Interviews

    9:15 AM Sunday   Room: Town Square B

    Graphs are important to master to crack technical interviews today. Unfortunately many colleges in the world don't get to teach Graphs properly, because of which a lot of candidates struggle to understand this topic well.

    In this session, Interview Kickstart coaches will present a unified theory of understanding most Graph problems. That will make it easier for you to tackle unseen problems in Graphs.

    We'll present a perspective where BFS, DFS and other traversing techniques can be viewed as mere factions of a unified approach!


    Speakers:    Soham Mehta  Omkar Deshpande

  • The Million Dollar Resume: A Workshop

    10:45 AM Sunday   Room: Fireside D

    Ever wonder what a solid resume looks like? One that eventually leads to massively paying jobs?

    Contrary to popular advice, we at Interview Kickstart believe, that a good resume is one that raises more questions than it answers. In the few seconds that it gets, it finds a way to get into the reader's head, so much so, that they can't help but talk to you.

    In this workshop, our coaches will show you what it takes to write such a resume. One that attracts attention from recruiters and hiring managers alike.

    Bring your resume and a pen/cil. Or a computer fully charged. We'll work through it right there!


    Speakers:    Soham Mehta  Nicholas Camilleri