Looking for a new workplace after 14 years

What do you do if after 14 years of working in the same company, you found yourself out of work? How do you drive yourself to find your new workplace? what are the tools you can use? what will be the best approach for you for this adventure?

I will try to lead you through the process I have been going through. I hope you will find in my post, ideas, strength, motivation and comfort, that might be handy in your own experience to come. I shall start with a little background.

The story begins on 2006 when I first started working in a software communication company. I was a C++ engineer writing state machine for calls over a variety of protocols, reading specifications, testing real-time scenarios, implementing the requirements and enjoying the busy day of work. There were some customers trip as well, performing integration with customers, at customer site, participating in many protocol testing conventions. I can proudly say I did my part over those years, learning and implementing the company leading product. Being in the same company for so long (14 years) is a tricky thing. It becomes a time when you perform your work on automatic pilot, where the creativity decreases, unless some new project or new technology arrives and you get the chance to work on it. In my case, in the last 3 years of work at this company, I found myself learning my way into another product of the company, writing code in Java. But the technologies were the same. I did not know that out there, in other companies, people were creating innovation using new technology. To be honest, I knew that, but it felt so comfortable to stay in my place, and grow inside the company. Therefore, I opened my mind to new work methodology instead of learning new technologies. I learned Agile and became a Scrum master.

This was me, happy and secured until 01.12.2020. The engineering team was notified that starting 01.01.2021 we will be out of work. We have 1 month of notice in advanced.
First reaction was SHOCK!!!!
Luckily our R&D manager took control on the situation (Erez Morabia article link attached bellow), and we as a team kept on having the 10am meeting for supporting each other and sharing knowledge. We used this 1 month to catch up on our resume, our LinkedIn profile and knowledge on the product we worked on. We were ready to start looking for a new workplace. Or so I thought…

This is the point where my journey starts. I felt so confidante, I had my LinkedIn set, I knew how to describe the product I worked on for the last 14 years, I am ready. My CV were published to many recruitment agents, I wanted to start interviews immediately.

Episode #1: Interview in cycles
First interviews usually go bad, even if we are at our best, we need more time to practice building up our knowledge and focus it in the right way. It will be a shame to “waste” a good company interview when we are not ready yet — remember we have not experienced interview for the last 10 years.

Conclusion #1
I need to practice on real interviews.

Solution #1
1. Cycles — Perform on purpose 2 cycles of interview. For the first cycle approach the less attractive company for you, make them your practice tools. Be aware of how you performed on each interview.
2. End of interview — some interviewer give you a chance to ask questions back, use it wisely, if you felt your solution for the exercise that was given is not comply with the interviewer, do not hesitate to ask his opinion on how would he solve it… you might find some nice people who will cooperate with you on that, and you just earned some new knowledge.
3. CV — during this first cycle of interviews, I updated my CV several times. I deleted parts that were not relevant, moved up in front the things I am strong at, and that interest me.
4.buzzwords — end each interview with a list of new buzzwords to be familiar with, learn them.
5. Exercises — after the interview write down the exercise you were asked to solve, work on it offline, check your solution.
6. After the interview check yourself how did you do introduce yourself, introducing the product you worked on, learn from it, what you should do better. work on it.

Practice, practice, practice — this is the magic word.

7. Cycle 2 — when I felt confidante enough with the way I describe myself and handle technical questions, only then I updated my search to suite my real ambition, started sending my CV to interested company.

Episode #2 Who am I?
I was asked to tell about myself in a few words.
I was asked to tell about the product I worked on
I was asked to describe the classes inside the product, the diagram on the layers and components.
I was asked to tell about specific feature I was responsible on, implementing and design.

Conclusion #2 I was not ready!!!
Working in the same company, on the same product for such a long time, you know the answerers to all the above, you might not know how to share them, how to answer them in a logic way, you need to be able to pool this data from your mind in an ordered way, so the listener will be interested in what you share. and most important understand you.

Solution #2 Make some rehearsals
Force yourself to write down the following:

1. A short description of you, as a person, as an employee, why are you looking for a new job, what is your work experience using buzzwords, and titles. do not go deep into description.
   i.e. you can say “I was responsible for a product called SM”. If the interviewer is interesting he would ask you to get into details, be ready for that.
2. A short description of the product you worked on, again use titles. Do not go into details. If you say that you used a memory management, do not detail how it worked, even if it is you who designed it. You will get the chance to describe it, but this description is for giving a global description of the product and its uses. What programming languages it is written at, what technology it uses.
3. Prepare a modules/hierarchy/layers diagram of the product, get familiar with it, pay attention to all the relations between the modules/layers: protocols/messages transfers/database/platform/operating system.
4. You can use google free tools, such as lucidchart https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/
5. Prepare a class hierarchy or any other hierarchy you have and know how to draw it and to explain it.
6. Choose a feature you are best familiar with, and learn it, write down the feature description, what was your part of implementing it, what were the difficulties, the technology used.

Now you are ready to introduce yourself in a professional way. You took all existing information from your brain, ordered it in a way it is easy to share it and brought it back in for later use.

Episode #3 Technical questions
I was asked to solve logical riddles.
I was asked to add a functionality to existing code
I was asked to write down memory manager
I was asked to implement function that do a specific operation

Conclusion #3 I was not ready!!!
As I shared with you I wrote code for the past 14 years, when design was required, we set down as a team and worked on it together, adding a new feature was on an existing project. Meaning….. I never had to do it on blank page without the platform or utility that handle memory or message queue or database.

Solution #3 Start from scratch
1. set up a working environment on your private pc.

2. Install your favorite editor, there are many out there for free (inteliJ/Eclips)

3. The network is loaded with examples of technical interview questions. Choose your site and start coding. This is a major step, it is very important to practice writing a new project from scratch, you will be amazed the thing you have to take care of, that were automatically given to you in the company’s existing project. This will bring you back the confidence of writing a code on blank page. and sure, it will refresh your skills on coding and design patterns.
(Memory management/Threads/Lock/Sorting/Files/Data Base).

4. Read, read and read. Look for articles/post on design patterns, on logical problems and their solutions. You might find yourself reading also from your favorite code language page on data structures and syntax.

This will take you some time, depends on your learning skills and how rust you are. Take your time, debug your project, learn from it. Doing this step will make you ready for the technical interview part.

Episode #4 Feeling a bit panic
When I am excited, I tend to forget things I know by hart
When I am excited, I tend to be confused and not confidence when I speak

Conclusion #4 I will overcome this.
The time is COVID-19, the most of interviews are attending online using Teams/Zoom and other sharing application. This platform has its own advantages along to disadvantage. The secret is to find the advantage and used them.

Solution #4 make the best out of the situation
1. Create yourself a buzzwords page, write on it all the buzzwords you come across during your preparation and all the buzzwords related to your last work product. This page will company you through this process, each time you get confused, you can look at your bible and remember. This technique has turned out to be working for me.

2. I was performing interview on 2 coding languages, C++ and Java. I found myself getting confused from time to time between both languages’ syntax. So I have created a table that shows those 2 languages syntax differences.

3. Be familiar with the version of language you are using for coding. Today the languages (Java/C++) are running forward, some company catch up every time a new version is released. You need to know what is the version you are familiar with.

4. If you come across a new buzzword/design patterns/language ability, take the time to read about it, so you will know what it is all about, you might find that it is easy to learn and to catch up.

5. Every interview you are having, do your homework afterwards. After every interview, write down your action items as homework, and make sure you complete them. this is how you learn and grow your skills.
i.e. if you were asked about multi services and containers, read about it so you know what it is all about. Next time you will be asked about it you will have a general knowledge on it.

Finally, remember looking for a new place of work is an adventure and a process, you grow in that process if you handle it properly. I wish you good luck.

* Erez Morabia article: https://management30.com/blog/power-of-unity-during-covid-19/