Tips to become 10x better in Tech Interviews

Guest post by Staff Engineer at HubSpot, Gourav Khanijoe

👋 Hi, this is Akash with this week’s newsletter. I write about leadership and growth in software engineering. Thank you for your readership ❤️.

This week, I’m excited to feature

Gourav Khanijoe

, Staff Engineer at Hubspot and author of Curious Soul’s Corner, a newsletter propelling your software career to the next level. He previously worked at tech giants like Amazon.

Today, he will share five tips for improving your interviewing skills. These tips will help you take control of your interview preparation journey. Hope you enjoy this edition!

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Are you tired of getting endless rejections from automated systems? I started counting my rejections in the beginning, but I lost count after 1000.

Rejections are not a reflection of our ability, but it still hurts.

I’m excited to host Gourav, who will share tricks that will help you not only get more interviews but also nail them!

⭐ Main Takeaways

• 5 ways you can land more interviews and do better

• Key areas to focus on during your preparation from an interviewer’s point of view

Over to you, Gourav.

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Hi everyone, Gourav here 👋

How I landed my first job out of college still surprises me.

More than a decade ago, on a sweltering summer day in a small town in southern Punjab, India, I attended a job placement drive at a local college.

There were 67 candidates and only five software engineering positions. The competition was fierce; we needed to be in the top 7% to make the cut.

Rumors spread that the interviewer is tired of taking interviews and probably already made his picks. 

I desperately needed the job, and being 55th in line exaggerated my nerves. Growing impatient waiting for my turn, I did something crazy. 

I sent a quick note to the interviewer, and within minutes, I was called for an interview – out of turn, at number 10.

What was in the note? 

It read:

“Sir, I’m the fifty-fifth candidate, but I have something you’ll appreciate— ‘Reliability’. If you hire me, you can count on me during the job. Please don’t decide until you’ve heard from me.”

Sometimes, you must take bold chances when the odds are against you. It’s just a negotiation. In essence, make the most of what you have at the moment.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll discuss how you can apply this mindset to your interview process and stand out from the crowd.

👋 Hey there, I am Gourav. I write about Engineering, Productivity, Thought Leadership, and the Mysteries of the mind!

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1. Build Your Network Before You Need It

Cold messaging rarely works. The biggest mistake people make is sending desperate messages to get hired. 

Take a step back—why would someone vouch for you when they don’t know you?

Build a network that can vouch for you before you need it. This has helped me in the past. I didn’t rely on cold messages - I leaned on relationships I had built over time. The result? Four job offers in just 20 days.

Here’s how you can build and leverage your network:

• Consistently provide value. Build strong relationships with leaders by providing value in their projects and offering coding assistance or advice.

  • After Coinbase, when I searched for opportunities outside, Directors and Principal Engineers from the company connected me with startup founders, and an interview loop was set up almost instantly.

• Make small deposits of trust. Use your work as the foundation of trust. Help others genuinely in their needs and unblock them.

  • At Amazon, I helped a Senior Manager resolve a critical issue. By consistently offering value - whether advice or coding assistance - I built trust. 

  • When that same manager moved to a different company, he reached out to me with a job offer.

2. Learn from Your Interviews

Is Interview Prep holding you back? 

Smart engineers aren’t just smart at work; they’re smart about interviews, too. Instead of over-preparing or obsessing over every possible question, they dive into interviews and treat each one as a learning opportunity and break the endless loop of preparation.

Since you’re not over-prepared, failures shouldn’t discourage you. This doesn’t mean avoiding preparation altogether, but not waiting until you feel “fully prepared” - because you never will be.

Here’s how you can adopt this approach:

• Set up multiple loops to have a fallback: don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.

  • One time, I lined up five interviews within two weeks - with Google, Amazon, a mid-sized company, and two startups.

• Put companies you want at last first in the loop: This will help you practice more.

  • I set up interviews with startups first, followed by mid-tier and then Big-Tech.

• Apply feedback loop to failures: After each interview, note the questions that tripped you up. Then, practice and reapply learnings. 

  • During my SAP interview, I struggled with a question about distributed file systems. I did a deep dive into storage techniques and system design, where I struggled. Two weeks later, in another interview, I was asked to design a large-scale video streaming system. This time, I confidently handled a question.

• Negotiate for another shot. Have you felt your performance was great except for one interview? But have you tried negotiating your cool-down period? I have. 

  • After failing my first Adobe interview, I explained to the recruiter that I had learned from my mistakes. Two months later, I got another interview and landed the offer.

3. Prepare Adaptable Stories for Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews are incredibly important - more than I can emphasize. As a veteran interviewer, I’ve seen candidates get selected because they stood out in behavioral interviews, even if they had technical gaps. This becomes more important at higher levels.

However, they can be tricky because every company has a different culture and methodology. Here’s how you should approach behavioral interviews:

• Tap into your network. Before interviewing with companies, connect with their employees. Use that insight to shape your answers around examples of how you collaborate across teams under pressure, making sure to highlight transparency.

• Prepare adaptable stories. Always keep 3-4 stories ready, but make them flexible. For example, in a healthcare startup interview, when asked about leading a tough project, I didn’t have a perfect match, so I adapted a story about managing an unexpected client request.

• Adapt to others’ stories. When you do not have direct experience, borrow a colleague’s story. No, it’s not dishonest - you are simply becoming adaptable and a critical thinker - skills that you would need on the job anyway.

4. Be Smart with Leetcode

It’s unfortunate that Leetcode has become a staple of coding interviews. But until this changes, if you’re aiming for Big Tech, Leetcode is unavoidable. Here’s how I approach Leetcode smarter using the EOF (Eliminate, Offset, Frame) framework:

• Eliminate: Negotiate with companies to skip Leetcode rounds altogether. Before interviewing with Apple, I negotiated to replace leetcode rounds with coding questions based on real-life examples.

• Offset: If leetcode rounds are unavoidable, negotiate a greater focus on system design. At a mid-sized company, I successfully replaced one leetcode round with a single in-depth design discussion.

• Frame: Master a small set of key patterns. The ability to recognize problems matching with the problem you have already solved is a game changer. In my Google interview, I immediately recognized a binary tree problem pattern and explained my approach using a well-practiced solution.

5. Use System Design Interviews to tell a Story

System design interviews can often feel like a black box. I’ve found that you navigate them through storytelling. Your interviewers are looking beyond your technical skills to see if you can connect and have seen relatable situations before. 

Are you the person they want to work with? That’s why focus on sharing real experiences, just be humane.

Here’s how you can handle system design interviews when unsure:

1. Steer the conversation. Guide the interviewer toward an area you’re comfortable with. Most of the time, this works. Interviewers are exploring related topics that showcase your strengths.

2. Be honest and resourceful. When you don’t know something, just say, “I don’t know, but here’s how I’d approach solving it.” This honesty builds trust and shows that you’re resourceful. Interviewers appreciate transparency and a problem-solving mindset.

3. Leverage real-world examples. Instead of focusing on a theoretical answer, pivot to a real-world problem around the topic. 

   1. For example, during my interview with Coupang, when asked to design a large-scale package delivery system, I didn’t dive straight into technical jargon. 

   2. Instead, I shared a story about how my team handled unexpected traffic spikes on a previous project. This humanized the conversation and resonated well with the interviewer.

Use storytelling to make system design interviews relatable. When you don’t know something, it’s okay to say, “I haven’t worked in that area”.

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👋 Akash again!

Thanks for sharing such awesome and practical tips, Gourav! I’ve done my fair share of interviewing, and I can vouch for these tips.

If you’d like to see more from Gourav, check out his newsletter, The Curious Soul's Corner.

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🌟 🔍 Parting Thoughts

Interviews can be tiring. Getting a call to speak to a human interviewer is hard these days.

Once you get that call, you don’t want to mess up.

I have made mistakes, from obsessing over failure and trying to be 100% ready. These don’t work.

Do you have any interviewing secrets that helped you land a job?

Share in the comments!

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👋 💬 Get In Touch

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