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Jason Hernandez Berland
1,575 PointsObjective C track or Swift?
Have interview Monday with an engineer for a Developer advocate position. Not sure what kind of questions they are going to ask given that the position is not language/platform specific. But I know the interview is going to involve code.
How do I best prepare given these circumstances?
My plan right now is to complete the Swift track over the weekend. My coding background consists of 9 month iOS program to learn the basics, but that was two years ago. Pretty much forgot everything. Currently, QA Lead on the iOS team and have been doing that for 2 years but don't consider myself an engineer and hardly touch the code base. Mostly writing automation tests in cucumber and blackbox testing.
Thinking that it would be best to tackle Swift since it is new to everyone, easier to learn, and would allow me to show some level of proficiency given the tight timeline. Am I taking the right direction?
3 Answers
Naomi Freeman
Treehouse Guest TeacherI don't think anyone can answer that for certain except the person interviewing you.
Also, for Jr. Dev. Ruby web development positions, I've had questions in C and Java, as well as general algorithms and machine learning patterns.
My instinct would be that it's easier to test you in "traditional" code in an interview (Objective-C - and, in fact, deeper than that, C, Java, whatever CS books have).
If your test involves code and not any specific language, it may be more useful to in fact study design patterns and algorithms, applying them using whatever language you are currently most proficient in. If they want to see the way you think through a problem, it's better you use a trusty old tool than a shiny new one you might trip over.
My understanding of dev advocate positions is that they involve a lot of communication. So maybe what you want to practice is telling your non-tech friends about a tool, API, new programming language's advantages.
This is, of course, all just my opinion. Figured I'd offer some thoughts since you were asking.
Jason Wayne
11,688 PointsWhat position are you applying for? As an iOS Developer? At the current moment, it would be rare for them to ask you to code in Swift. They may ask you to do some whiteboard challenges in Swift, at this stage, testing you intensively in Swift would be highly unlikely. Swift would be big in the future, but at this current point in time, as Apple said themselves, Objective-C isn't going anytime soon. So, if you are looking to get back into iOS development, perhaps Swift would be good. For the interview? Not too sure, but intensive Swift questions will be unlikely.
For interview questions, there's only so much you can do. Consider going through data structures related questions. What you can do with strings, array, dictionary and etc...
Best of luck to you!
Jason Hernandez Berland
1,575 PointsThanks Jason Wayne . Developer Advocate role. So it's not platform specific. Thinking about reading Cracking The Coding Interview since I never attended a CS program and like you said might be asked about data structures
AR Ehsan
7,912 PointsIf I were you! I would first learn objective-c than move on to swift
Jason Hernandez Berland
1,575 PointsJason Hernandez Berland
1,575 PointsThanks summerspirit ! Great advice. Maybe should read Cracking the Coding Interview to get familiar with design patterns and algorithms.