How do you guys do it? I just had my first encounter yesterday for a data engineering job and I sincerely fucked up. My mind went completely blank, I was thinking along all the wrong lines and I think I didn’t even correctly understand the question, because there were all these words that I’ve never heard of.
How do you even prepare for something like that?
That is part of it, but you also need to practice asking clarifying questions and collaborating around a solution. OP was pretty much guaranteed to fuck up their first go. It’s something that gets easier over time.
Also, something that really messed me around was that System Design questions have a particular form and expectations around them. So read up on how they flow and practice those too
About the “guaranteed to fuck up on the first go”, I got strongly encouraged to first apply to positions I wouldn’t love (but was okay with), just to learn the ropes of interviewing. Once you have done one or two, time to shoot for your dream job!
Yep! (Though “one or two” might be too few!)