Interview for the post PHP Backend Developer in Germany
Briefly about me: programming since 2003. Education IT specialist and Application Developer. In recent years, the main activity was the development of online stores ala Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger. Waking up one fine day in the morning, it came to the realization that it was time to change something in this life.
I want to share my experience in interviewing PHP Backend Developer in Germany. Interviews, at one time, had to go through a lot. But I would like to tell you about the two most memorable ones. Perhaps my experience will be useful to someone in the future.
The main activity is the development of sites.
Number of employees: more than 30.
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1. Good PHP knowledge and many years of experience
2. Pragmatic thinking, result orientation
3. SOLID, DRY, YAGNI vs. BUFD
4. Understanding the meaning of TDD and BDD and the ability to apply them
5. Understanding HTTP, Frameworks, Patterns
6. Ability to explain technological decisions
7. High level of motivation and desire to work in this company.
The first step was sending a resume and a motivation letter. I will not go into details, but if anyone is interested, I can write in a separate post about the unspoken rules for writing a resume in Germany.
After 3 days, an answer came with an invitation to come in for an interview at the office. Set a date, warned that the whole procedure will take about half a day. At first, the phrase “half-day” confused me, then, being directly in place, everything fell into place. More about this:
It all started with a short interview (30 min.)
Questions asked :
How did you hear about our company?
What are your expectations from the upcoming work?
Do you have experience in companies with a flat hierarchy?
Why do not you want to open your IT-company? (3 years of freelancing were indicated in my resume)
What programming languages did you work with and why did you choose PHP?
What do you know about Agile?
What is SOLID and what are the basic principles?
If you invented your own programming language, what features would you learn from other languages?
There were still a lot of technical issues, I don’t remember the details. We discussed specific situations, how would you write the code when ... or in the case ... Asked to write an algorithm for the task with fibonacci.
Then a small coffee break and a tour of the office. (20 minutes.)
Then they put in a pair to one of the programmers and gave the task that we had to do together. (1,5 hour)
Lunch break with the entire development team (1 hour)
Then they asked to give feedback, in my opinion, how the interview went, how I liked the company and whether the desire to work in it was lost. (10 min.) Goodbye, promised to contact me within 2 weeks.
A week later, they called me exactly and asked me what kind of salary I imagined. After the number was named, they thanked them politely and promised to write in the near future.
The next day came a very polite refusal, where it was said that the decision was made in favor of another candidate.
By the way, often invitations for interviews and answers come in English, and the interview itself is in German.
The main activity is the development of online games.
Number of employees: more than 300.
1. PHP 5.4
2. Preferred experience in game development
3. MySQL
4. Knowledge framewave ala ZF2
5. Experience in testing
6. Knowledge of REST and RPC
7. The realization that Linux is not an animal
8. Special love with HTML / CSS and JavaScript (jQuery)
9. Understanding the difference between 'agile' and 'chaos'
10. Fluent in English and German
This time they found me, they found me through the German network xing.com. Briefly described the position and requirements, and if interested, asked to send a resume.
Game Development is an interesting thing, so without hesitation, a resume was sent. The only thing where doubts remained was knowledge of English. I read and understand everything, but I do not speak.
The next day, a call with an invitation to a personal meeting.
At the interview, there were 3 people present: the HR worker who found me in Xing, the head of the development department, and the ordinary PHP-Developer.
Interview. (30 min.)
Questions asked :
Do you have experience in Game Development?
Why do you like Backend more than Frontend?
Why do you want to leave the company where you worked for 9 years?
How do you feel about extracurricular work?
What do you do in your free time?
In which area do you consider yourself the most successful, and in which area is there potential for growth?
Who do you see yourself in 10 years?
At the end of the interview, the head of the development department said that he was interested in working together. He said that in the near future I will be sent a test task with which I will have to cope for a maximum of 2 hours.
And here is the task itself:
Implement a comment system with PHP and MySQL. Next to the article, the user can write comments, which can also be further commented by him and other users. Registration and Terms of Use can be ignored. The following items are required:
· Focus on functionality, not design
· Tables in the database should be clear and simple.
· Comment must contain Name, Email and Text
· Appearance of comment at discretion
· In case of adding a link to a comment, it should be working and clickable automatically.
· To avoid spam, implement a captcha
· New comments should be automatically posted on the site page (and not after updating the page)
· Convenient and clear description of CSS and JavaScript
· The form should look the same in all browsers.
To solve the task, you could use ready-made frameworks, which reduced the solution itself to 10 minutes.
A week later, they called for a second interview in which only a HR specialist was present. Discussed salary and organizational issues. On all floors of the company I had a tour. Then a couple of days later a contract came in the mail with all the points previously discussed.
1. If you are writing a resume, then enter there all the programs and frameworks with which you at least 30 minutes. in life, but worked.
2. In a motivational letter, try to sell yourself tasty, while at the same time study the history of the company and learn all about corporate culture. In many firms in Germany, you may not be recruited due to the fact that you did not like the team. And no years of experience and amazing qualifications will not save you.
3. Knowledge of English, as practice shows, is not always needed to the extent described in the job description. Most often we are talking about the usual understanding of the language and the ability to read technical stuff on English websites, blogs, etc. Those. it is not necessary to be a talking bird.
4. Know your price, look in advance at the annual salary level in your area and ask for 20% more than you would like to receive in the end. In most cases there will be bargaining.
5. With a personal interview, initiative and communication skills are important. Try to offer a couple of ideas for the development of the company and justify these ideas.
6. Ask counter questions and show interest.
7. If you are asked to perform any task, do not be alarmed and freely use Internet resources, because The main thing is to show the result, and not the truths learned at the university.
8. Each line of code be prepared to explain.
9. Do not be afraid to give feedback about the interview. Just saying that you liked everything is not enough. If you like it, specify what it is, if you have questions, ask right away. If the questions appeared after the interview, send them by email.
10. SOLID principles are asked almost everywhere.
11. In the summary, specify the nickname in Github.
12. Continuous integration is also often asked.
I want to share my experience in interviewing PHP Backend Developer in Germany. Interviews, at one time, had to go through a lot. But I would like to tell you about the two most memorable ones. Perhaps my experience will be useful to someone in the future.
Company 1.
The main activity is the development of sites.
Number of employees: more than 30.
')
Job Description:
1. Good PHP knowledge and many years of experience
2. Pragmatic thinking, result orientation
3. SOLID, DRY, YAGNI vs. BUFD
4. Understanding the meaning of TDD and BDD and the ability to apply them
5. Understanding HTTP, Frameworks, Patterns
6. Ability to explain technological decisions
7. High level of motivation and desire to work in this company.
Interview
The first step was sending a resume and a motivation letter. I will not go into details, but if anyone is interested, I can write in a separate post about the unspoken rules for writing a resume in Germany.
After 3 days, an answer came with an invitation to come in for an interview at the office. Set a date, warned that the whole procedure will take about half a day. At first, the phrase “half-day” confused me, then, being directly in place, everything fell into place. More about this:
It all started with a short interview (30 min.)
Questions asked :
How did you hear about our company?
What are your expectations from the upcoming work?
Do you have experience in companies with a flat hierarchy?
Why do not you want to open your IT-company? (3 years of freelancing were indicated in my resume)
What programming languages did you work with and why did you choose PHP?
What do you know about Agile?
What is SOLID and what are the basic principles?
If you invented your own programming language, what features would you learn from other languages?
There were still a lot of technical issues, I don’t remember the details. We discussed specific situations, how would you write the code when ... or in the case ... Asked to write an algorithm for the task with fibonacci.
Then a small coffee break and a tour of the office. (20 minutes.)
Then they put in a pair to one of the programmers and gave the task that we had to do together. (1,5 hour)
Lunch break with the entire development team (1 hour)
Then they asked to give feedback, in my opinion, how the interview went, how I liked the company and whether the desire to work in it was lost. (10 min.) Goodbye, promised to contact me within 2 weeks.
A week later, they called me exactly and asked me what kind of salary I imagined. After the number was named, they thanked them politely and promised to write in the near future.
The next day came a very polite refusal, where it was said that the decision was made in favor of another candidate.
By the way, often invitations for interviews and answers come in English, and the interview itself is in German.
Company 2.
The main activity is the development of online games.
Number of employees: more than 300.
Job Description:
1. PHP 5.4
2. Preferred experience in game development
3. MySQL
4. Knowledge framewave ala ZF2
5. Experience in testing
6. Knowledge of REST and RPC
7. The realization that Linux is not an animal
8. Special love with HTML / CSS and JavaScript (jQuery)
9. Understanding the difference between 'agile' and 'chaos'
10. Fluent in English and German
Interview
This time they found me, they found me through the German network xing.com. Briefly described the position and requirements, and if interested, asked to send a resume.
Game Development is an interesting thing, so without hesitation, a resume was sent. The only thing where doubts remained was knowledge of English. I read and understand everything, but I do not speak.
The next day, a call with an invitation to a personal meeting.
At the interview, there were 3 people present: the HR worker who found me in Xing, the head of the development department, and the ordinary PHP-Developer.
Interview. (30 min.)
Questions asked :
Do you have experience in Game Development?
Why do you like Backend more than Frontend?
Why do you want to leave the company where you worked for 9 years?
How do you feel about extracurricular work?
What do you do in your free time?
In which area do you consider yourself the most successful, and in which area is there potential for growth?
Who do you see yourself in 10 years?
At the end of the interview, the head of the development department said that he was interested in working together. He said that in the near future I will be sent a test task with which I will have to cope for a maximum of 2 hours.
And here is the task itself:
Implement a comment system with PHP and MySQL. Next to the article, the user can write comments, which can also be further commented by him and other users. Registration and Terms of Use can be ignored. The following items are required:
· Focus on functionality, not design
· Tables in the database should be clear and simple.
· Comment must contain Name, Email and Text
· Appearance of comment at discretion
· In case of adding a link to a comment, it should be working and clickable automatically.
· To avoid spam, implement a captcha
· New comments should be automatically posted on the site page (and not after updating the page)
· Convenient and clear description of CSS and JavaScript
· The form should look the same in all browsers.
To solve the task, you could use ready-made frameworks, which reduced the solution itself to 10 minutes.
A week later, they called for a second interview in which only a HR specialist was present. Discussed salary and organizational issues. On all floors of the company I had a tour. Then a couple of days later a contract came in the mail with all the points previously discussed.
My findings
1. If you are writing a resume, then enter there all the programs and frameworks with which you at least 30 minutes. in life, but worked.
2. In a motivational letter, try to sell yourself tasty, while at the same time study the history of the company and learn all about corporate culture. In many firms in Germany, you may not be recruited due to the fact that you did not like the team. And no years of experience and amazing qualifications will not save you.
3. Knowledge of English, as practice shows, is not always needed to the extent described in the job description. Most often we are talking about the usual understanding of the language and the ability to read technical stuff on English websites, blogs, etc. Those. it is not necessary to be a talking bird.
4. Know your price, look in advance at the annual salary level in your area and ask for 20% more than you would like to receive in the end. In most cases there will be bargaining.
5. With a personal interview, initiative and communication skills are important. Try to offer a couple of ideas for the development of the company and justify these ideas.
6. Ask counter questions and show interest.
7. If you are asked to perform any task, do not be alarmed and freely use Internet resources, because The main thing is to show the result, and not the truths learned at the university.
8. Each line of code be prepared to explain.
9. Do not be afraid to give feedback about the interview. Just saying that you liked everything is not enough. If you like it, specify what it is, if you have questions, ask right away. If the questions appeared after the interview, send them by email.
10. SOLID principles are asked almost everywhere.
11. In the summary, specify the nickname in Github.
12. Continuous integration is also often asked.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/285596/
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