Dan Ford - Services

Interview Preparation

Practice Makes Perfect

As a “bar raiser” at Amazon/AWS, I led over 1,000 technical interviews and hiring decisions, up to the Principal (L7) level. Today, I help people practice for these kinds of interviews by teaching them how to prepare and giving mock interviews with feedback.

I have experience with a variety of types of interviews and I can design a mock interview or study plan based on the type of position you're looking for, or where you feel you need the most practice:

Behavioral, leadership, and culture-fit interviews

These kinds of interviews are often still technical, but they involve you talking about your accomplishments and decision-making in past roles, instead of solving hypothetical or contrived interview problems. There is an art to summarizing your past work in an accessible narrative format, and this kind of interview becomes increasingly important in more senior roles, even for ICs.

Coding exercises

These can range from short, timed coding challenges, to longer take-home assignments. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a lot of value in "grinding LeetCode/HackerRank" after a certain point. But with some simple strategies to keep in mind and a bit of practice, anyone who can code can get better at these.

System architecture & whiteboarding

Often used for more senior technical roles (especially those with "architect" in their title), this kind of exercise will have you designing a larger-scale application or software system at a component level. You might describe your solution verbally, draw it using a digital whiteboarding tool, or even ink-and-paper-over-video-call. Just like any other kind of interview, there are pitfalls to avoid and simple strategies you can use to get better.

What to expect

When you book a mock interview, you can choose one or two of the above areas to focus on. I'll work with you to design a rough outline for the interview, confirm it with you, and send you some instructions on how to prepare.

During the session, I will spend about 45 minutes acting as your interviewer (though I will sometimes "break character" and give you short feedback right in the moment). Then I reserve the last 15 minutes to give you some overall feedback and answer any questions you have. I will follow-up with some written feedback afterwards, where I will summarize the key feedback areas and give you ideas of things to work on.

I don't only coach Software Engineers!

I have a lot of experience both interviewing and coaching individuals in other software or software-adjacent roles, such as:

Software Engineer in Test
QA Engineer
Engineering Manager
Technical Project/Program Manager
Product Manager
Data Scientist
Data / BI Engineer

Questions? Want to learn more? Send an inquiry

$150 session

Mock Interview

You tell me which areas you want to focus on, and I'll create a customized outline for your mock interview, which will include:

45min questions
15min feedback and Q&A
Written feedback within 24hrs

Your session can be scheduled at your convenience using Calendly after booking.

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$300 package

Interview Preparation Package

Includes:

30min intro/overview call (resume/C.V. review, study/practice plan)
Two (2) 60-minute mock interviews (see above for details)

If you anticipate doing more than a single mock interview, this package gives us a chance to dive deeper in our intro call to design a study plan and some mock interviews based on your individual situation. Many people may not even know where to start, or may not understand their interviewing strengths and weaknesses yet, and this format gives me a chance to help advise you on what areas to focus on and help you prepare.

You can schedule the sessions at your convenience, whether you want a lot of practice in a short period of time, or spread out with more time for self-study and individual practice in between.