5/28/2017Time to read: 4 min
I think it's time for an update. I just graduated from Stony Brook University, with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. Two days before the commencement, I flew to Pleasanton, California for the onsite interview at Veeva. As you might have guessed from the title, I was extended an offer and I gladly accepted it. This concludes my year long job hunting process.
Maybe I should talk a little bit about the Veeva interview process if you are interested (if not, just skip ahead). I applied to Veeva when this associate software engineer new grad position came up on Glassdoor. I applied through their Jobvite link. Just like all other online job application processes, the most difficult part is for your application to get noticed by a recruiter apart from tons of other applications. After a long silence, finally a recruiter contacted me and kicked start the interview process. For privacy issue, I will not disclose the names of my interviewers and my hiring manager, but trust me, they are all cool people.
After the process started, it actually went fairly quick, Veeva typically responded me within a week after an interview. Due to my former internship experience as well as my interest, I was interviewed for the UI team. I was first interviewed by the hiring manager from the UI team and we spent half hour chatting about the newest and coolest technologies in the front end world. I was asked some questions on JavaScript. The hiring manager seemed very knowledgeable about the topic (later I learned that the hiring manager was also a developer in the team). That went pretty well. I really enjoyed talking to someone about front-end development.
Not long after my initial phone interview, they scheduled an online technical interview for me. We used codepen collab editing for the coding challenge. I was asked to create a very simple UI widget using any framework of my choice. To all Vue fans and families, I used Vue and it was a bliss. I finished the assignment unexpectedly fast.
Maybe the last one seemed too easy for me, they scheduled another one (or maybe this was their standard hiring process). The second technical interview was not hard, but it required deeper understanding of some features that were unique to JavaScript, such as closure, scope, hoisting, etc. I bombed it. The interviewer basically guided me one step at a time, until I figured it out. At the end, the program didn't even run correctly, we were left with a weird bug that even the interviewer couldn't figure out at the momen. After we hung up the phone, I sat in the couch, feeling like slapping myself. I looked back at the code, suddenly everything made sense and I even fixed the bug in no time (it's always like that, isn't it?).
I told myself to not hope for anything from Veeva after that phone screen. I applied to couple other jobs and one day, when I was on the bus to another interview, I received an email from Veeva inviting me to an onsite.
Woooo-hooo! this was so unexpected. I was so thrilled that I almost got off the bus to my next interview. This was my second time flying to an onsite in California, and I really wished this one could have a result.
The flight was on the same day as my last final exam. I left the exam an hour earlier in order to catch the flight (don't worry, I got an A for that course). I arrived at the hotel at one o'clock in the morning but I didn't feel tired at all. I reviewed a little bit about some JavaScript API (which, like all pre-interview cramming, did not help, but was useful for calming myself).
The onsite interview was very smooth, I got to meet with most members in the team. They made me feel like they already treated me as a future employee of Veeva. A large portion of interviews was non-technical behavior questions or just introductions of the team and the product. At the end of the day, the hiring manager and the director of engineering walked me out with smiles on their face (well, it might be that they were always smiling). I felt pretty confident about this interview, and half hour later, they called me and told me they would move forward with my hiring process. I slowly stuffed a chicken sandwich into my mouse, not feeling surprised at all.
The rest was pretty straightforward. My application was sent to be reviewed by CEO, and they got back to me with an offer. Veeva's offer was not negotiable, but I was pretty satisfied with what they promised.
Next up will be moving to California, and starting a new life as a professional developer. Looking back a year ago, had I imaging moving to the west coast? I probably had. However, I still feel very proud of what I had achieved. The most exciting thing about moving to California is getting a room of my own. Don't get me wrong, this is a huge deal for me. I can finally have a desk, covered by all my weird-looking gadgets, a bed, with a flexible laptop stand, and maybe even coffee machine, with assorted coffee mugs on the side.
Life will unfold in a fascinating way. I will meet a lot new people; I will go to many new places; I will learn to manage my finance on my own; I will definitely miss my family, my friends, and my dear girlfriend, with whom I have spent 5 years together.
But I am ready for all of them.