1:7 - Gain Employment at Microsoft. How do you get there?

You are listening to diverse software engineers podcast, which inspires engineers to serve clients better, break glass ceilings and enjoy lucrative work. Your hosts are Eric Lau, Chief consultant at Brainy Butlers solutions an Fatima Agheli, up and comin engineer. We focus on the sof essential skills whic engineers, managers and client need to upgrade their softwar projects

Hello, listeners, how are you doing? Fatima I am super stoked about this interview. You know why?

Why? Because

Isaac is a person that we had drinks shortly before the pandemic started. It brought some good memories. And I have been wanting to reach out to Isaac just as I was about to do it. I got this pop up in my LinkedIn. And he said congratulate Isaac on his new job at Microsoft what? God speaking to me saying that like this is like the perfect opportunity to interview Isaac, because I have a thorough questions. But I'm sure if you have even more questions for Isaac. And it is an absolute honor to have Isaac Qiao here at diverse software engineers podcast. Welcome Isaac.

Thank you very much. I'm really honored to be here.

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly a treat. Wow. First of all, congratulations. Yeah, you have started at Microsoft. Tell me what, when did you start?

So I just started speak, I got my actually, during pandemic, I guess everyone work from home. And their time flow is just their work from home style. So I actually got the offer at the beginning of April and the pre onboarding to almost two months. So I just start right now. That's it. The live here feels a little bit different compared to start up. But I guess for a software engineer, there's no too much difference. You just still working on similar stuff. But in a larger call

is your first week a year. Have you been to the Microsoft Office yet?

Not yet? Well, we meet face to face online. But I haven't been to the office physically because the office is still closing. They will let people get back only after I guess the Epidemics getting better. But I think it's gonna be really, really sink as you see how fast the vaccine is getting shot to everyone right now. So I guess that is going to be really fast.

What I would love to get back to the Microsoft bit how you got there? Why? What motivated you to leave for Microsoft? But before I get to all that? Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? how old you are, what how much experience you have in the field. Just a basic introduction,

Pilate. Hello, everyone. I am Isaac. I graduated from SF to Simon Fraser University with major in computer engineering at 2018. I started as a 2013. I finished the degree with five years where one of the years in club experience and I'm really honored during my co op i was able to join Expo, which is this virtual reality company. Like I think it's around 2016 I joined Expo as a back end developer as cops student. So after I graduate, I get back to x or like rehire back the same company that I did cop at. I say also, like, similar like a full stack engineer. But the title was web xR developer. I there, I learned a lot of bad development and workforce work. I work as a web developer for three months and start working as a team lead where they are expanding. So I was able to just lead us new team, but I was super junior so busy doing messy stuff for everyone in the team for about one and a half year. So only on two during pandemic, the teams that got cut back to smaller. So I was working as a full stack software engineer for one more year after that is until the beginning of this year. I was thinking I want to rethink about my journey back rethink about my career. I want to work in something different competitors do stay in here because the team instead of extending they were trying to working on similar thing all the time and working as a software engineer, I think it's really important for you to look for new things to learn. So after talk with my team, as well as the CEO, I was thinking is okay for me to start looking for a new journey. And then I just quit Expo working part time for them for some consulting momentum. Our maintenance stuff, meanwhile, looking for a new job. And onto two months later, I got this opportunity from Microsoft.

I was actually wondering about the beginning of the process. And I'm currently in Amman, I'm currently a computer engineer at sfsu in my second year, and I know you want to the same degree, but I was curious if I should stay in the studio because I was actually considering swapping over to computer science, since I just want to focus completely on programming. But I was wondering, what do you think like, what do you suggest about the

job 15 I learned that you also study computer engineering as a few. So masks which season Did you started degree that this is your second year,

I started in fall of 2019.

So basically, almost finished your.

So currently, this is my sixth.

Okay, so almost almost finishing your second year. So sounds good. So for me myself, while I was studying as I feel, I feel quite easy on my first year, but I feel super, super typical. And my second year, back, the first year, I was basically studying some basic math and basic programming like computer, one, one, a one on 120, something like that. And my second year, I start touching some courses from the engineering degree, like 250, to one something like that, which is more about some low level programming, compared to high level programming. The first one was using Python to create some simple apps, simple games, which is super fun coding in low level programming sounds, and feels like really, really bored and difficult. So that's also the same time while I was thinking, which degree should I choose? And which career path should I choose? So it's a interesting timing. And I'm about to answer your question like, Do you want to? Why should I recommend you? Should you stay in engineering or computer science? I think it's really depends on your personal interest. For me, myself, I don't really worry too much about do I want to work more close to the user interface, like creating some game or more interaction with the user that I can bring happiness to them? Or do I really love to work in the backend or low level coding that it's more about doing those efficiency thing, or, or doesn't have a UI at all, where for me, that feels like a hybrid thing, instead of doing the front end thing. So for me, I don't really I don't really have a preference over there. So I was thinking, I don't want the job, the courses that I did in engineer degree, so just stay there. And after I graduate, even though right now, I worked super close to front end in Microsoft, I think. Still, I don't regret my choice as I did when I was as a few. Because I think no matter which which path you choose, the thing you learned as a few will eventually help you no matter there are low level coding or high level because understanding of computer from the low level about how the code is running, gonna help you to write the Hello code as well. And about your choice. I really recommend every young people to just follow their heart choose what what they are really interested in, as long as you have a thought about, okay, what do you prefer to work on in the future, then just go with it. It's never too late.

As a follow up, I suppose one of the reasons that I was so confused on the path that I should take and whether I should stay in and computer engineering is because I'm still only in second year. So I haven't seen any of this specific. And I think the first two years is completely brought like it's all types of engineering. And so far, it just feels like I'm learning a lot of things that I feel like I won't need for the stuff I want to do in the future. Like I'm learning a lot about circuits from engineering science to 20. If you remember that one, and, and VHDL, which I don't think I can't imagine using. And I really just want to focus on just programming. I was wondering that after year two, maybe will it become specific enough for me that I'd want to stay here, you know, it's things like that, especially circuits, I really dislike circuits. So far,

your situation is really interesting to me, it's like when I was at second year, I went across I took was Computing 154, which is a lot f the course I took was about atabase for that course. It's a t's in computer science degree, database course, where I took hat course together with nother asian guy like 448 but irst of all, I'm Asian and for sian guy in SF is really easy or them to find similar Asian eople to start studying ogether. And there's one friend f course, whose name is Justin as also in computer engineering egree. And but after that year, e switched to coming inside fter he finished his degree in omputer science because omputer science doesn't require s much credit as competent, you eed to think as if you were a ompute Engine, you basically eed you to take credit equal to ne more year to finish your egree. So he basically finished is degree one year earlier than e. And then he started getting nto in industry one year, one ear earlier after he jumped nto computer science degree, ompared to me, and then you orking software industry for lmost two, three years. And eally interestingly, it's at his year at the beginning, he lso gets a new offer at icrosoft. Similar title as me. nd similar team, we both orking the Microsoft Teams eam, which is the video call pp application, the team for hat, I will never say hims. ike we have a lot of talk uring our undergrad days. It's ike why why he switched to omputer science, I think he has imilar sort of thing, same Su, t's like he doesn't want to, nstead of working too much lose to these low level coding n C or VHDL. Understand how hose rounds inside, he will refer to do more coding more rogramming directly. That's his hoice. I think compared to him, ur difference in SFP was more bout, he has more chance to do ore coding course, inside, if ou stay in company engineering egree, you might need to take ome soldering course along your ide. And you might need to do ome real engineering stuff like ot only coding, but also making he hardware or writing driver or those who look for the eripheral to run on your omputer such as that. So some f the courses I do find maybe ot that useful after graduating y really working in software ndustry. If you choose to jump nto computer science, I guess ou have more chance to choose ore courses related to software ngineer software, the real rogram is that I think that's he case we'll hate and we end p with similar destiny adn here right now not not really efinitely for us. But it's kind f like destiny query, not estination for us. But it's ind of like similar working xperience right now. So I think either is too bad. And as long s you you have a idea about hat you really want to do you hink computer science is also ood as well.

Okay, thank you. Speaking of your career, actually, I was curious on how was it like in an interview with Microsoft, How'd that go

interview him at Microsoft in my team? Currently, I do know there's one intern as well, but she's in the US. So the interview with Microsoft, you can find a lot of example on YouTube actually, the first interview gonna be basically introduce yourself to them answer some behavior question which is not really related to coding, and maybe one or two coding question. But for undergrad I believe those should be really simple. And you can find a lot of example coding question online from some website like niche code.

What is the website? So Can you spell it neat

code? leetcode.com

Oh leet

Yeah, that's a famous one and other there are some other websites like hacker rank Yeah,

let's talk about which ones use what did you how did you prepare for the Microsoft?

Yeah, so for me I started work on my resume and that stopped prepare some story that they might be interested in in order to know what they are interested in then I do research online about okay what normally people ask for behavioral question from those from for example, Microsoft or from Amazon in Vancouver as well. Then I learned that okay for those company they have some leadership principles Amazon has their famous 14 leadership principle, understanding those and then prepare question, prepare a story for those questions should be helpful for you to behave during the interview. That's one part and it might sound boring, but for me Actually, what I've tried to learn those principles I was thinking okay, yeah, this is really helpful during my work. If I noticed earlier he might makes me behave better in my previous working experience, but doesn't mean behave better. It's like I might know what should I do and what cannot principle as you follow to deal with some difficult situation and for the other part about the coding preparation is like I know myself for example, for for undergrad, it should be quite simple. Exactly. Every coding website like hacker rank or each code, they have difficulties for some for those algorithm questions. They have hundreds and hundreds of questions, algorithm quest parallelism, coding questions, and each structure has some difficulties. So for undergrads, I think as soon as you can finish most of the easy one it should be farmed and enough and for people like me like I have some working experience two to three years getting to company with not Junior title, but more around intermediate. Then we just finished which passes we can understand what's the logic behind the question for those And medium level is also far more than enough as well, because there's just so much and finishing them means you've learned a lot during that journey. And definitely, there are a lot of question you don't know how to understand. You just read through them again, after you finish one times, you're gonna forget, how did you do in the first time, and you're gonna learn more on the second time by reboot, review them? So that's what I did. So basically, I was at preparing for behavior question for half of my time after I quit from my previous job, and spend the other half on this coding question. And also spend maybe like the average nine to four job updating in in those job websites. And I just apply for a lot, I believe, if you ever touch Cool, cool. Manager, I don't remember the title I call Budweiser from SMU. One thing they're gonna say a lot is like, just never feel tired about applying for those jobs, jobs on the job market is normally when people get it offer is after they apply maybe around the hedger and they got it they get around five interview and the success from one of those. And that's the time when they got their first offer. I think this apply for most of the guys I know from SMU and for undergrad student is kind of really hard to, to to face to face failure. It's kind of like your content, we never heard back from them. And that's the time when we feel sad. So these are feelings that just never feel any uncomfortable. It's it's super, super normal for everyone. So just apply more of that.

So tell me, Isaac, for this round of looking for work? How much time do you prepare? How many applications you hand out? How many interviews Have you gotten before you got this Microsoft position?

For me it's like, during last year, like 2020, which is the pandemic year, everyone stayed at home, I have a lot of time to think about my career and myself was where should I shoot, I was thinking I want to have a new journey since the mid of last year. I'm the kind of guy like I want to do one thing at a time with 100% focus. So during last year, we first have this kind of thought I started looking at the market and learn the market knows that there are so much open positions in Vancouver and in BC. So thinking okay, for engineer, this is a good time, because there's just so much open positions means there could be a lot of opportunity for everyone, instead of just applying or just monitoring the market. Meanwhile, thinking about Okay, what should be the good time for me to leave my first job because I want to get some rest. Because I already finished my app because I will already work for around two and a half year is kind of like a a lot of engineer follow this kind of life cycle where they want to start thinking about jump to another position around three years. So I was thinking, Okay, maybe I want to start looking for new place next year. And then at beginning of this year, I just quit my job, I want to get some time to rest. And also learn some stuff that I was thinking and wake up during my last work experience. And meanwhile, started looking for jobs,

how many hours and say you approximate you spend on interview preparation? How many how many hours you spend on looking for for work? And how many companies have you interviewed

if you want the hour, the time I search for jobs, I guess eventually it's gonna be around 50 hours, something like that. And the time for preparing for coding, I think I spend around 100. In the time I spend for behavior questions, those are around 100 preparation for interview, I guess, as planned around another 50 as well. I got five interview IDs. So

I'm assuming Amazon's one of them. Obviously, Mark

Yeah, I got Amazon, Microsoft tools Microsoft is to those. And that got one interview from teradici, a company in Burnaby, which is who's doing online video rendering. I think their stuff is the most interesting one. But I got that one. And I also got some interview from some other companies that can recruit or come to me because I was I host keep updating my LinkedIn profile, right?

your LinkedIn is pretty clean and straightforward. You definitely have it relatively up to date. That's actually a good advice. I'll give all people looking for work even even not LinkedIn, it's become a very important tool. Did you get reply from Amazon? How many offers?

I only got one,

Out of all the interviews which one you think is the hardest? And why?

Yeah. So for some engineer, actually coding is not that difficult part. Because coding question is just algorithm question. There's a list of algorithm topics that you should learn and then you just follow learning that you cannot fit every company. But the behavior question is, for me is the more difficult one. So I would say Amazon is the most difficult one because they have 14 principal compared to Microsoft, Microsoft will have four. So the principle is more like, I think one of the principle that every company talks about is customer obsession, which is you, you work for your customer, you want to understand what's their need, and you want to fulfill their needs. You need to upsell, what's that?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the Amazon one. I mean, I interviewed Amazon about a year, year and a half, two years ago. Yeah, that interview was like, I think six different people. And I was dead exhausted, I don't remember Pete got exhausted from an interview. That's true. It's been awesome, Isaac, and we'll need to take a break now. So we will be right back after these messages.

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High listener, regardless of your level of experience, I think most of us remember what it was like to get started and how intimidating that can be. So while Isaac Well, I would love to talk about interviews. And in fact, I really want to invite you back for a episode just on interviews, and the whole Microsoft interview experience and your preparation. I'm gonna cap that. And let Fatima get into her concerns and all her questions about Co Op.

Alright, so I haven't done Co Op just yet. I was planning on doing it, probably pretty soon. And I was just curious about your first experience and how you're like, what was your first Co Op job? And how did that go for you? And how did it affect your future and where you are right now?

That's a few questions together. But that's okay. So that's a few will call up. You need to, I think, get into a program Co Op program. Where in I don't remember, but I think involved the semester, you need to take a co op course, where that course is basically a few hour course from the cup advisor talking you introducing you about the core programming as a few horror stories that where should you look for resource, where should you look for help, which should be your advisor or vice are super helpful, they are gonna help you to build your resume guide you about how you behave, how you look for jobs that cannot stop starting from there, you're going to have a basic idea about Okay, as a undergraduate as a few How should I start work, start looking for jobs, for internships, then you just start to prepare for those, you basically finally go to the cup myself or as a few and then think is apply for similar University in Canada. So go to there and find jobs that other companies shared with us a few you look for those job titles, I don't think they're gonna ask you for a specific skill, even though they do, don't worry about that you just apply for the have your resume. And for undergrads, most likely, everyone gonna just have their learning experience, from course, maybe a few personal project and personal project is where you can show your difference compared to yours, compared to your friends. So from there, you're gonna have a special resume, and then they're gonna look for that, if they're interested in you, you're gonna have a interview afterwards. So for me myself, I don't have a super fancy job for my first Co Op compared to my friends in SF. I got and but it's still quite interesting. It is really related to my current career. So the first job I got was a module called backend developer for one of the engineers that in as few, as I feel has a has several labs where the lab stands for some research direction for engineer department. So one of the lab is super related to human engineering, biomedical engineer, where they make devices to help some disease. So the that I was seeing was called Minerva research group. So they're working on some physical device that can help people to, for example, monitoring your movement of your arm, so that they can get the data collected, and then use it in some computer software, for example, they have a monitor, they have a band on your arm monitoring if you raise your arm or rotate your arm. And meanwhile, the data about the gyroscope gonna be put into the computer, they're gonna analyze that and then make the band to be able to control some robot after or something like that. So I got into the lab instead of helping them to collect data nor are working in a similar service they do. I was assigned to build a online database. Whether No one is doing that at all in the lab, because all the all of them are just doing this robotic and data collection and analytics and AI. Inside, I was just building this web database. And that was so low. So basically, for me, I was just like start looking for during the co op experience, I'll just start looking for a online course about how to build a website, I literally search how to build a website, how to build a database, under just for the tutorial similar, like I'm taking a course and build that project. And the project is should be focusing on their needs. So I basically talked to my manager about what exactly they need. And then they want a login system, they want a place they can put their data file, they want to store the data file, they want to put this server in their, in their lab, instead of a cloud server. So basically, I for each request they want, I will look for an answer on internet look, for course about how to do that, and then implement that. It's a full four month term. That's where I first taught web development, because I never talked about the woman in my degree. So you can see from that experience that some experience for Co Op, they don't require you to have insurance they need, they are willing to sacrifice the time to actually learn during that experience. And they actually that's the purpose of Co Op. For me, I start from the experience having experience for web development, and leads to my second Copic students. And because once I finished the co op one important goal for Co Op is also latching student knows what they want to working, we'll call and what they don't. After I finish this backend developer thing, I was thinking, yeah, the lab thing is really interesting. The AI thing is really interesting. I don't really want to build this like robot. So I get back to school, I didn't take course related web development. Instead, I take courses related to AI. But the second job, the reality is, when I go back to my second Co Op, I end up with another bathroom as well. But this time, one thing on top of the bathroom is like Expo is doing virtual reality stuff, which is also super cool at a time. So thinking okay, virtual reality, this company must not only working on VR, but more about the cutting edge technology, they might also touch AI as well. So that was thinking, Okay, it should be super fun. I smell to work there as well. So I just get a second job?

Well, you certainly have that a lot of really important insightful things, my co op, my takeaway is, number one, you don't need to know those languages before you start a co op. That's the beauty of a co op, they don't expect you to know these things. They gave you time to learn it on the job. Yes, right. That's important. The other thing is what you learn in school, why did a directly applies to the job is actually not that important? That's for my experience, and you're experiencing to collaborate with that. Here's the thing, there's so many programming languages out. And when I found your first one or two languages, you're going to struggle and hard to learn maybe some people are better quicker than others. But what always happens is that by the time you learn your third or fourth language, each one gets easier, easier to learn. Yeah, when you look at your courses ain't going well, using language A or B, that's actually less important than the fundamentals of learning a programming language. That's so true. Because once you learn through your for the rest is not just falls in line, because they're all built upon each other. The other example I gave him right now is I have recently had to learn flutter. If for those of you don't know what flutter is, flutter is actually a new, relatively new Google framework that lets you build web, Android, iOS, and desktop apps using one code. So it has its own language language is actually called Dart. And for me learning Dart taught me maybe two days alignment or two whole days just look maybe a couple hours each day and I'm pretty much got it like that's not going to be experienced when you started your first job after a while you just you pick up enough languages, you see the same patterns, you see the same type of syntax, they may differ in what a thought or dash do not get differ in the fundamental logic.

I think now I would like to ask about just I was looking at your LinkedIn and I'm curious about the choices you had and the jobs that you've done in the past.

So if you're talking about decision between Amazon versus Microsoft, to me I I apply for both I got interview footballs and eventually only got offer from Microsoft instead of Amazon I feel that the very last row but still I think their interview ends up really similar. They both have and do an interview for four to six hours at the very last round. And after that you just wait for the for their decision during the waiting time because I did the last round interview At a similar Time, time range, why did to So I was thinking I might have a high possibility to get over from both and start talking with my friends or co workers, previous co workers to see their suggestion. And very funny, it's like most people suggesting Microsoft also was searching online. The other answer I get is like Microsoft might give you more opportunity to build yourself to, to grill. And Amazon on the other hand, there is also a super good company, but compared to others other big corpse, parmesan relatively gonna get you to work harder, it's not a bad thing, they just compared to a company that prefer to get you work harder, you might have less time, or less flexibility to choose what you want for yourself. So at that part, I was thinking, I'm still young. So actually working harder is also a good choice for me, because maybe myself, I don't know what is good to learn, maybe I can learn more from my working experience. But if I have a choice here, then maybe I'll put more time to thinking about what I really want to learn. So if I go into you have to offer at the same time, I'm I choose the one that led myself to be able to have more flexibility to grow. So which leads to Microsoft in this scenario? Oh, I

see that you are working for Microsoft. How has it been so far? Like how much do you how much workload is there? How, how stressful is that? How do you manage with the amount of workload I learned,

I got some new thing here is like Eric has Eric. So working in big Corp is different compared to working in startups. This is the first time I have this kind of experience.

You can see that again, you can see that again. Yeah. But this is the first time this kind of experience, it's like working startup, maybe in the first day, you want to just catch up with the codebase. And maybe in the first you can start working in the codebase. So you can start up prefer, like appreciate your speed, your contribution. And you can, you can show yourself through those contribution. And then that's where the starting point is, it's like from there, you can do different things afterwards. But working because it's like he doesn't need you to really work in a first week. Basically, the first way is to learn stuff. And there's just so much to learn, you don't really need you to start contribute in the first week, basically spend a whole day to read all the booklets from HR, try to get my account work from my manager, try to set on my computer, were installing Windows from the machine they sent me cost three hours, basically, that's already half day, and you cannot go connect with their teams. Before that three hour after the first day, I'm able to talk with my manager, I'm able to see who's in my team. And then I tried to connect with others. So basically, that's the second day, introduce myself, connect with others in your team, the rest of my setup running like I need to start installing the codebase installing the necessary library for the code visit that takes a second day. So you already see the big difference in a startup. Let's say you want to add a button that lets you do action hacks. Right? Do the action. In a small company go? Well, you only have 10-15 clients, you have one language you Hey, what's the big deal, right? You add a button, you click it, it goes through to the home page one day, you'll maybe take me maybe an hour to code. Maybe you wait for that DevOps thing to build maybe like in another hour or two. And hey you got your bit of code. Compare that to let's say Microsoft team. How many languages is Microsoft Teams working in 20 languages? I don't know, like us in France, in Spain and Germany. I'm not even exaggerating Mandarin, right? Like Chinese, 20+ languages. So for you to add that button. If you do something, guess what? You have to make sure that it looks right in 20 languages, make sure you get the right translation you don't want to accidentally swear. Right? Put a bad word in there, you have to have update all the documentation to so that when people look at the document or look at help the that they go, Oh, this is what this button does this so having that button that functionality to Microsoft Teams may take 200 man hours from different people. Yeah. Compared to startup where only about 10 may do by yourself in an hour. I think that's close. That's the difference. Yeah, that's true. And that's why Microsoft is such a different experience. I have never worked for a very, very big company like that. Working medium size and challenges are variable. So we talk about the importance of communication skills and out of salt. I want you want to tell you this story that I had when I was in the I Expo, exit interview. And Aaron asked me Bo, my opinion of various software developer, I told Aaron straight out that out of all the developers there, I think has the best potential to lead and to sell. It's you. I flat out sell it, like it wasn't even a year will take me any real fight. Because I'm the one you remember when I actually sat down with you one on one at the food court.

Yeah, I remember we went to the food court, but I cannot remember what we talked during that

specific topics were not important. But what I remember two things, one, that you're a good listener, and that is a very important quality in a leader, you are able to adapt and learn quickly. I am not surprised that end up in Microsoft or another place. The only thing that I was wondering was What took you so long? Because I can tell you that Oh, you should you should quit I I'm not gonna say that. Because Eyexpo has been good to me. At the same time. I'm also at the time you I was there you Oh, well, you weren't there that long. By the time I was there you were maybe 9 months in. Yeah, something like that. Things like, if you ask me at that point, what my advice for career, your first stop, you just take it for a stop, like you get what you get was your foot in the door, you need to make money, you don't want to be sitting at home and not nothing to do your first job, you tend to be just get what you can write. And then your second job. Yep, you really want to get the breadth of experience. That's your second job. You care not s much about pay, but you care eally care about what kind of xperience what kind of things ou get to work on. So I think our second job at Microsoft cer ainly fits that profile. I agr e. And then your third job is here you go and get paid. You get paid.

Okay,

That's the general advice. Now, the thing about Microsoft is that there's enough opportunities there that you can get both.

Yeah, I do see that. After I join. Yeah, a lot of people here stay for more than 10 years. And then they have a career path from engineer to, to like principal engineer, manager. And yeah, you can see their groups pass. And I do talk with Sarah, manager already. And then he also said, this is quite common in Microsoft. So I'll see we'll see. I'm not really sure about if I going to get a get my suit job in a startup with a manager role, or stays here, try to maybe take longer, but also get higher, but I don't know. I don't know at this point. Yeah, I do appreciate you mentioned, I'm a good listener and adapt fast and good I learn. I also think these are really important ability for any engineer. Not only listening, I think communication is super important. And they say skill that really underestimated by a lot of software developer. And I think communication is a super important part for your daily work as long as you study during the study, because you might find a group to do a group project. That's also super important there. And when you do presentation, that's also super important. So listening, who else? Speak out? What is your sod is important. I don't, I don't think I'm really really good at this. But I think this is important. I try to be better on this. So and adapt fast learning. That's learning skill, I think Eric mentioned earlier is like, on the grass, maybe your degree or your first Co Op is for where to practice your learning skill. I think that's super true is working like study as a few? Well, the thing I learned from as a few is not about the course that I took. It's more about the journey of during my during the finishing the project for that course, the way I look for answer online instead of doing it myself, the time looking for engage with the professor and QA, get into their office hour to ask questions that are related to their exam, for example, so that you can know what they are asking and then get back to yourself self learning about how to practice on those. This learning skill is very important. I think that's one of the most important thing for your undergrad degree.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That. I mean, there's a reason why I started this podcast, you notice that? This whole time I didn't really talk about technical topics. If you look, if you look at by previous episodes, like it's all about soft skills, right? The whole thing is about that, because while there's no shortage of technical podcasts, how about latest technology news about the latest in programming languages, there is really not that much about the soft skills and yet becoming more and more apparent that things matter. And they matter a lot. That's true. Those are the things that people struggle with like resume preparation, LinkedIn, all Those sorts of things. They all come into play. I want to get you back to do a little bit of your back, because you're from China. And when did you come to Canada?

Yeah, I come to Canada in 2013 for my undergraduate grading as a few, so it's been almost eight years.

And before that you live in China all your life. Yes. Now we're in China. I'm just curious. shinjin sinjin Oh, so Weisinger does Cantonese. Right? You speak Cantonese? Oh, my God. You're setting a bar. So it all seems like okay, because this is an English I prefer if, because I don't know. I already know how to take note. I was okay. No, no. I have met a fair amount of Chinese that came to Canada that went to study University here. I'm not very surprised you came at 23rd. Because the way you speak how fluid it is, I would have thought that you came here while you're like 12 or 15. Oh, thank you more permittee to communicate naturally, in fluidly is so important. I'm sure they probably beat out a fair amount of your colleagues or your friends because of that alone. Okay, I would definitely say this stuff matters.

So for me, it's more about practice. I won't say my English is real good. cAUSE, I can't say why speak is seems to be more fluent compared to whaI write

And that's good enough.

So writing documentation is actually difficult for me sometimes, yeah, speaking, it's like you can you can easily practice this talk with your teammates in Ski Talk with your coworker during work. They just don't be afraid of that.

I've seen you practice English like at Eyexpo, you have plenty of opportunity to speak not a single word of English. There were a lot of Mandarin speaking people there. See, that's the kind of stuff that sets you apart and why I think you are going to places because you understood everyday practice is important. You said or how many hours you spend on coding progress. 100 hours, 100 hours is no joke. If you spend eight hours a day, I was just two weeks, that is serious, serious currency. is a currency.

Nothing to do during a pandemic. You cannot go out too high. Or

Oh, don't say that. No, no, no, a lot of you may have it on their hands. Never about time is never about time. Everybody gets 24 hours a day, seven days a week is never about time is about priority is about focus. It's about action. You spend 100 hours, I don't know how many other candidates spend 100 hours. Yeah. Somebody, somebody's not unwilling that, that you're probably more than

That's true. That's why at the end of January this year, I just talked with the CEO of Eyexpo, I will like to leave error at that time was also talking with me like, oh, why don't we just create free money isn't that good? He said it means like, why not just stay here and then get a new job because you don't have a new job yet. But instead, in my opinion, it's like, I would like to have a period of time that I can focus on preparing for the interview, instead of doing two things at the same time. Because I have the ability to do so like I have a kind of like a deposit for me to be good enough to leave for Well, I won't be a worry about eating or leaving for a while and then instead of just try to get more money Meanwhile, preparing I personally, I don't recommend this to everyone but personally I would prefer if I can have a pair of pants that I'm focusing on doing one thing at a time, so that I can be bet on that.

But that's smart. I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I'm gonna summarize this, you're gonna have to first of all say okay, I'm gonna save enough money so that I can for example, just quit and focus this is not something you can just just snap and do what you got you got to make sure you have some savings that's shared so that requires planning requires a level of foresight You know, it doesn't want to just free monies I know isn't free money.

That's true.

You are absolutely right. It's not free money because you have to work for it. He's the only you can just you know, punt off at work. Right? Yeah, just like this. You can just be sorry, screen your computer. Yeah, we're not do any, any code a vote for word and just like focus on your interview? That's not fair to the company. Right. So no, which I love Aaron. He's hilarious, but he chose to say that like, he just needs

Yeah. I mean, I think when he say that he sees me as a friend point of view instead of HR point of view, but he's still a narrow mind.

He can connect on that level too, right? He's not so straight lays like, there's so many jobs a very, very book like, you know, Bang Bang like,

right one thing Fatima I think one thing to interrupt here is like, compared to it I learned from my talk with Eric here, it's like, have a time to learn or do other things and work is actually hard to get after you start working. But when you guys do a student, you cannot like have a fixed time of vacation three times a year, you have your radiant breaks, or are you maybe like your your study is not that difficult. And maybe you only need to go to school for days, and you have one day free. So those time is actually quite difficult to get after getting into the industry. What I want to say is like, catch some opportunity during that maybe you can do flax, so one day on, on on watchdog, hiking or, or gaming or hanging out with friends, that you still have a lot of other opportunity, other free times to walk home, maybe your study, maybe you need to only need to spend one more day compared to your teen like classmate, and you can just stand out. That's what I learned is like, I also quit games. After school, I played a lot of games. But I instead of just play games and sleep eight hours, like 10 hours, some of the deuce the free 10 hour every day, I see a hour and a half, two more hours, I just tried to get up to speed Get out, get out like like homework, that kind of thing. It's like if you spent a bit more time you can stand up. And then if you stand out from your class, it's actually really easy when you're under stress. If you stand up for class, it's actually a really good thing to have your resume. And then you can stand out during your club applications.

As I said to Fatima, I told her to make sure you put the podcast on your resume, that there's always definitely stand out. And also, we talked about, you know, the ability to take time off, right? One of the best advice I ever got, and pardon my French was, he was here this coming. best advice I ever got. Never put yourself in a position where you cannot tell your boss to fuck off. You always want to be a position where you're not so strapped for cash that you have no choice but to

Yeah, that's you need to think about that

It affects so many things. If you're forced to work, you can't quit, then it affects your performance at work affects your negotiation when you're negotiating salary, it also affects your ability to get your next job. Good move on up. So great advice there to all your listeners out there. The podcast does several things, the highlights of communications, he get better at it right? You get better at doing something you do more of it. Yeah. And while we in our school, you get the code all the time, and you can practice your own coding is very hard to practice talking to people in a business setting where you're asking business questions about the communication about interviews about all the soft skills that are required. Now there's so much things to share. Yeah, yeah. And also, even when things are first round of interviews, you don't get feedback right away. Amazon says no, they don't tell you exactly why they say no. They just said No, they won't, they won't. What I'm hoping to do is get ourselves in this position where we can give feedback, like mock interviews, things like that working, we can dissect interview, ask the question, look, hear the answer, dissect it, and have our listeners chime in and give their opinion or how can I improve on these other things? Wow, there's certainly a lot of information. It is been amazing to our crazy as far as I am completely sight like, I don't feel tired. I feel like more alive. I can I can keep going with this all day. You know, we're like, we can't do this. But I think for all our sakes, we should probably end this. But we will definitely get back into the Microsoft. I know you started a week so maybe not the best time to talk about the experience Microsoft will mean a month or two we'll get to know more about that. And I think that our listeners will really want to get into a deep dive into deconstructing that interview and going what exactly questions What are the things that you how you approach it and what you think you did? Well, maybe he was even a good thing for you to write to reflect right? Do a post mortem sometimes is just as important to analyze your successes to see what what are the things you figured that well, because we don't even know why you failed but you we know he succeeded. So there are obviously things that you did well, okay, so we'll get into that. I am so honored to have you Isaac over here to spend this time with us. You are diving moving on up and it is my honor to be able know you can have some small, insignificant but hopefully not insignificant part of your career. I wish you the best.

Thank you very much

I would love to have you back.

Really appreciate it my patient.

Thank you for joining us gather share.

Thank you guys for those questions as well.

We've interviewed a fair amount of people that are very, very experienced in their field from someone who is still starting out. But you've already made great strides to give us a sneak peek for next week listeners. Next week, we're going to have a relatively junior or slash intermediate developer. He's actually taught at a code camp for a number of months. It'll be very interesting to hear his perspective on code camps, what his advice will be for people gain stop wanting to get started in software engineering. So that's a sneak peek for next week for next podcast session.

Thank you congratulating yourself for listening by engaging with us you are already well ahead of the pack. Please subscribe, share with others and post about on social media. For feedback and suggestions for future episodes, please go to the podcast website DSE podcast.com