Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- work-stories [2022/08/17 00:03] – donpdonp
+++ work-stories [2022/08/17 15:28] – donpdonp
@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 . Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility. Why was it important? What was the outcome?
-* I was a developer at a startup, and product owner of the backend of the web product. The front end dev team was turning out new UIs and they needed
+  * I was a developer at a startup, and product owner of the backend of the web product. The front end dev team was turning out new UIs and they needed testing. I took on this responsibility to walk through every new feature, looking for bugs or incompatibilities. Its important to find bugs before the customer does. The outcome was a much more fully tested UI.
-testing. I took on this responsibility to walk through every new feature, looking for bugs or incompatibilities. Its important
-to find bugs before the customer does. The outcome was a much more fully tested UI.
 . Describe a time when you didn't think you were going to meet a commitment you promised. How did you identify the risk and communicate it to stakeholders? Is there anything you would do differently?
-* Nodejs project. A backend transition was planned, switching the ondisk format from json (inefficient but simple) to protobuf (very efficient).
+  * Nodejs project. A backend transition was planned, switching the ondisk format from json (inefficient but simple) to protobuf (very efficient). The change to the end user was speed of operations. The site was becoming noticably slow. Involved a lot of code changes. The first 75% of the changes went very well. The code was compartmentalized well. The last 25% hit a lot of code debt. We had to change our schedule, by changing the points assigned to that ticket.  It was something that users would appreciate but werent expecting it, so we didnt notify the users. In the end the feature was rolled back. The task changed to do more refactoring to get all of the node.js code using a single set of methods for disk access.
-The change to the end user was speed of operations. The site was becoming noticably slow.
-Involved a lot of code changes. The first 75% of the changes went very well. The code was compartmentalized well. The last 25% hit a lot of code debt.
-We had to change our schedule, by changing the points assigned to that ticket.  It was something that users would appreciate but werent expecting it, so we didnt notify the users.
-In the end the feature was rolled back. The task changed to do more refactoring to get all of the node.js code using a single set of methods for disk access.
@@ Line 60: / Line 54: @@
 . Describe a difficult interaction you had with a customer. How did you deal with it? What was the outcome? How would you handle it differently?
-* often my customer was the biz dev department. they had an expectation of new features to sell to new and existing clients.
+  * often my customer was the biz dev department. they had an expectation of new features to sell to new and existing clients. often their schedule was not informed by software team feedback. this led to mismatches between what was promised and what was possible. this sometimes made our scheduling difficult because our team also made a schedule based on the roadmap and the dates were very different.Basically it came down to breaking down the tasks again and again into something easier to estimate, and communicating the list of tasks to biz dev, so they had an idea as to what was involved in any given roadmap line item. After a few weeks of back and forth our schedules started to sync. Differently would be earlier communication.
-often their schedule was not informed by software team feedback. this led to mismatches between what was promised and what was possible.
-this sometimes made our scheduling difficult because our team also made a schedule based on the roadmap and the dates were very different.
-Basically it came down to breaking down the tasks again and again into something easier to estimate, and communicating the list of tasks
-to biz dev, so they had an idea as to what was involved in any given roadmap line item. After a few weeks of back and forth our schedules
-started to sync. Differently would be earlier communication.
 . Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a customer. Why did you do it? How did the customer respond? What was the outcome?
-* A customer wanted their location tracking app to work with the site. It uses different json data to push location data. After looking at
+  * A customer wanted their location tracking app to work with the site. It uses different json data to push location data. After looking at the job and realizing it was doable in a reasonable time frame, I extended the API to include the new format. The result was better than I expected because then I enabled the format of two other apps and it started a small ecosystem of apps that were compatible with the site.
-the job and realizing it was doable in a reasonable time frame, I extended the API to include the new format. The result was better than
-I expected because then I enabled the format of two other apps and it started a small ecosystem of apps that were compatible with the site.
-; maintainable code
@@ Line 84: / Line 69: @@
 . Give me an example of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received. What was it and what did you do about it?
-* My git commit messages are terse and need more detail. First I review the problem to verify it, went over my old messages.
+* My git commit messages are terse and need more detail. First I review the problem to verify it, went over my old messages.  Yes some of them are short and dont describe what the patch actually does. I started putting more effort into patch descriptions.  This was noticed as a positive change by my coworkers.
-  Yes some of them are short and dont describe what the patch actually does. I started putting more effort into patch descriptions.
-  This was noticed as a positive change by my coworkers.
 ** Have backbone, Disagree **
-. Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your manager or peer on something you considered very important to the business. What was
+. Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your manager or peer on something you considered very important to the business. What was it and how did you handle it? Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?
-it and how did you handle it? Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?
+  * Per customer custodial accounts vs one large pot; external circumstances I was unaware of, along the lines of minimum balances to earn interest; would have listened longer custodial partner; we had logs, they had logs. seemed safe enough.
-* Per customer custodial accounts vs one large pot; external circumstances I was unaware of, along the lines of minimum balances to earn interest; would have listened longer
-custodial partner; we had logs, they had logs. seemed safe enough.
 . Describe a time when you took an unpopular stance in a meeting with peers and your leader. What was it? Why did you feel strongly about it? What did you do? What was the outcome?