Planning your first code challenge

So, you have been on the job search for awhile now, and suddenly after a few interviews you have been given a code challenge. After the excitement and the nerves settle down, it can be easy to feel slightly overwhelmed.

Most code challenges involve either a white boarding interview, a take home project, or pair programming session. For this post we will be discussing the second option, the take home project.

Usually when you have made it this far, the company you are interviewing for has already done a cultural assessment you feel you are a good fit personality wise. But what they are really curious about is how you tackle a problem with only a few guide lines.

In my most recent technical project I was sent a JSON file with 4,000 objects with various degrees of nested attributes. The challenge was to sort, organize, view, compare, and filter these objects, with consideration to UI and data storage.

The first thing to tackle is where you plan to store your data.You can save it as a file in your project and import to your code base if you choose. But if you are trying to showcase your skills as a developer building a small API for a back end may be a better solution. In my case I whipped up a node express server with an index route and routes for each post.

After your data solution is secure, now is the time start building out the MVP(most viable product). In this case it was getting all requirements done efficiently.

After the tasks to be done are complete it is now prime time to refactor your codebase and work on the UI. This may require you to re organize much of your code so make sure you are doing this on a separate GIT branch.

Now that your project is complete make sure to write a readme with instructions on how to run your program as well as any addition packages you may have used.

Create a link to your github repo and send it to your point of contact. Hopefully you will have impressed the interviewer and a follow up interview will be scheduled to go over how you approached this project.

Good Luck