Elena's code blog - Interviewing

RSS Bot · July 26, 2008

I've been interviewing for a new job this week and preparing for the interview process for the last 2 weeks. In the past I haven't studied this hard for interviews, but this time I'm interviewing at Amazon and their interviews are notorious for being difficult. The first interview went very well and I was invited to interview with an SDE. I have more interviews coming up with another company, and I may land a few more pretty soon from a recruiter. I've had a lot of inquiries, but most have been local, but I'm looking to move west, so I'm going to work a bit harder to get my resume in front of companies out there.

Oh yes.. one interesting thing about the last corporate recruiter who called me. He asked if I was applying for the web design or software developer job. Heh. Had the design been bad, he'd have assumed developer off the bat. That's good feedback regarding my design sk1llz. I just hope it won't distract potential employers. I'm not applying for web design because I don't feel I've got enough experience with it (although I'm rapidly getting there).

I'll be getting back to my game soon, but it's still going to be several weeks from now. I've already spent a ton of time building a personal portal, doing web design for that, and writing code samples for companies who've requested it. I've also been spending a ton of time packing, doing landscaping on my house, and finishing various repairs around the house.

I have a tendency to get distracted easily, so I wasn't kidding about having 10 on-going simultaneous projects. Heh. It'd be nice if there were more hours in the day. I'll give you an idea of the "projects" I've been working on:

building a personal info, sample code, resume portal (it's about time for the portal)
reading an occasional book (last book read is Programming Interviews Exposed)
learning web design (having great success with that)
learning Flash & ActionScript better
developing an Ajax message board (still in very early phases)
working on the code and design of several sites I host (a few are actually done!)
coming up with website ideas
landscaping my yard to sell my house
tiling the rec room floor, kitchen floor and counter top to sell my house (rec room is 90% done)
interior house painting (haven't done much of that since last winter)
writing on a blog--well over 250,000 words (not including this one (and I'm thinking about adding a code blog on my portal))
youtube vlogging
taking courses to work toward a 2nd degree: fine arts (although it's been a while due to my move, a trip, and house fixer upper stuff)
acrylic painting on canvas (it's been a while for that also)
sketching in pencil and ink
getting better at Illustration with vector programs: Illustrator, Flash, Inkscape, and Fireworks (a hybrid raster/vector app)
Atari game (not that much progress yet tho)
an unusual obsession with making homemade pizza: all types, any toppings

Believe it or not, I've actually gotten some things done now and then, but some projects go on hold for long durations of time. By the way, I watch zero hours of TV. That's a big time saver. I've also been unusually more productive since last March due to personal stuff.

But, I've been finding myself more interested in game development lately, and I've been wondering if anyone has added client/server network code to the original Wolf3d. (Think deathmatch.) I haven't found one yet, but I haven't been looking very long. I know there's got to be something out there, unless there's a technical reason why not. It doesn't help that most Wolf3d searches seem to be all about the Castle Wolfenstein, higher resolution image updates, original maps recreated in Doom, Quake, and Unreal engines, and finally Wolf3d ports to every platform to the point of ridiculousness, so there's a ton of noise on the search engines. If I don't find a decent networked one, I may look into doing it. I have a lot of experience with network code.

I also have an interest in learning Flash better. I know ActionScript pretty well but I'd like to do more "slick" animation type of stuff. Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin, but it's hard not to when you're interested in everything. :ponder: