Episode 12: Like Normal Cloud Services, but More Depressing

Does your job challenge and motivate you? Does it utilize your skills? Or, are you ready to go job hunting? Do you want an awesome job that is a resume booster? Companies should be supportive of their employees finding a job that matches their skills and interests. Also, when hiring, companies should offer thoughtful processes for interviews.  

Today, I’m talking to Sarah Withee, a polyglot software engineer, mentor, teacher, and robot tinkerer. Sarah went job hunting, and after several job interviews, she finally found a job that made her super happy at Arcadia Healthcare Solutions. Sarah compares the interview processes she experienced at big name tech companies that offer Cloud services.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Companies sometimes lose sight that even interview interactions need to be a two-way sale
• Interviews often involve talking to many people; and if several are bad, that forms a negative impression of the company
• Companies need to provide interview training and follow the same standards
• Don’t farm out challenging or unfamiliar issues when interviewing candidates
• Sarah is very competent, but she is new to Cloud platforms; she is like a sponge, who enjoys learning and having a bare knowledge of new technology
• How HIPAA regulations impact Sarah’s learning and software engineering work; she has to be more aware of security and safety of healthcare data
• Being a teacher and mentor affects how Sarah learns new things; everybody learns slightly differently
• In the Cloud space, know which direction you want to go and start with simpler things to learn the basics; focus on what is relevant to what you are working on

Links:

• Sarah Withee on Twitter #speakerconfessions
• Sarah Withee on Twitter
• Sarah Withee Blog
• Sarah Withee Resume
• Digital Ocean
• AWS
• Azure