After the paranormal week, we moved on to a more concrete one.
I kept going with the usual round of applications on LinkedIn.
I got a reply from a recruiter and, after a discovery call, they sent me a “challenge” to assess my level of knowledge.
As a first approach to this kind of tools, it wasn’t bad at all.
50 questions covering different topics and programming languages.
Design Patterns, SQL Databases, Java, Spring Boot, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Angular.
For the theory part, classic multiple-choice questions.
For the practical part, a mix between standard algorithms and more realistic problems, using a sort of modern IDE with autocompletion and suggestions. The code can be executed, and test cases are also provided to verify the results, even for SQL queries.
Each question had a variable time limit depending on its difficulty.
Unfortunately, I haven’t received any feedback from the recruiter yet, nor any result from the test. I’ll follow up in the next few days, hoping for a response.
Besides job searching, I’ve started the study plan.
Since Java is very common in the job offers I’ve been seeing around, and I haven’t had hands-on experience with it for about 8 years, I decided to dive into both theory and practice.
I used Gemini to generate quizzes and flashcards. I have to say they did a really great job with the UI, and it helped me review the key concepts.
To get hands-on, I’m developing an application with Spring Boot, which I also published on GitHub, to show some code to recruiters or potential technical reviewers.
I’ll keep building my portfolio, hoping it helps me better show what I can do and what I can work on.
So now, NeXT!