Presented by Women Who Code CONNECT Recharge 2022 Speaker: Ninti Chance (she/her), Software Engineer @ Google CONNECT Recharge 2022 Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcEZG2JPVhcLkMbJ3TkSajGDfFNOdCEd
We all have a list of resources to study. After all, the internet is at most people's fingertips. However, not everyone knows how to organize those resources. Knowing our learning type, our timeline, and how to balance studying with work and life can help us to study most effectively. This chat is a quick list of guides on how to prepare for the interview holistically. With a focus on 4 core tenants when in the interview: 1) Communication 2) Coding 3) Problem solving skills and 4) Validation. Along with the core tenants, we'll learn how to create our own study schedule/timeline so we'll know exactly when we're ready to attend our coding interviews. Finally, we'll prepare a self-care guide for the week of interviews so that we are not only mentally and intellectually prepared for interviews, but also emotionally. Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13OwLNHmYECKIZGsZXZwfFRXe3GZ7gCw3qRh-kr-2vCc/edit#slide=id.g1163593d6dc_0_0
💻 WWCode Digital Events: https://www.womenwhocode.com/events 🔎 Job Board: https://www.womenwhocode.com/jobs​​​​ 💌 Make a Donation: https://www.womenwhocode.com/donate
I'm thrilled to introduce our next talk, studying Skills for the Tech interview with ninthy Chance. And so a little bit about ninthy. Ninthi is a lot of things a coder, an actor, a Ticktocker, an aerialist, a cosplayer, and a nerd. But most of all, she is a supporter. She is passionate about bringing BIPOC into technology space and to ensure the future we build is one where the most marginalized people are at the center of solutions. From land back to reparations, to creating space by tearing down gates. Minti believes social justice is the way to solve problems of the future. And since she already has a seat at the Tech table, she'll work to make space for more people whose voices are missing. So I am thrilled to invite Mindy onto the stage to talk a little bit more about studying skills for the Tech interviews so that we can expand these opportunities, just like she says in her bio. So welcome, Mindy. Hello, everyone. I am so excited to be here, and apparently my cat is excited to be here too, so you might see him a few times. As she said, this is Studying Skills for the Tech interview. My name is Nyndi. I love studying, and so this is something I'm pretty passionate about. And also I think I'm really good at studying, and so I just want to help other people be able to study more effectively. So who is this talk for? This talk is for a wide breadth of people, specifically first time interviewers, recent boot camp graduates, people looking to move into large tech companies, like maybe a thing, people interviewing for entry level or to mid level interviewing, and people focused on interviewing at large companies. Like I stated, I wanted to use my experience to share how I prepared for the Tech interview, and I think that it was pretty effective. So hopefully this can help you too. So I have this timeline of basically my entire process of preparation, and that preparation was about a two year span, but I only took about seven months actually studying. So at first, in December 2018, a Google recruiter contacted me, and that's where I decided to start studying for this big tech interview. The first thing that I did was create a three month study plan with just an old pen and paper. Just wrote it out, wrote out the dates. And before I got ready, I did some research and I found that most people took about three months to study for the Tech interview. And so that's why I created that estimate. And it didn't need to be perfect. It didn't need to tell exactly the timeline that I needed for the interview. It just needed to be on paper. And so I was just writing it out so I can get something out on a schedule. And essentially what I did was I took all of those data structures and mapped them out across a timeline, just an even equidistant number. So if I had three weeks and I had three subjects, then I would put one subject per week. That way all of my ducks were in a row and I knew exactly where I was going from there. At first I jumped in and I realized I didn't really know a lot of computer science concepts because I actually studied at a boot camp. And so I had to build the foundation. Everything was completely new for me. So I started with the foundational topics like pointers addresses and all of those things. And don't worry if that sounds completely new to you. It was new to me at one point, too. Then I realized that I was completely new to this field. And so I took a very long break. And it's absolutely okay to take long breaks. It's okay to take as many breaks as you want. This is your process. This is your interview process, like I stated, and no one else's. So after basically a year long break, a Facebook recruiter contacted me. And that's when I realized that I had all the time in the world because all of my hobbies were just null and void because of the pandemic. And so studying became my new hobby. I created a new three month study plan based on the knowledge that I had. And I was like, I'm not going to revisit the things that I already knew. I'm just going to start fresh. And this is specifically like I said, because I didn't pursue computer science in college, I did theater. I needed to learn all of these things. And so I think there are so many things that's important when you are studying. And the most important thing is to not work alone, have supportive support groups, but also to have someone who's actually going through the same exact process as you is really nice because you can motivate each other. And I had a really good study partner and my friend Harriet, and so that's very important. My favorite thing is making my study plans very fun. And so I ensured that I had very colorful notes that way that I could one keep up with how function calls worked very easily. And also I could visualize exactly how certain concepts work because recursion is like a very tough concept to grasp my mind around. But when I drew it out, like you see here, this recursive stack, it just made me understand better the concepts. And it was just so much more fun to have drawings of any concepts that I had. And I actually like, drew out this chart for merge sort. And I got this chart from one of the resources that I used. And so I really just loved encouraging myself and I would write out things that I need to remember, like don't forget to communicate, make it really pretty. And another thing that I would do, sometimes I would just like, write out sweet notes to myself. Like, I can do it. And that just made me excited about the study process. I also created a new calendar. You can use a calendar app to do this, like Google, or you can use any other type of calendar app. But I wrote it out because I really am a very visual person. I'm a very auditory learner. I think it's called repetition auditory visual learner or something like that. So knowing your learning style really helps with the interview process when you're studying for it. But yeah, I wrote out each day, like I stated, and decided what concepts I was going to learn for that particular weekend kind of thing, because I still worked a full time job when I was preparing my study time was actually for three months in my calendar, but it took me four months to study. And that's okay. The time is not going to be strict, it's not going to be rigid. No one is rushing you. You're the only person who's setting your time, and it's okay to be very patient with yourself. And one of the most important concepts that I learned while studying, I really like to use this metaphor that data structures are a toolbox. So say you're building a house and you only have a hammer. If you only have a hammer to build a house, oftentimes we think the tools that we have are not enough to actually complete something, but a hammer is enough to build a house. However, it's going to take a lot more time and effort. It's not going to be as efficient. So when you're cutting the wood, maybe you would use the sharp side of the hammer or things like that. And honestly, trying to paint with a hammer sounds ridiculous, but it is possible. So if you had more tools in your toolbox, like if you have a table saw, and if you have paint brushes, and if you have a drill, it just makes that process so much more efficient when you are building that it's faster and everything looks better. And that's how you can think of your code or that's how you can think of solving a problem. Your data structures are essentially the tools that you can use to solve any problems. The more tools you have, the easier it'll be or the more efficient you'll be when you're solving that problem. And one thing that is really great about these tools is they come with their own algorithms. So they come with the algorithms to insert into the data structure or add a new element to it, to access a certain element in the data structure, to search through it, and to delete from it. So this is a really handy chart that I really like, the big O cheat sheet. And it tells you exactly the time, complexity to do all of these algorithms on your data structures. And these are just some data structures that I particularly focused on when I was studying. By the time I learned all of those concepts for those data structures, just those elementary concepts, I was thinking or I wouldn't say elementary, I would say foundational. I felt prepared for the first technical phone screen. I was not perfect at that point. I didn't know every single thing in the book. I definitely didn't know screen math at the time, and I'm sure it would have made it a little easier for me. But one thing that I did know is that I felt very confident in the data structures that I already learned and were reviewing from my previous session of studying. And so I dived into the Tech interview, and when I dived into the Tech interview, I really tried to focus on self care and the tenets of a successful interview that me and my friend Musselli kind of came up with together. And that's what I'm saying. Like with the Tech interview, it's really good to have friends. I have friends who are more like mentors who already worked at Facebook. And I know it's a little bit hard, like, you won't always find that friend group, but you might be able to find it online. Like, there's a Facebook group called I think it's a Black and Tech, or like black Data Structures and algorithms, it's something like that. But I was a part of that group, and that's a great way to get mentors and friends who can help you along your particular journey when you're studying for the coding interview. So, like I said, I focus on self care. I think that mental health care is the first thing before you can even interview. You really want to focus on treating yourself well, being very patient, being very compassionate, rewarding yourself for the things that you do, being proud of the hard work you're doing and being excited about the work that you're doing when it becomes like some tedious thing. That's when you know that you need a long break, and long breaks are 100% okay. So selfcare looks different for everyone. I have obsessive compulsive disorder, so I had to learn how to not let the ruminations and compulsions keep me from focusing on my studying. Some things that I did when I was studying was I would excessively take notes, and I would rewrite my notes and I would reread things, and I would re watch things, and that was because of my OCD. So one thing I did was I took a step back and my therapist recommended this. I took a step back and I watched the video completely, and I took all of the notes afterwards and wrote down everything that I knew. Any concepts that I didn't remember, I would just revisit them. This was very helpful for me. Another thing, this is just like a tip that I like, I speed up the top unless I don't understand it, then I slow it down because most video apps have like you can slow it down or speed it up. So if I knew the concept, I would speed it up. If I didn't know it, I might slow it down so I can really try to focus on what the teacher is saying. Before my interview, I took five minutes to dance and I might review that before later on when I talk about the interview, but I would listen to Samsung slash and just like party in my living room so that by the time I was in the interview, I was laughing, I was happy, I was excited, and the nerves were gone. My friend Harriet, who I was studying with, actually created this thing called a selfcare menu, which I think was genius and it's so cute. And so with the self care menu, what you want to do is put things that really matters to you. So for me, being able to spend time with my loved ones is self care. Being able to sketch for fun, but not sketching to make it look really good, like just draw what I already know how to draw. Maybe taking a new class, eating cookies, that's the best one. I'm telling you. Maybe get some Volvo. Look at fan art. I love anime. I love looking at fan art. Of my favorite anime right now is not all my favorite characters and all my favorite ships. So you really want to know if I need to care for myself, could I randomly pick something from this list? And sometimes you have to randomly do it because otherwise you'll probably keep doing the same thing if you're anything like me. So like maybe going for a walk through the silly city or going to the park can actually be rotated in with your self care menu. And you can use resources like canva, to make something cute like this. It's free and it's quick and it's cute and you really want to reward yourself early and often. So rewarding yourself for the small things that you do. Like if you just learn a new data structure that is maybe reward yourself with a 15 minutes break, like you can scroll through Tumblr or something like that. And along those lines, when you have a big thing like you learn the full data structure or you learn five data structures, you can reward yourself with something bigger from that selfcare menu that I was talking about. Like maybe you want to buy yourself a present and when you get to the interview process and you're completed with it, you want to take a second to breathe. No matter how well or poorly or whatever you think you did, you did an amazing job because you put yourself out there. Like you put yourself in front of someone who is going to determine your future in a way. And so taking that step is huge and it's okay to take that step and fail. Failure is teaching you how to do better in the future. Making mistakes is so integral and so taking that chance and doing the interview is exhausting. It's a lot of work. And so have some self compassion and literally just give yourself a day off and do something. No matter how much money you make, do something that is a reward to yourself. And then finally, you should take as many breaks as you want. Take a lot of breaks. Like I said, this is your interview, so you can take as much time as you want. It took me basically two years, seven months of studying, but I took all of the time in the world. I didn't rush into this because I wanted to do something that would be fun for myself as opposed to stressful. So I just want to talk about also the tenants of a successful interview along with the self care. First is communication and collaboration. There's clean code, problem solving skills and validation. So let's dive into that. So, communication and collaboration. I think it's very important to view this interview as a collaborative process as opposed to someone in a room judging you. You really want to talk to them, feel comfortable if you have to, before the interview starts, take a second to get to know the person. I mean, like, you don't have that much time, but you can tell them something about you, something that you like and maybe that would just kind of chill your nerves. This is the person who's working with you on this problem as opposed to working against you. So you want to ask clarifying questions, you want to state all of your assumptions out loud, you want to communicate your ideas out loud and you can write your solution and pseudo code before diving into that solution. So that your interviewer knows exactly where you are and why this is particularly important is if the interviewer has a clear communication with you, they know how to give you any hints. If they feel that you are going in the right direction or going in a direction that's not necessarily worth going down, they can give you more clues. If they know that you don't understand the problem, maybe they can reinforce it. If you state your assumptions and your assumptions are wrong, they can correct those assumptions. So communicating the entire time is very important. And you can practice this too. You also want to have clean code. So it's so important not to choose a language that you think your interview is going to like. They don't care what language you do to interview. And I did it in JavaScript because JavaScript is like my first language. I feel like I can write JavaScript in my sleep versus go, which is what I'm working on now. So you really want to focus on a language that works for you. That way your code can be clean. You already know the syntax. You already know any methods of the language, and if you don't try to get comfortable with that language and try to learn things about it that you didn't know. There were some concepts, like prototypes for classes that I didn't really understand, and then there was closures. Currying there are a lot of concepts in JavaScript that I didn't understand, so I took a second to watch this one YouTuber called Texas and just reinforce ideas that I already knew, like promises async await or those sorts of things. And then for the things I didn't know, I really focused on learning them. When you're stuck, you can always call a helper method in the interview. So you can say, I'm just going to call a helper method here and I will flesh out the details of it later. If you don't know how to implement a certain thing, as long as you know, like, say your helper method is to turn every letter into the letter Q, you can write out turn to letter Q, that's the name of the function. Call it and then define it below and then come back later to flush it out. It is completely okay. And actually putting your code into those small chunks will just help you understand your problem solving better. But also it makes your code clean automatically because you're giving it small. I guess everything has its own amount of work. Oh my gosh, I just realized that there are so many beautiful people in this audience and I just completely forgot to ask you all, what are your goals? Where are you in your career currently? Where do you want to be in your career, where are you located? And also what your name is? So I'd love to just see that about you and maybe we can share some on the screen if we see some good answers. And then finally clean code just looks really good. So, problem solving skills, this is probably the biggest part that really stresses people out. And that being said, why don't you just focus 100% on the brute force solution? Like the first solution that comes to your mind. Do not immediately go to, how can I make this the most efficient thing? Like, no, just make it ugly, put it on the paper, and then you can come back and make it pretty later. So someone says they're looking for a mentor, they're starting over. Eevee. I hope you find that mentor. Please put Nicole's on the screen. And thank you all for answering the question. My name is Nicole from Vancouver. I just finished a software engineering boot camp and looking for my first role as a junior developer. That's so exciting. I know exactly how that feels. And then we have a few other ones if you could just go through them. So after you've implemented that brute force solution, you can check the time complexity and you can see where maybe you can improve your code and then make it more efficient if you have the ability. If you don't, it's fine. And then finally, like I said, I put this two places. Use helper methods when you get stuck. And the last thing that is important is validation. But I want to take a second. So I'm from Detroit. I'm transitioning away from public education and into front end development. I actually start a six month full stack apprenticeship in July. Oh, my God. First off, I'm very excited for you. Marissa. That's so funny. That was the name that I called myself back in the day, but that's a long story. Anyway, and Chandler wrestling with my career goals, having been a tech adjacent for years. Do I want to be a beginner? Dev at 55? Yes. I love coding. I definitely think if you want to get into it, you should just go for it and you can take your time and be patient with yourself. So validation is the last thing, and I feel like this is a very important part of tenants of a successful interview. First, can you test your code with the sample input that your interviewer basically gave you? So you just take that input and then you walk line by line through your code. And this ensures that you're checking for any bugs that you may or may not have. It gives you confidence in your code, but it also shows the interviewer that you care about testing your code. Finally, if you're able to find those bugs in your code, then it tells them that you can find the bugs at work. And then just like a stretch goal, can you come up with your own test cases and input? This also is about communication and clarifying assumptions. If you come up with those test cases and that input and whatnot, it just shows that you are thinking of edge cases, like if there's nulls or any zeros or negative numbers so that your code doesn't break in production. A lot of the interview process is about how you're going to work with people at work. And thank you all so much for all of these lovely answers. Can you tell me what are you most excited about in the coding world? So after I did, I actually did my technical interview and we were just on that part of my timeline. So like I said, I didn't know everything. I wasn't very solid on graphs, and I wasn't very confident with dynamic programming when I did my technical interview, and I was lucky that I didn't get any questions around those things. But also, I do think that you can't know everything, but you do want to have a breadth of information. Like, instead of having a depth, which is like maybe becoming a specialist at a certain data structure, try to just touch a bit of everything. And when I say a bit, honestly, I mean know how to insert and delete from every data structure. It depends on you. You just have to listen to yourself and know exactly what you need. For me, I knew that I needed at least those basic foundational algorithms for those data structures. But anyway, I decided when I passed my technical round, which I was so freaking excited because I failed my Netflix interview, I failed my Amazon interview. I failed, like, a Shopify interview. And failure is good. Failure is teaching you. And I really wanted to work at Netflix. That was my number one company. My second one was Google. And then I was like, Facebook and Amazon were like I wanted to kind of, like, use those interviews as kind of a study for the next interviews, and not saying that Facebook wasn't a contender, but basically I really want to focus on Netflix and Google. And when Netflix went downhill, I was just like, I don't know. I was so sad and I was so scared that I was going to fail my other interviews. And so I worked with my therapist on this thing called imaginals, where you come up with the worst case scenario and you just play it on loop. And that's an OCD technique. It's an exposure response prevention technique. So if you have your own therapist, maybe if you have a certain mental disability, you should talk to them about how you can work through this. But I really had to work through that mental thing when I was going into Google and Facebook's on sites. Let's see. Failure is good. Yes. I'm just seeing what people said. I was wondering who was excited and what they're excited about. Encoding. And I think Rebecca said, excited to have a role that I'm enthusiastic about and feel respected in. Yeah, I love these things. I'm really excited about code, and I'm really excited about getting other people into it. So it was like my crunch time, and I had to make my resources as efficient as possible because I only had a month, and literally, I did not really understand dynamic programming until three days before my interview. And so I just want to share with you how I made that resource more efficient. First of all, this guy is my favorite. I actually work with him now. Like, one day I'm going to reach out to him and thank him. This course is so accessible. So let me just show you how to make this efficient. Some people might look at this and get overwhelmed because this is like 40 different practice problems. It is probably not sustainable. It's not always possible to do 40 practice problems. So the way that I went about this, it was the Monday before my Google interview, and my Google interview was on a Wednesday. I decided to do one problem per pattern. And the first problem I did, I just copied their solution. I read exactly how they went about solving that problem. And then after that, I did one problem of my own. If I knew how to do that problem and I was solving it correctly, and whatnot, then I was able to move on to the next pattern. But if I still had some issues, I solved one more. And so out of these six different patterns, I only did about twelve problems, even though there's 40 problems here. And so you can do that with a lot of your resources. I know that Grocking also has a Crocking, the tech interview resource, where they have a bunch of patterns. You don't have to do all 500 problems. Just do a few of them. If you are really in a crunch for time, and I hope that I have, I think I have, like, four more minutes left, so let me move along. So when did I know I was ready? I got him. He's trying to do the talk. When did I know that I was ready? Like I said earlier, I made a calendar, and there was a point where I knew I wasn't ready. That was when I was three months into my calendar, and I still had a month of studying to go. And I was like, Oh, gosh, let me push my interviews back a month. And so when I made it through the entire calendar, that was one thing to make me feel like, Okay, I'm ready. When I knew a breadth of data structures and algorithms, like I said earlier, I did a lot of practice interviews. Not a lot. I would say I probably did about ten before my interview, but that was enough for me. Maybe enough for you would be, too. Maybe enough for you would be 20. It changes for everyone. But I use this resource called Cramp, which is really great resource, where you interview someone else and they interview you. So you're learning two problems in every interview. And I always try to apply the tenants of a successful interview, even when I was doing lead code problems of my own. And some people might say, you have to do 300 lead code problems in order to pass an interview. I only did 50. And I feel like it just really is what works for you. And then also when I felt confident solving most easy problems and some medium problems and maybe one or two hard problems, that's when I was like, Okay, let me do the onsite interview. Keep in mind, I'm an L three at Google, and so it might be a little bit different for L five or whatnot, but that's how I felt then. TADA I passed the Facebook and Google on site, and that was just a dream come true. A coding dream come true. Look at that. I made it into time. Let me go. Oops, it's going to the wrong thing. Okay, so, anna yes, I'm here. I'm back. Thank you so much. NY I think the biggest question we're seeing is and maybe we can do it in the chat because you have your contact information. But before we get into content questions, a lot of people want to know because you have so many amazing links there. Is there a way to share them? Where do you want to be found? On the Internet. And would you share your slides? It's the biggest question we're getting. I will 100% share my slides, and I will share all of my links. Usually it comes up, but I have a Google Doc of data structures and algorithms. Let's see. And I will add it to the D slides. Great. Yeah, I will share them. Great. Wonderful. Okay, so the first question, unfortunately, we lost it in the chat because it's been such an amazing chat. But at the beginning, Heidi wanted to know what your app that you used for Notes was. That app is called Not Procreate. It's called Good Notes. Let me make sure. Okay. And it's on an iPad. You don't have to use an iPad to take notes, but if you do have an iPad, you can yeah, it's called Good Notes. It looks like this. Perfect. And then another one that we lost. And then from there, I will highlight the questions on the screen. And I think this is Nicole, my own handwriting. How did you decide which topics you want to start on? You covered that. But if we could just sure. Highlight that one more time. Where do we start? Both the Facebook Recruiter and the Google Recruiter gives you a list of things to study. And I just studied basically from where my code school started. Like I said, I really love this resource. So he starts with Linked lists and stacks and queues. And if you look at his thing, he has these data structures oh, I forgot to say sorting algorithms. You only need to know one big sorting algorithm, like either merge Sort or Quick Sort, and then you can learn the smaller ones. Just, like, be familiar with insertion short, selection short. But he literally has it in an order, and he is just so good at explaining things. He draws everything out. And even though this course is in C plus plus, I just transposed it into JavaScript whenever I came up with a solution. My freaking favorite resource, if you're a JavaScript person like me for learning, is Beatrix. Like, look at her. This is so cute. It's like a loafi lesson. And she used Sailor Moon. And I feel like I was so strong at trees because of what I learned in her coding. And I will also add to this all of my JavaScript solutions, but that's how I knew where to start, basically. Thank you so much. Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway from me or your talk is, like, to identify your interests, lean into them, and connect it and make it fun for you. So here's a question from Mackenzie. I think a lot of people will recognize this, like, freezing. Yes, and we talked about a little bit about this before your talk as well. So how do you overcome the freeze of anxiety when you don't know something during your interview? A great freaking question. And I worked on this with my therapist because I was like, sometimes when I read things, I don't understand it at all because I'm ruminating in my head. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so dumb. I'm horrible. This, that, and the other. And I'm saying all these mean things, and I can't even focus on the question. She comes with this thing called power poses, and a power pose is like the Superman pose or the Wonder Woman pose and say, Oh, yeah, I'm so great. And obviously you can't do that in the interview. And the funny thing with OCD is it's just a lot of mean things, and you're not supposed to reassure it. You're not supposed to say, No, OCD, I'm a great person. If it says you're so dumb, you just go, Good one, OCD, and you move on. So say you're in the interview and you have this freeze, and you're like, I can't understand this problem at all. Just be like, Great one. Don't let that thought spiral. Don't give it too much energy. Just be like, Good job. Do like a power pose in your head. And I literally taped or I put a sticky note to the side, and on the sticky note, it said, Good one. Oh, that's a good one, OCD. Okay, yeah, I agree. So just to remember those sorts of things. Great. So here we have another question from Mary, and we have a lot of boot camp people in our community, and so I have seen this question before. Having recently graduated from boot camp, she's dealing with imposter syndrome a little bit, and do you have any advice about overcoming this? And I also have some advice, but I'd love to hear from you as well. Yeah, can you put that up again? There are people who are better and more deserving. My question is, how do I overcome there is no such thing as better. I feel like in a capitalistic, individualistic society, we've been taught about the best or we've been taught about competition, but really, every single thing that you do every day is a part of a community. We cannot survive with other people. So better doesn't exist. It's whatever you bring to the table. I literally bring communication. I'm, like, really good at collaborating with people, and I'm good at highlighting people. And I didn't feel appreciated at Home Depot on my old team, but at Google, I literally get not awards, but it's like these bonuses or whatever because I host board game lunches and I do a lot of, like, volunteering, and I actually got an exceed expectation on my rating because of my contributions. Like, I'm a very social person. And so you have to really focus on your strengths. What are the things that you are really good at? There's no such thing as better or worse. If your thing is you're really good at the math of it, then really flex those math muscles. If I were to go in that interview trying to say, bytes, kilobytes, whatever bites, I would look like a fool. But if you're really good at that, talk about them all day long. I, on the other hand, will go on an interview being like, let's be friends. Look at me in the eye, we're friends now. So really focus on those things. I think that's how you can deal with imposter syndrome, knowing what you're really good at and really like focusing on that. And when it comes to things that you struggle with, just try to practice so that you can get more confident in it. The thing about impostor syndrome is it's rooted in fear, and fear is rooted in not knowing. So the best way to get rid of fear is just doing something that you haven't done before or doing the thing that you're afraid of, and then that fear will run away very quickly. Anna, you said you had an answer. I mean, it's the same as what you said. Wonderful. Okay, we have time for a couple more questions. Noelle had one about data structure algorithms. And do you use them in your actual work? And why do you think they come up so much in interviews? And I'm sorry, I'm not putting it on the screen because I lost it because it's so exciting. The chat is so exciting. Okay, great. Monica, too. We should talk about whether it's a weakness or a strength. Please message me on instagram ninty wave, Monica, because what you said really interests me, because I don't think that OCD is a strength. OCD keeps you from doing things, but learning how to the skills to solve your OCD is a whole other thing. It's a whole other talk. But Monica, please message me. But as for data structures, do I actually see it in my day to day work? I honestly think that I do. For one, it really teaches you how to go about solving problems. It's like when you first started learning math in elementary school, you never knew one plus one equals two. But now it's just in your head. The fact is, those are like the foundations. You can take it. It's kind of like a prototype. You can take that thing and use it to model all other solutions. One thing, my team, we work with our systems. So I haven't actually done this work, but that's for search is important. For working with file system. We also have queues that we work with. So understanding these concepts just allows you to more easily get familiar with the architecture of your system. Now, not every job in the world is going to have a lot of focus on data structures and algorithms. And that's okay too, because if you're building apps and I just want to take this opportunity to talk about another thing, the large companies versus small companies. Do I have time? Anna? Yes. 1 minute, and then let's put your contact slide up. Okay. So when you're looking to go to a company that focuses on tech, then you do want to focus on the data structures and algorithms. But if you're doing, like, a small interview, likely the interviews will be to build an app, have some practical language and framework application. They'll ask you to practically apply your language in a way that's like building the web page or something like that. They could take less than a month, those smaller ones, and they're usually hiring immediately. So it really depends on the type of company you're interviewing, whether the data structures matter. So don't worry about it. If you're trying to interview at Home Depot or a smaller company, that's not a tech company. It is okay not to focus on data structures and algorithm, and it's okay not to be able to do lead code. I didn't know Lee code when I got my first job. I didn't know any of these data structures and algorithms when I got my first job. So it is 100% fine. And you said the contact slides? Yes. Everyone wants to connect with you. So as we wrap up, would you say Instagram is the best way to connect with you? What's the best way to connect with you? Yeah. I never check my LinkedIn. You can add me on LinkedIn. When I do check it, I do email people back. So connect with me on LinkedIn. If you have questions that are more immediately, ask me on Instagram and please follow me on Tik. Tokyo. Yes, I'm a TikToker. I do cosplay. I paint my face colors, and I really like to have people look at me, so please follow me. There also YouTube. I do some YouTubing stuff, but if you want to talk to me, Instagram or LinkedIn? LinkedIn. I'll take a lot longer to respond. Thank you so much, NY, and thank you so much for opening up your channels to connect with people. I've had so much fun working with you. We're going to take a ten second break now to load in our keynote, but thank you so much, Nyndy, and you're amazing. Okay, bye, everybody.