When I moved to Europe, I started applying to every company I could find. The result? Over 200 rejection emails! 📧❌ I was beginning to lose hope of ever landing a job. But then something magical happened - big tech companies (FAANG) started reaching out to me! This story is all about my experience with IBM.
IBM had tons of Entry-level positions open. The Cloud Platform Developer role caught my eye because it involved cool tech like Kubernetes, Terraform, and Cloud Computing - all things I wanted to learn! My background in infrastructure was pretty thin, but they contacted me anyway, and so began my interview journey.
Panel Interview: Surviving the Hot Seat
Most FAANG companies don't do panel interviews, but IBM loves them! Imagine this: several team members enter the Zoom call at once and fire questions at you from all directions. They're checking your knowledge, how you think, and whether you panic under pressure (spoiler alert: they WILL try to make you sweat 😅).
The panel hit me with questions about Infrastructure as Code, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS/GCP, and programming skills. They also gave me real-world problems to solve on the spot. I answered everything as best I could, hoping it was enough.
Two days later, I got an email from the recruiter. It started with "Thank you..." which usually means bad news (we've all been there, right?). But plot twist - this time it wasn't! The email said my interview went really well, and they wanted to schedule a final round. I picked a date for the following week and, instead of stressing about more technical prep, I focused on other things.
I signed an NDA, so I can't share the exact questions they asked. Sorry about that! 🤐
Final Interview: The Hands-On Challenge
The final round wasn't your typical LeetCode-style interview. Instead, they gave me a real-world scenario to tackle.
They provided an API, and I had to interact with it, fetch data based on specific conditions, filter it, and return the results. There were so many filtering conditions that my brain went into overload, and I forgot some of them! When I ran my code, errors popped up, and I started to panic. 😱
Luckily, my interviewer (a Senior Engineer from Bloomberg) was super friendly and kept cracking jokes to lighten the mood. I managed to pass 98% of the test cases but missed 2% due to an edge case I'd overlooked. When the interview ended, he asked to chat with me for a bit longer and said something that made my day: "Don't worry, we'll take you in." Then we said goodbye.
The Result: Plot Twist!
At first, I thought the "we'll take you in" comment was just to make me feel better. But it turned out to be true! There was just one problem - the team was based in the U.S., and they couldn't let me work remotely from Poland.
But here's where it gets interesting! My manager asked if I'd be interested in applying for a Middle position in Build System Engineering with another great team. He mentioned it would only require one more interview, so I said "Let's do it!" 💪
I passed that final interview too! The recruiter asked for my documents and promised to send an offer soon.
Why I'm Sharing This Story
I spent a long time debating whether to write this post. Getting an offer from a big company is exciting news, but I worried that posting about it might come across as showing off.
But after many requests (even from my dad!), I decided to share my experience - the process, my preparation, and some lessons learned along the way. In my next post, I'll tell you about how I got an offer from Dropbox!
Remember, every rejection is just redirecting you to something better. Keep applying, keep learning, and your time will come too! 🚀
