Colin Mackay

Tips for .NET Developers Preparing for Interviews Are you gearing up for a .NET developer interview? Whether you're just starting your career or looking to make a change, preparation is key. In our infographic are some tips to help you put your best foot forward. Best of luck with your interviews! If you're looking for your next opportunity in .NET development, we’re here to help. Get in touch for more tips or to explore current job openings. #NETDevelopers #Interviewtips #interviewing #Recruitment #SoftwareDevelopment #TechJobs #CareerAdvice #DotNet #TechRecruiter #SoftwareDevelopment #Hiring #TechJobs #TechRecruitment #UKJobs #csharp #dotnetdevelopers #dotnetdevelopment #ITrecruitment #softwaredevelopers

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this is a really important point. Of course it's allowed! the only people I have met with that interpretation of tdd are people who have been forced into it by people who think it's the simple act of writing tests first that matters rather than the mindset that makes you realise doing otherwise is likley play. I think it's really important. When code works according to the spec we should be allowed to ship it. that doesn't mean we are finished - just hit the bare minimum standard. Then we should be allowed to invest more into it and ship it again, and again. This whole madness and obsession with tickets gets in the way of the feedback loop of determining value, shipping and exploration with the consumer of the code. The tests are the *most* important part of a codebase. I can rewrite code but I can only rewrite tests whilst the domain knowledge is clear in my mind. Tests are the source of truth for the behaviour of the system. After that point I depend on the tests to replay it to me. So refactoring and development of tests is a noble persuit that I think many teams and engineers undervalue.

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Yesterday I was reminded that no matter how far I've come as a dev I will never be immune from forehead-slapping embarrassment in debugging... I hit an error trying to make some slightly unusual customizations using the Web API in a PCF to relate two records, neither of which were the record I was "on". the error message was your usual unhelpful "it broke, maybe check the documentation?" I've come to expect from a Microsoft product, so I dove in, head-first. I tried at least half a dozen different ways to tackle the problem, and kept getting increasingly esoteric and useless error messages. finally, after over 8 hours of debugging, I got the same original error and threw up my hands in resignation. then I clicked the generic documentation link in the error message and it took me directly to a "common errors" page, the first one on the list being exactly my problem: "this WebApi operation is case sensitive, dummy." One capitalized letter (and a reversion back to 3 commits ago) and everything was working as it should. Thank you, gods of code, for keeping me ever humbled.

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🚀 How Developers Can Showcase Passion, Work Ethic, and Attitude in Interviews 🚀 Hey Developers! When interviewing with a Software Development Manager, it’s not just your technical skills that matter. Your passion, work ethic, and attitude can make a significant difference in how you’re perceived. Here’s how you can shine in these areas: 1. Share Your Passion Projects: Talk about personal or open-source projects you’ve worked on. Highlight any innovative solutions or technologies you’ve explored outside of your day-to-day job. This demonstrates your genuine interest and shows that you’re continuously learning and growing. 2. Illustrate Your Problem-Solving Skills: Be ready to discuss specific challenges you’ve faced in previous projects. Explain how you tackled these issues, what solutions you implemented, and what you learned from the experience. This shows your proactive approach and resilience. 3. Showcase Your Collaboration Skills: Share examples of how you’ve worked effectively within a team. Discuss any cross-functional projects, your role in team meetings, and how you’ve supported colleagues. Emphasise how your positive attitude contributed to team success and a collaborative work environment. 4. Demonstrate Your Work Ethic: Be prepared to talk about how you manage deadlines, handle pressure, and go the extra mile. Mention any instances where you took on additional responsibilities or stayed late to ensure a project’s success. This reflects your commitment and dedication. 5. Show Enthusiasm for the Role and Company: Research the company and the role thoroughly. During the interview, express why you’re excited about the opportunity and how your skills align with the company’s goals. Your genuine enthusiasm will resonate with the hiring manager. 6. Ask Insightful Questions: Prepare thoughtful questions that show you’re engaged and eager to contribute. Ask about the team’s current challenges, upcoming projects, and how the company supports professional development. This demonstrates your proactive attitude and interest in being a valuable team member. Remember, technical expertise is essential, but your attitude and passion can set you apart. By highlighting these aspects, you’ll not only showcase your suitability for the role but also your potential to be a dynamic and dedicated team member. What are your go-to strategies for demonstrating your passion and work ethic in interviews? Share your tips below! #InterviewTips #CareerAdvice #SoftwareDevelopment #PassionInTech #WorkEthic #Recruitment #TechHiring #GrowthMindset #JobSearch #CareerAdvice #NETDevelopers #SoftwareDevelopment #TechJobs #CareerAdvice #DotNet #TechRecruiter #SoftwareDevelopment #Hiring #TechRecruitment #UKJobs #csharp #dotnetdevelopers #dotnetdevelopment #ITrecruitment #softwaredevelopers

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📝 New post on my blog “What's new in ECMAScript 2024” There are a lot of great features added to the specification this year, but some of them are very nuanced and outside of the commonly used set of tools by day-to-day app makers. I did my homework, and I tried my best to explain them all using simple practical examples. Enjoy reading and have a good week folks. https://lnkd.in/e35kw_zk #javascript #ecmascript 

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Check this out - F# developers have been dealing with a performance issue related to unnecessary boxing in equality testing for structs for the last nine years The F# team recently implemented a fix that significantly improves performance when doing array operations on struct types. The fix involves generating a more efficient Equals overload to avoid boxing. Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/eWmvTAu2

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Keeping a dev journal is something I’ve never managed to maintain on a regular basis.  The positives of doing so are very well articulated in this post. https://lnkd.in/enTDXmcB

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How to treat 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿𝘀 in .NET ℹ️ Warnings are too easy to ignore so consider treating all warnings as errors. Particularly useful in greenfield projects but even if we have large existing projects we can still set 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘈𝘴𝘌𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘴 to true but also have a list of 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘈𝘴𝘌𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘴 and gradually reduce this over time. Do you treat any warnings as errors?

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What is a TypeScript Engineer? I keep seeing this pop up in recruitment posts, which means clients are asking for it...right? Has this replaced the FullStack Engineer, which, lets be honest, meant a NodeJS developer. That was back in the good old days when it was only NodeJS. Now we have Bun, Deno, Hono and more. Or perhaps its asking for a Javascript developer...whatever that means in todays world of a thousand js frameworks and evolving ES standards. Or are they actually asking for a Java developer, because someones used Gen AI along the way and it got confused between Java and Javascript (*shudders*) Are they seriously in need of a type system engineer, thats kinda niche. It's hard enough trying to explain what you do as a job to "normal" folk as it is, without this level of obfuscation. How would you even explain this when asked "What do you do?". Do kids nowadays needs to consider themselves experts in everything inside package.json to land a job? When will the industry move beyond this fixation on specific languages? I get it, it's an important consideration, but asking for Typescript Engineers...it's not going to help you find the devs you actually need.

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A question I like asking to prospective software engineers during an interview and you might find useful to borrow or augment is: "What is your personal pet peeve when reviewing or seeing code?" ... what is the thing YOU detest most. I like this question for a number of reasons. Firstly it's disarming, light natured and personal. It speaks to them as a personality in engineering rather than giving up a correct engineering answer. You're getting to know their bias, and ideally they'd get past any qualms about admitting they have any, we all do! Instead of a right or wrong answer, there's quality and non-quality responses which I find relates to the specificity and context of the answer given. You don't want generic or boring answers. Secondly, it speaks to experience. Typically a specific answer will come to mind which was rooted in some genuine first hand experience. I recently got a good answer of "terrible organisation of files and directories". Who doesn't hate this?! This gives you avenues to ask more about 'why' they selected that pet peeve, tell us about the project that hurt you? 😅 Lastly, it implies at least some level of passion for the work. Engineers who get mildly irritated by very specific coding practices not meeting their own standards denotes they do actually care by having them. They haven't checked out, or failed to ever check in. ----------------------------------------------------------- PS my top peeve is misleading or otherwise insanely named functions or variables, backwards Yoda speak, and more recently the needless inverting of complex boolean conditions, why return "true" or "false" when you can return "not not false" or "not not true" 🙄. Another colleague detests 'regions' in C#, easily the most obscure yet! but not unjustified

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💎🚀 Standard Ruby 1.40.0 A whole slew of bugfixes here, and one new rule... which we opted not to enable 🖖 https://lnkd.in/efdd4hU3 #ruby #rubyonrails #programming #softwareengineering #codequality

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One criticism of "strict TDD" is that you're not allowed to add tests after the code's complete. I don't recognise this version of "strict" TDD. If the tests I'm left with from TDD-ing code aren't giving me that warm, fuzzy feeling, I'll explore more, maybe write more tests (or refactor to data-driven or property-based tests if it really has to work, or grab a colleague and do guided inspections if it really, really has to work, or even a proof of correctness if it really, really, really has to work. Whatever gives me sufficient warm fuzzies, basically). As far as I'm aware, after ~25 years of doing and teaching TDD, that's allowed. Not just allowed, in fact, but recommended. 5/5 on Tripadvisor. Would go again. And likewise, if I think, going forward, I don't need some of these regression tests, I'll remove them or consolidate etc. The tests that drive our design often correspond to good regression tests, but certainly not always. More work usually needs to be done. Once the design's in place from TDD-ing the code, we're in the realms of something called "testing", where tests we add are expected to pass first time (though they might not, and that's a good reason to do it). Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention mutation testing. I'll routinely mutation test new or changed code and if that throws up gaps in my regression tests, I'll fill them.

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Here's a concise representation of your ML platform, courtesy of Laszlo Sragner.

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Across my recent polls, only 17% of developers said they learned C# in school or University... why?! Most C# developers seem to "fall into" C# further into their career, rather than dive into their early careers with C# already under their belt. Is this partly what contributes to C# not having a 'shiny and new' reputation, despite consistent updates and new releases? Check out my article in the comments which looks into how we can do C# hiring well despite it not being in a majority of curriculums. #CSharp #DotNET #LinkedInArticle

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Should every #juniordeveloper focus on the number of connections they have on LinkedIn? This was the debate from last nights workshop. What do you think? Is this the networking strategy you are employing? Does it work? Is it worth it? Fyi, there are 2x workshops for #developers on my course. Visit the Crushing Digital website for more details.

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The 5 Levels of .Net Full Stack Unicorns 🦄 – FinTech Edition (Yes, I'm Hiring) 🔍 Level 1: The Focused Unicorn They’ve got .NET down pat, but if you ask them to flex into Angular or Azure? Let’s just say they’re a bit single-minded in their magic. 🔍 Level 2: The Flexible Unicorn They can work wonders on the front-end with Angular, but getting them to handle the back-end or take the reins in Azure might require a few extra spells. 🔍 Level 3: The Cloud-Savvy Unicorn They’ve got Azure expertise for days, but we’re after someone who knows the ropes of both the cloud and the craziness of a FinTech startup. That combo? Truly rare. 🔍 Level 4: The Startup-Seasoned Unicorn They’ve been there, done that in the FinTech startup world, so they can handle the heat. The real trick is finding one who doesn’t need hand-holding and is ready to own this project. 🔍 Level 5: The All-Star Unicorn This is the full package—on-site, FinTech startup experience, a master of both .NET and Angular, with Azure cloud expertise. Plus, they’ve got that “go-getter” spirit that takes projects to the finish line without breaking a sweat. Total unicorn status here. If you know where to find one of these all-stars in the #Dallas area, let’s chat. I've got an opportunity. #Fullstackdevelopers #FinTech #UnicornHunt

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