JOB SEARCH AT INTERNET /
DATA MINING / HPC COMPANIES
Chun-Sheng Chen
10/17/2011
OUTLINE
Introduction of my job search
 Job-Profiles
 Interview Experiences
 What the Companies Expect
 Lessons Learnt
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MY JOB SEARCH (RECESSION)
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Time: Official started around April, 2011
# of applications: 150 ~ 200
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# phone interviews: ~ 15 companies
# onsite interviews: 6 companies
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Indeed.com
Jobs.phds.org, www.kdnuggets.com
Dice.com, monster.com, …
Company’s career website
Youtube.com (Jun.): Software Developer
Sumo logic (Aug.): Software Engineer
Microsoft (Sep.): Program Manager II, Windows live group
TidalTV (Sep.): Data Scientist
Ask.com (Sep.): Software Engineer in SEO
Twitter (Sep.) Data Scientist
#offers: 3
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Institute of High Performance Computing (Singapore)
TidalTV
Ask.com
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JOB-PROFILES
Data mining on very big, many attributes data
sets (TBs)
 MpaReduce framework, distribute computing.
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Software Developer/Engineer
Responsibility: Software development for a
commercial environment.
 Requires:
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Strong coding skills, software engineering, design patterns
 Strong Knowledge of Java, C++, SQL, hadoop, pig script,
hive, scalar … ; depends on the team you interview with.
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CONTINUED: JOB-PROFILES
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Data Scientist
Responsibility: Find answers from the data for
questions asked by inside and/or outside the group.
 Require
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Data analysis skill – normally very big data
 Data preprocessing
 Knowledge of data mining/machine learning algorithms
 Know how to evaluate and interpret experimental results
 Ability to build prototypes
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CONTINUED: JOB-PROFILES
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Program manager (PM, MicroSoft)
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Responsibility:
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2.
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Lots of communications and presentations to people in
the same project.
Find answers from the data for questions asked by
inside and/or outside the project team.
Require
People skill, team work, communication, presentation skills
 + Data scientist
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INTERVIEW EXPERIENCES
 Familiar
with your own resume.
 Familiar with the job description and do you
research on the applied position
 Prepare good questions to ask.
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Phone interview:
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Software developer/engineer:
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Coding: data structures & algorithms, problem solving skills
TopCoder.com
Data scientist & PM:
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Describe your data mining project from end to end.
Any follow up questions for the project you described
 How do you do …
Math
 Probability, combination, statistic,
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ONSITE INTERVIEWS
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One day, normally 4~7 people
Questions asked are closely related to the problems
encountered in their daily work for the position
interviewed.
“A very important objective of the interview process is for you to
learn as much as possible about Ask.com products, our
business, our people, the values of the company and the
position for which you are being considered.” – Ask.com
 “ you’ll have a series of 4-5 hours of meetings with people from
different areas of the company. We’ll include a mix of both
technical and nontechnical discussions, as well as some more
social/informal meetings, with the idea that you should get a
chance to experience what life is like at TidalTV, and in
Baltimore” – TidalTV
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All the skills for the phone interviews are still important
Behavior questions may be asked here.
They make sure you are the right person and you
also make sure that it is the right company.
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WHAT THE COMPANIES EXPECT
It is a very bad time for job searching :-<
 Basic : coding, data mining
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Knowledge: you need to know what it is and how to
do(solve) it.
 Experience: you need to do it right and do it
beautifully(optimal, best solution) the first time.
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Plus : relevant experience
Internet advertising, CTR prediction ……
 I got this from my Yhaoo! internship
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LESSONS LEARNT
Don’t give up: Keep applying(5~10 applications/ week)
and interviewing, you interview skills will be
improved.
 Prepare for anything and everything before your every
interview.
 Don’t be scared by a whiteboard: practice writing
programs on the paper, even better if you can write it
on a whiteboard.
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Apply for internship that adds value to your resume.
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An offer letter is not the end of this game:
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Research on how to negotiate your package.
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