Interviewing in New York

I'm in the process of interviewing for a new job in New York. I don't need another job. My current job is what some might describe as a perfect one: enough money to live in a loft in a doorman building in a hip neighborhood in Manhattan; working from home; 5 weeks of vacation; and great benefits for which I don't pay. So, why a new job?

I won't get into too many details so that the lone reader or two who stumbles upon this site doesn't bore more quickly than he or she otherwise would, but in short: there are many reasons. Mainly, that it's a dead end career-wise and having just turned the big three-oh, long-term options have become more serious. Not that I'm all about my career, but I won't get into rationalizing how EB's life is balanced in other ways.

Anyway.

There are two things that make New York stand out as a great place for software engineers: 1) tons of jobs, and 2) tons of competition for those jobs. Recruiters say they have a difficult time finding quality people to fill roles, but I really do have a hard time believing it; particularly during a recession. The great aspect, though, is with so many people and resources in this city, there are lots of Big Name firms. And that's the real subject of this post.

My initial draft of this got into too many specifics about company names, and while re-reading it after a few days, I realize that's not necessary and was more for vanity than to illustrate the point. So what are the points? Mainly, that New York is in its own class in terms of quality and market, and that this is really a new era for me.

So far, I've interviewed with 5 companies, most of which are household names with headquarters or major offices in NYC. The first one was a noname company, and I understood it to be more or less like my current consulting company: looks chic, says all the right things, but when it really comes down to it, there isn't much talent there. The interviews turned out to be harder, and caught me off-guard with a number of questions to which I had no good answers. They turned me down, saying that it "wasn't a good fit," which is code for, "you didn't do well on the technical phone screening."

Being turned down really affected me for a few days - my confidence (hence ego) was hit pretty hard. There are no cake walks in New York interviews like in Baltimore or Pennsylvania. No longer was I the talented young guy with the great future ahead of him: had I taken a misstep somewhere? I started doubting what I had always thought of as my success against the odds (*). As a result, I started reading more technical material to make sure I did well in subsequent interviews.

After about two months of interviews with a major investment bank, totaling 11 different 1-on-1 interviews, I landed what I hope will be a serious gig with good career advancement potential. I start March 1st, and it feels great.

* - plenty on why the odds of success coming from my family, psychological, and socio-economic up-bringing were low.