LEAP Apprenticeship Program
Link: http://www.industryexplorers.com/
What is LEAP?
LEAP Engineering Acceleration Program (LEAP) is an immersive, 16-week program providing you with real-world experience through development and project management apprenticeships. We’re seeking a diversity of participants with unique perspectives, who may have a non-traditional background or returning from time away from the workplace. The program combines traditional classroom learning with hands-on projects.
Microsoft strives to be a company that seeks and supports diverse perspectives while fostering a culture of inclusion. The LEAP program provides an alternative approach to talent sourcing, leveraging modern models and venues to find passionate and capable talent.
FAQ
I get a lot of messages from people on LinkedIn that go something like:
Q: Hello Ayuna, how are you? I just heard of the Leap program and I wanted to touch base with you so I can prepare to apply for the next cohort. I appreciate any tips you can provide.
Tip #1: Be specific.
A: What help do you need? Do you have any specific questions? “Any tips” is vague and your chances to get the help you need are much higher if you are very specific about what exactly do you need help with.
Whiteboarding/Coding Interview
Q: Can you talk about the coding you had to do on the whiteboard during the interview? I’m self taught and do all of my coding on my IDE. Haven’t gotten much whiteboard practice.
A: Are you doing an online or in-person interview? If you are doing an online interview (which is what I did), then you’ll be using a software to do a whiteboarding question. At LEAP, you’re going to use Skype Interviews. If it’s an in-person interview, then you’ll be using a physical whiteboard.
In general, which software you are going to use may depend on your interviewer. If you care, you may ask your interview scheduler to find that out in advance. If you try practicing by using https://coderpad.io/ which is one of the most popular online interviewing tools out there, you should be good.
If you’re doing an in-person interview (they also call it an on-site interview), you should buy a whiteboard (if you don’t have one already) and start practicing writing code on a whiteboard. That’s the only way to get better at it — by doing it. You can also record yourself. That’s very helpful, too.
Here’s an example of how a whiteboarding interview goes:
Whiteboarding interviews are pretty standard for the most part, and the only way to get better at it is to practice, practice, practice.
Here are some steps to success:
- You should practice using a whiteboard.
- You should practice talking out loud — that’s the most important part:
- your thought process for how to go about the problem and how to solve it,
- what data structures are you going to use,
- what algorithms are fit for the problem,
- what are the trade offs of your solution,
- how it can be improved,
- what are the alternative solutions and what are the trade offs for those?
3. Practice with a buddy — record yourself to review, practice speaking out loud through the process.
4. Get a book “Cracking the Coding Interview” if you don’t have it yet. If you go through the exercises in there and the tips that they give (pretty much what I said above), you’ll be good! I promise you.
Practice and Cracking the Coding Interview book are the two things that will help you best to prep for your interview. Practice with someone else, a coding buddy. Practice asking each other questions, online or in person.
Behavioral Questions
Q: Do you have any tips on prep or things I should focus on in preparation? Not sure if I should be expecting a mix of case questions and coding questions. Would love any insight you could give on how you prepped!
A: These are some of the questions that you will/may be asked:
- Why are you interested in the program?
- What are your goals?
Focus on making it a cohesive story and demonstrating your passion for growth development and for tech.
Coding Practice — Resources
Q: Would you have any resources to practice data structures and algorithms? I’m currently using HackerRank and LeetCode.
A: That’s enough, trust me. More is not better. :)
Let me know if you have any other specific questions, and I’d be happy to answer them! Good luck with your interviews! ☘ ☘ ☘
