Christian McCarrick My advice would be to start with the opportunity first unless you have a founding team that has been wildly successful before.  In that case start with the team as that is ultimately what they are investing in anyway. The investors are looking for the problem and the ultimate size of the market […]

Christian McCarrick Based on recent hires I would say that salary is pretty much in line with the market.  Things that will affect that are other parts of the package like medical benefits, vacation, bonus, stock options etc.  Of course the stage of the company and your specific technology expertise makes a big difference as […]

Christian McCarrick This will be a rather broad answer since the question was not specific. Here is the definition of a software developer from Wikipedia: Software developer It will really depend on the company that you work for.  In a large company you might be developing software for a very specific piece of functionality, but […]

Christian McCarrick What is your existing background?  Do you come from a traditional science background? Here are some of the things you need to know in order to pass a software engineering interview: 1. Very good working knowledge of at least one programming language.2. Know your data structures by heart and be able to manipulate […]

Christian McCarrick You must have been good enough since you passed their interviews and exams. If you want to prepare I would find out the technology stack they are using and start learning it.  Find online courses from Udemy, Pluralsight, code academy, etc. and start learning.  Make sure you actually setup a development environment and […]

Christian McCarrick Everyone has to start somewhere. You say you have been programming for three years.  Is that with a job or just doing things for yourself?  Are you a computer science graduate or self-taught? Technology is moving so fast today that I would not worry about not knowing everything; however it is important that […]

Christian McCarrick I think that we can help in two main areas: 1. The early and continual encouragement of women getting into STEM. As the father of three girls I feel I have the opportunity to help provide encouragement to my daughters and their friends at a young age.  It is important to actively encourage […]

Christian McCarrick I am going to paraphrase the question a bit more directly:  Do companies try to find and hire more women software engineers. There certainly is a gender imbalance in software engineers today as there are a much greater amount of males vs. females.  I am not going to go into why this is the […]

Christian McCarrick For most engineers (and people) culture is extremely important.  That being said, each person is attracted to a specific culture.  The type of culture that people like can and often does change over time as well. Culture tends to be set by the founders and the initial team as they tend to hire […]

Christian McCarrick I will assume you mean a traditional product design engineer and not a software product designer. Typically a bachelor degree in one of the following fields: product design and manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering, and product design engineering technology.  Most product designers have experience with CAD and other specialized design software.  Product design engineers […]