Jonathan Cutrell

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Improve Your Chances In Your Engineering Job Search Using the Scientific Method with Brian Pulliam


I'm joined today by Brian Pulliam. I've personally engaged Brian as a career coach. In this discussion we'll talk a bit about coaching, and about how you can set yourself up to become a much better candidate in your job search as an engineering leader.

Values Exercise Live:

  • Jonathan and Brian perform a live exercise, transforming company core values into interview questions.
  • Discussing the importance of aligning your experiences with the values that a company holds.
    • "I'm going to do this live right now with you, actually. I think it'll be a cool exercise..."

Advanced Interview Techniques:

  • How to handle unexpected questions by paraphrasing.
  • Preparing for common interview questions derived from company values.
    • "You should convert every single one of those core values into a question that starts with tell me about a time when you demonstrated X."

Finding a Way to Succeed:

  • The importance of creative problem solving in leadership.
  • Examples of finding efficient solutions to technical problems without writing code.
    • "With zero lines of code...the ops team just reconfigured a job to run more often."

Effective Storytelling in Interviews:

  • How to use stories to demonstrate competencies and cultural fit.
  • The role of storytelling in making a lasting impression on interviewers.
    • "Stories move the world...people write $50 million dollar checks to startup founders based on stories."

Building a Culture of Excellence:

  • Strategies for fostering a high-performance team environment.
  • Reflections on leadership and creating positive workplace dynamics.
    • "We provide stable, fast, low friction developer experiences for all engineering teams at Zillow."

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