Plan, Prepare, Perform - A Guide to Acing Your Technical Interview

Written by
Jeszen Stokes

Plan, Prepare, Perform - A Guide to Acing Your Technical Interview

Written by
Jeszen Stokes

Plan, Prepare, Perform - A Guide to Acing Your Technical Interview

How to prepare for a technical role interview

 When you’re an artist going for your first interview, it’s pretty “easy” to prepare.

Know the company you’re interviewing with
Have some questions prepared
Create the best reel you can

What happens when you’re applying for a technical role and you don’t have a reel to speak for your abilities?

Here are some top tips from DNEG’s Production Technology team – from Assistant Technical Director's (who have joined in the past few months, to our veteran Supervisors and Heads of Department.

Get to know Python – a beginner’s guide is fine and will give you the foundation you need. You’ll learn more on the job!
Don’t inflate your knowledge and experience – for example, if you say you know Maya’s API, you’ll get asked specific questions about it and the truth will quickly become obvious. It’s okay to not know some things as, let’s be honest, no one knows everything! In the end it’s how you respond to not knowing and what you’ll do to learn that matters most.
So much of the role is about problem solving - so even if you’ve never written a huge tool or complex script think of examples of when you were presented a problem and how you broke it down to solve it.
Just like an artist, show that you’re passionate about the area – talk about what you have done and any hobbies that relate.
If you feel overwhelmed that’s okay! Take a moment, take a breath and relax – the interviewers want you to do wellas much as you do!
Wear a suit. Make everyone immediately feel under dressed. JUST KIDDING!!
Lastly… it’s ok to be nervous! Just remember that your interviewers are human, they’ve been through this themselves and ultimately, they want to hire people for their teams!

Good luck!