Interview with Thoughtworks

Well It started  when one of Thoughtworks recruiter got in touch with me some how I was not convinced about accepting any new opportunity.

I have received mail about 2 coding problems which I need to solve.
Problem 1 :
Mars Rover
problem 2 :
Sales tax

I choose to solve sales tax problem as I found it quite relates to real world project.Attaching my design diagram.

I received call from recruiter that I have cleared coding round and now they want to see me for next interview rounds.

Interview process started with one of the Thoughtworker .It started with discussion about what I have done to solve a problem OO Design OO Concepts .It went OK.
We have implemented very small extension on my assignment without changing much code.But I must admit she was very good listener and have shown very good attitude during our conversation.

I thought It ended well.I got amazed with entire environment It was so live table tennis,Carom board and some are hooked on to PC.

Technical inerview with other Thoughtworkers followed by my code pairing round.Interview was more about on algorithms,OO design,SOA ,Restful Services .It went OK and now I need to write some tests It has been never easy where u told to write some tests after having 10 yrs spend in IT Industry.First test was about speed vs accuracy I managed to answer 35 questions I think It is quite simple.Now I need to write logical test It was brain storming kind of a test I got tired and exhausted at the end of it.I felt I could have done better with logical test.It still floating in my mind.

Now I need to go through one more technical round with other Thoughtworkers.I was not quite prepared for it as I felt I can not speak more but still I went through with that. From my preservative It went OK but recruiters have told me they want to grill me more on my technical skills.

I have received a call from Thoughtworks recruitment team about my next technical round.
I went through with one more technical round in which they grilled me on J2EE,My projects SOA and Restful Services.It went OK.

One of the good thing about thoughtworkers are that they are very good in attitude and very good listeners.

Final round was just about formalities about what passion I carry for programing what I do in my day 2 day life some thing about projects...

SCEA Preparation

Well I started this entire certification to make my self updated with J2EE version and utilizing my travel time Now segregating my preparation into 3 parts :

Pre Exam Preparation :

I bought vouchers for SCEA and I bought all three my voucher at once shot though it is not needed don't make that mistake which I did ...I did not started preparation from very next day I was just relaxing as I went through my 2nd surgery for Gallbladder.


Part-1 :
It started on April 10th where first time I started collecting material for SCEA part-1 preparation. Just gone through EJB3 in Action,JSF in Action(couple of times) which was new topic for me otherwise rest of the topics were easy to deal ..dont forget to read Cade and Sheil book(Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java™ EE Study Guide) will give u over view on architect exam.Couple of mock exams and I am sure all can clear part-1 exam ..my preparation time was around 3 hrs for month and most of my time in traveling ..I was quite eager about further exams so for me scoring was not important ...I felt quite easy of course once I cleared part-1 exam on 10th May 2010..

Now came a break for me where I was working on mission critical software project (software projects are mission critical don't know why ?)though I downloaded my assignment on 10th May (very same day on which I cleared my part-1 exam)again used my traveling time for rough design but never put in execution as I was tired and exhausted almost every day.25th June was the delivery day for my project and It was on time dude....relaxed for a week but wanted to start my part-2 preparation.

Part-2
I started preparation on 1st July .My assignment was Big Smoke Cigar company who want to go online and expand their line of business.During that my experience on EJB2 helped as well I did some prototyping on EJB3 JSF Components and JPA using GlassFish and Netbeans IDE.I used J2EE5 tutorial for all my prototyping.POC went well with glassfish and NetBeans IDE and now I was quite ready with my technology choice.

Now I came onto tiers and layers It was quite obvious choice for me multi tier / and usual set of tiers (Presentation,Business,Integration and Resource)Don't we have this in all web application ? So for me It was not a big effort justifying each and every decision is very important and documenting it.Now I came onto domain modeling I did not alter any domain objects just used as it was described in assignment.

Here are my list of documents :

Risk & Mitigation : Described top 3 risk and mitigation
Assumptions : One page assumption described as much as u can don't back off
Big Smoke Cigar Component Diagram : Refereed to Cade and Sheil book(Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java™ EE Study Guide)
Big Smoke Cigar Class Diagram : Described domain modeling ,important managers and controllers (If Any)
Big Smoke Cigar Sequence Diagram : Spilled into six diagrams described flows from presentation to resource tier.
Big Smoke Cigar Deployment Diagram : Very simple just used all my experiences.Described UAT environment as well.

Re factoring on contents and presentation but only couple of time ...

And was on time I was quite ready on 31st July..

Part-3 exam :

It was quite easy just think about what u did and why u did in 2nd part.It was 2 hr exam in pro metric center.Questions were quite simple as follows :

Why have u chosen framework If any If not why not ?
What technology u have used in presentation and business tier why ?
Set of design patterns on which layer and why ?
Security (network security and application security)

Not remember all the questions now but It was in line with your part-2 preparation...

I think I wanted to write so many stuff in exams but was not having much of time.

I mailed my assignment to architect-submit_US@oracle.com after writing my part-3 exam.

Here are the important links you all would like to follow :
http://www.javaranch.com/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25297376/J2EE-5-Architect-Exam-Study-Guide
https://ibt1.prometric.com/index.asp?ibt=8469049334&

I think If you are not well versed with UML get familiar with UML.

My result got announced on 21st August It was just a mail that I have cleared SCEA exam.