SLIIT · Computer Science Student Community

Cracking the
Technical Interview

A practical playbook for CS students and fresh grads preparing for technical interviews, covering your CV, your options, what interviewers actually check, and where the industry is headed.

Technical Interview Prep 10 July 2026
About Me
Before We Start

Hi, I'm Brion

Technical Lead at WSO2. I've sat on both sides of the interview table, and I'm here to share what actually works.

WSO2 Technical Lead
Brion Mario
Agenda
Today's Agenda

Where we're headed

Prepare For Job Search

Your CV, and picking your focus.

Actual Job Search

Where to look, and your options: 🇱🇰 Sri Lankan or 🌐 foreign.

Before Your Technical Interview

Recon, the job description, and what companies actually check.

Technical Interview

Working modes, system design, peer programming, and more.

After Your Technical Interview

Career progression: Engineer, BA, PM, and beyond.

Some Tips

GitHub, LinkedIn, professionalism, and staying current with AI.

Section 1 of 6

Prepare For Job Search

Foundation
Your CV

Do this on your CV

  • Keep it to one page. Two, max.
  • Fresh grad or intern? Add your GPA and the modules you took.
  • Lead with your best work under projects.
  • List the skills you're actually proficient in.
  • Run it through an ATS checker or an AI agent before sending.
  • Align the CV to the country you're applying to.
  • Include your mobile number and email. Mandatory.
  • Add a cover letter. At least type it in the email body.
Foundation
Your CV

Don't do this on your CV

  • Don't stretch it past two pages.
  • Don't list every framework you did a "hello world" in.
  • Don't add your home address or other personal details.
  • Don't design it in Photoshop or as an image. ATS can't read it.
  • Don't send the same CV to every country or company.
  • Don't skip the ATS check and send it in blind.
Foundation
Your CV

My CV, then vs. now

The CV I used to join WSO2, next to the one I use today.

Then · Joining WSO2
Brion's CV when he joined WSO2
Now
Brion's current CV
Direction
Pick Your Focus

Pick your focus before you apply

Interviews differ by domain. "I do a bit of everything" reads as "I haven't decided yet."

Backend Frontend Mobile Data / ML QA DevOps

You don't need to commit for life. Just enough focus to prep deeply for one lane and tell a clear, honest story about why.

Section 2 of 6

Actual Job Search

Direction
Where To Look

Where to look for jobs

LinkedIn Jobs

The default. It also doubles as your professional presence, so keep it sharp.

Glassdoor

Company reviews, salary ranges, and real interview experiences from past candidates.

Company career sites

Many roles are posted directly and never make it to the job boards.

Referrals & networking

Ask around. A referral is still one of the strongest ways in.

Options
Your Options

Where could you actually work as a fresh grad?

Two real paths. Each one interviews differently and rewards different prep.

🇱🇰 Sri Lankan company: onsite / hybrid / remote 🌐 Foreign: remote / on-site
Working Modes
Three Ways to Work

Onsite, hybrid, or remote

Onsite

Fastest ramp-up, strongest mentorship. Usually the easiest first job as a fresh grad.

Hybrid

A popular middle ground: mentorship plus flexibility.

Remote

Growing, but still rare for juniors. Usually needs a proven track record first.

Every path ahead comes in all three flavors, each with its own interview loop and expectations.

Section 3 of 6

Before Your Technical Interview

Direction
Before The Interview

Do some recon

  • Company: what they build, recent news, funding stage.
  • Interviewer: a quick LinkedIn look, if you know who it is.
  • Culture: Glassdoor reviews, engineering blog, tech stack.
  • Competitors: know roughly where they sit in the market.
Bond. James Bond. meme
Direction
Before The Interview

Before you walk in

Read the job description

Twice. Match your prep to what they actually asked for.

Prepare for the role

Not just generic DSA. The specific skills this posting calls out.

Watch mock interviews

Search YouTube. Seeing the format before you're in it removes a lot of nerves.

Prepare your own questions

Always have 2-3 ready. It signals genuine interest, not just desperation.

Do a dry run

Test your camera, mic, and internet before a remote interview.

Section 4 of 6

Technical Interview

Option 1
🇱🇰 Sri Lankan Based Company

It starts with the basics

OOP

Classes, inheritance, polymorphism. Explain it, don't just define it.

Programming principles

Clean code and the reasoning behind picking one approach over another.

Data structures

Arrays, lists, trees, hash maps. Know when to reach for each.

Algorithms

Sorting, searching, complexity. Can you reason about Big-O?

Databases

Basic SQL, normalization, joins. Fundamentals, not tuning.

Design Patterns

Singleton, factory, observer. Know the common ones and when to reach for them.

This is the real focus of most Sri Lankan interviews. Get these rock solid.

Option 1
🇱🇰 Sri Lankan Based Company

Beyond the basics

Frameworks rarely matter

Specific frameworks and tools are rarely checked, unless you've listed them on your CV.

A small problem to solve

A short, practical problem-solving exercise. Not a LeetCode grind.

A brain teaser

A general-knowledge or logic teaser thrown in to see how you think on the spot.

None of this replaces the fundamentals. It's just what rounds out the loop.

Option 1
🇱🇰 Sri Lankan Based Company

What they don't check

System design at scale

Distributed systems, scaling to millions of users. That's a senior-level conversation, not a fresher one.

Years of prior experience

You're not expected to have shipped production systems. That's what the internship is for.

Exact syntax or memorized APIs

They care if you can reason and look things up, not recite a method signature from memory.

Which university you went to

What you can actually build matters far more than the name on your degree.

Relax on these. They're not what the loop is built to test.

Option 2
🌐 Foreign

What changes when you go foreign

Portfolio-first

Your public work has to vouch for you before a human even talks to you.

Written communication

Async, clear writing is a tested skill, not a nice-to-have.

Contract-style roles

Often starts as a contractor arrangement, not full "employee" benefits.

Timezone overlap

Matters more than most students expect, so factor it into who you apply to.

DSA-heavy loops

Multiple rounds, sometimes system design even for juniors. Mainly an on-site expectation.

Visa & relocation

For on-site roles, timelines can run months. Start the process early, not after an offer.

Remote leans on your portfolio and writing. On-site leans on sustained DSA practice. Either way, start early.

Option 2
🌐 Foreign

A peek into my own foreign interviews

Every company's different, but here's roughly what I've run into, in order.

1. LeetCode / HackerRank

Some companies start here. Algorithmic screening before a human even looks at your CV.

2. HR Screening

The get-to-know-you call: culture fit, expectations, logistics.

3. Take-Home Assignment

Some swap live coding for a small project you build on your own time.

4. Code Review

Read someone else's code and reason about it, live.

Option 2
🌐 Foreign

Design me Google Search

  • The prompt: design something like Google Search, from scratch.
  • Sketch the diagrams: high-level architecture, data flow, the works.
  • Define the component structure: crawler, indexer, ranking, query service.
  • Reason out loud. The thinking matters more than the final diagram.
A blank Google search page
Option 2
🌐 Foreign

Peer programming: spot the bug

  • A real CodeSandbox, not a whiteboard problem.
  • Some bugs are obvious. Others hide in plain sight, like an unnecessary async.
  • They're watching how you read and reason about someone else's code.
  • Finding it together beats finding it alone.
A CodeSandbox with a JavaScript file containing an intentional bug
Reality Check
What Companies Actually Check

What are they actually screening for?

The same threads run through almost every loop, no matter who's hiring.

Fundamentals

Data structures, OOP, the basics. Can you actually code, not just recite theory.

Attitude & Communication

How you talk about your work, and yourself, matters as much as the code.

Practical Nature

Can you ship something that works, not just something elegant.

Culture Fit

Willingness to learn and mesh with the team often outweighs raw polish.

Public Proof

Your GitHub, blog, or portfolio, checked before you're even shortlisted.

Situational Awareness

Do you know what you don't know, and how to find out.

Collaborative Nature

Can you pair, take feedback, and build on someone else's work.

Handling Pressure

How you react when the question gets hard or the clock is ticking.

Section 5 of 6

After Your Technical Interview

The Long Game
Career Progression in IT

Engineer, BA, PM, and beyond

None of these are one-way doors. Plenty of engineers move into BA/PM later, and plenty of BAs/PMs wish they'd kept their technical depth.

🇱🇰 Engineering track: Sri Lankan 🌐 Engineering track: Foreign Business Analyst (BA) Product Manager (PM)
The Long Game
🇱🇰 Engineering Track

How far the ladder goes, locally

Associate Software Engineer → Software Engineer → Senior Software Engineer → Associate Technical Lead → Technical Lead → Senior Technical Lead → Architect / Director → VP, etc.

A well-worn ladder with plenty of rungs. Each step is a real, commonly-used title here.

The Long Game
🌐 Engineering Track

How far the ladder goes, abroad

Software Engineer → Senior Software Engineer

Titles get far less standardized from here. What comes next varies wildly by company.

The Long Game
Business Analyst (BA)

The bridge between business and tech

Associate Business Analyst → Business Analyst → Senior Business Analyst → Lead Business Analyst → BA Manager → Head of Business Analysis

Requirements, process mapping, stakeholder communication. A CS background is a real edge over a non-technical BA.

The Long Game
Product Manager (PM)

Owns the what and why

Associate Product Manager → Product Manager → Senior Product Manager → Lead / Principal Product Manager → Director of Product → VP of Product

Roadmap, prioritization, working across eng, design, and business. Usually reached after a few years as an engineer, BA, or via an APM-style program.

Section 6 of 6

Some Tips

Right Now #1
Get On GitHub

If it's not on GitHub, it doesn't exist

Push real projects

Not just course assignments. Things you built because you wanted to.

Search "good first issues"

Find them on real open-source repos and start contributing where it already matters.

Make git part of your life

Not a once-a-month upload. A daily habit, like brushing your teeth.

It's already being checked

Quietly, by almost every recruiter, Sri Lankan or foreign.

Right Now #1
Get On GitHub

Target a perfect contribution grid

Recruiters glance at this. Consistency beats intensity — a small commit most days gets you here.

Day One
An empty GitHub profile with almost no contributions
The Target
A GitHub profile with a dense, consistent contribution grid
Right Now #2
Get On LinkedIn

A recruiter's first click

A professional photo

No party pics, no group crops. A clear, friendly headshot.

Only relevant details

Skip the noise. List what's actually relevant to the roles you want.

Legit endorsements

Ask people who've actually worked with you, not a skill-swap circle.

Right Now #3
Be Professional

Professionalism is a skill too

A professional email address

firstname.lastname@, not the one you made in school.

Be punctual

Show up on time, every time. For interviews and everything after.

Be polite

To the recruiter, the receptionist, everyone. It gets noticed, and it gets back.

Right Now #4
Stay Current, Especially AI

Who's actually using what

Claude

Anthropic. Strong reasoning, writing, and long-context work.

ChatGPT

OpenAI. The generalist: broad knowledge, plugins, voice.

GitHub Copilot

Lives right inside your editor, autocomplete-style.

Codex

OpenAI's agentic coding tool: bigger tasks, less hand-holding.

Pick one, learn it properly. Switching later is easy once you know what "good" looks like.

Right Now #4
Stay Current, Especially AI

Using AI well is now a baseline skill

  • Not a shortcut to hide: using tools like Copilot or Claude well is expected, not something to be embarrassed about.
  • Know the basics: understand roughly how these tools work. You may be asked directly.
  • It's reshaping every role: SDE, QA, BA, and PM expectations are all shifting because of it.
  • Build with it: one small AI-integrated side project is a great interview talking point.
Yoda: With great power comes great responsibility
Right Now #5
Stay With The Trends

The ground keeps shifting

Follow the changelogs

Know what's new in the languages and frameworks you actually use.

Follow the right people

A handful of good follows beats a noisy feed.

Experiment in side projects

Try the new thing before you need it for a job.

Don't chase every trend

Track the big shifts, skip the hype cycles.

Recap
Before You Go

Six things to remember

Your CV

One page, tailored, quantified.

Pick a focus

Enough to tell a clear story.

Know your three paths

🇱🇰 Sri Lankan / 🌐 foreign remote / 🌐 foreign on-site.

Know what gets checked

Fundamentals + fit vs. structure + proof.

Think long-term

Engineer, BA, or PM. All valid.

Start today

Get on GitHub. Stay current with AI.

Before We Wrap
Q & A

Questions?

CVs, interviews, GitHub, AI, career paths: ask away.

CV feedback Interview stories Career paths AI & tooling
Before We Wrap
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An open-source identity stack I work on. A star costs nothing and helps a lot.

linktr.ee/thunderid
⭐ Star github.com/thunder-id/thunderid 🌐 thunderid.dev 🌱 Pick up a good first issue
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Before We Wrap
Grab The Slides

Take this deck with you

Scan the QR or open the link. Everything we covered today, in one place.

brionmario.github.io/me/workshops/sliit-cssc-intern-ready-3
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Thank You
Let's Connect

Go build something worth talking about.

Brion Mario
Brion Mario
brion@wso2.com linkedin.com/in/brionmario github.com/brionmario