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Chouhei's advice to fellow students:

1. Prepare well in advance; there is no second chance to prove the first impression.
2. Be honest with what you know and ask questions during the interview.
3. Try not be too disappointed by a negative answer after one interview. You learn something new from every interview and improve for the next one.

How did you find the opportunity?

It was a difficult journey for me as I was initially enrolled to Bentley under a spouse visa which didn't allow me to work either on-campus or off-campus. However, I kept reaching out to my friends who are in the software industry asking for internship opportunities while I was applying for my student visa. It was through one of these communications that I was introduced to my current manager at Kayak who offered me to apply for this internship opportunity.

What was the interview process like?

The technical interview was a four-round interview with four of the team members. Most of the questions are technical and it was mainly based in Java which included Java spring framework, Java RMI, Java Collections, MyBatis etc. I prepared in advance for java questions by working on sample questions and tutorials online. At the same time, my previous experiences helped me to answer questions that are general in nature in the software industry (Eg. Git, Eclipse, Linux, etc.).

What prior experience before Bentley helped you to be successful?

My prior experience as a freelance software developer and software engineer were the key to my success. As a freelance software developer, I have learnt how to manage self-driven software projects which helped me to understand the self-driven nature of agile teams. My role as a software engineer developing network access control applications helped me to gain many technical knowledge that are required in the software industry and how to work successfully in a team.

What advice/suggestion do you have for students that are looking for an opportunity?

My three main advices for interviews are following:

1. Prepare well in advance; there is no second chance to prove the first impression.
2. Be honest with what you know and ask questions during the interview.
3. Try not be too disappointed by a negative answer after one interview. You learn something new from every interview and improve for the next one.