Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I just had phone interview with one of software guys for one of the top two graphics companies. Sounded like an amazing job, with huge potential. The interview was going unbelievably good; I even thought to myself that I got the job.

But then he asked for me to restate one of my replies in Japanese, and my mind went blank.

I jabbered on incomprehensibly for a minute or so before I stopped to apologize and end our mutual suffering. Japanese ability was a hard requirement for the position.

Yeah, I knew before hand that they required 2nd level business Japanese, but the set of people who are both good at Japanese and good at programming is small enough as it is, but the intersection of those two is tiny, so I was hoping they would let my very mediocre Japanese ability slide given I think I can to e-mail support using the dictionary on my pc.

They said they were an all linux shop currently, so I guessing that means they mostly work either on playstation III or something...

I don't blame you for going for it anyway. Most of the time job ads seem to list a ridiculous amount of required skills, but in real life they're happy if they get 60% of their 'requirements'. It's a shame Japanese was so important.

I don't think it was so badly written. Its a challenging position, with about 50% writing code, and about 50% either learning about the company's new graphics cards' feature, or evangelizing them.

It requires expertise in a number of technical and non-technical areas, as well as sufficient depth.

I had the breadth but not the depth.

Actually they finally got back to me, and said they have lots of guys with fantastic graphics skills, but that position was specifically for someone who is good at Japanese -- even if they lack the technical depth.

Which is fine for me. My contact said that even if I hadn't gotten excessively nervous, I still wasn't up to par. Just gives me another goal to reach for.