How to Switch into a Product Based Company ?
Working in tech companies has become very lucrative these days. There are a lot of opportunities in India for working in a software role. Most of the people get their first job in a service based company. While it is good for starting your career, you should aim to move into software roles of product based companies.
Product based companies come with higher pay, better work, more growth opportunities and good perks.
Switching into a good product based company will add rockets to your career trajectory.
Due to so much information available out there, it is often confusing to decide what to study to crack the interviews.
Firstly it is important to note that most good companies will never focus on a particular tech stack. So you should not spend much time learning any particular technology.
Instead, these companies will focus on more foundational skills like your ability to code and your skill to approach a problem and come up with multiple solutions. Basically they test your logical thinking skills, so that given any technology and problem at hand, you are able to onboard yourself and work towards a solution.
To prepare for good product based companies, you should focus on the following skills:
A good command over one OOPS programming language. I started with C++, you can pick any other language as well. You should invest a few months just learning the language so that you are able to code anything in it.
Expertise in Data Structures and Algorithms. You should be able to code them, understand the time & space complexity analysis, and be able to apply these concepts for solving interview problems. There are lots of online portals to help you prepare for this skill.
Knowledge of system design. This is important especially if you are applying for senior roles. The more experienced you are, the more you will be measured in terms of your system design skills. There are some really good courses out there teaching system design directly from people working at big tech companies like Google.
Basic knowledge of Computer Science courses like Networks, OS, etc which a CS student takes in their undergraduate days.
If you can master the above skills, you are good to crack interviews of any product based company.
So do not get confused by seeing so many technologies out there. Just learn what is relevant for your goal. Make a roadmap, set up a realistic timeline based on your existing knowledge. Your dream company is just a few months of effort away.
If you are from a tier 3 college and not sure if you can really get into big tech companies, you should definitely read the next post below.
