Dan Ford
Principal Software DeveloperFormer Principal SDE @ AWS with 15+ years experience as a software engineer, interviewer, and mentor
Services
$240 / month
2 calls per month (50min/call)
Unlimited Q&A via chat
Expect responses in 2 days
Hands-on support
One-off sessions with Dan
One-off sessions are a great option if you’re looking for specific advice on a certain topic.
Extra Mentorship Call
You can use this to book extra mentorship calls with me, above and beyond the 2x per month that is standard with MentorCruise.
Mock Technical Interview
I've done over 1,000 technical interviews for Amazon/AWS. As a so-called "bar raiser", I had a unique role beyond simply interviewing candidates: I worked with hiring managers and recruiters to arrange the interview panels themselves (which interviewers, which questions/areas to cover), I was responsible for …
Technical Interview Preparation (package)
This package includes a 30min intake and overview session, and then two 60min mock interview sessions, all of which you can schedule at your convenience (typically spaced apart by a few days to a week). This format allows me to do a deeper dive with …
About
Hi there! 👋
My name is Dan, and I'm a freelance software engineer, technology consultant, and coach/mentor based in Seattle, Washington, USA.
I spent 15 years working as a professional software engineer (most of it for Amazon and AWS, up to the Principal / Staff level), then in 2022 I decided to strike out on my own with a one-man consulting firm. Right now, I work part-time on projects that interest me, do some mentoring/coaching/interview prep on the side, and the rest of the time is spent with my family (super cool wife and two awesome kids!) and hobbies.
During my time at Amazon/AWS, I participated in over 1,000 hiring panels as a "Bar Raiser". This special role meant that not only was I interviewing each candidate, but I did all the pre-interview planning (topics for each interviewer to cover), led the hiring panel discussion, guided the group to a hire/no-hire decision, and ultimately I could "veto" a candidate if I felt they were not right for Amazon in the long-term. The Bar Raiser program was Amazon's way of keeping the high hiring bar consistent across the company as it grew larger, and serving as a check against the natural incentive of a hiring manager to aggressively fill their open headcount.
As a Bar Raiser, I also conducted "behavioral interviews" in addition to technical interviews within my own expertise (software engineering), meaning I was talking to each candidate, diving into their past experience, and evaluating how well they fit Amazon's "leadership principles" in a broad way. This meant I interviewed a broad range of candidates in addition to SDEs, such as SDE-Ts, QA Engineers, Technical Program Managers, Engineering Managers, Product Managers, and many others, from entry-level up to Principal / Staff (L4-L7).
I now leverage this unique experience to do a lot of "interview coaching" on the other side of the hiring desk, helping candidates to prepare for technical and behavioral interviews.
Besides my monthly mentorship plan, I also offer a standalone "Software Interview Preparation" package (under Sessions). This may be a better fit than the monthly mentorship if you have a short-term need to brush up on interviewing, but still allows us to dive deeper and cover more material than a single one-off session.
Feel free to send me an inquiry if you have any questions!
