I recently went through the same process and didn't have quite the same luck.
Background: London. Comp Sci. from top 10 worldwide college. 2 years C++, Python, iOS experience in well known company on high profile project. Internship at start up with VC funding before that. Github profile with open-source projects, own projects etc. Started blog etc...basically everything that is recommended.
Studied for 5 months (up to and including interview time) and did projects whenever I could. Applied to 40 companies in San Francisco. Got 12 straight no thank you, 2 interviews and the rest ignored.
Started process on Jan 1st 2014. Had interviews at Yahoo! and Palantir. Former, pulled the plug when the H1-B deadline was looming and they felt it wouldn't be done in time. They suggested a workaround to work out of London and try next year and then they pulled that idea a few days later when they didn't have the team in place to support it. The latter, I did 1 telephone interview which went fine, then on-site where I was quizzed for 1 hour in functional programming (never done any before and job is in Java) and had to code not on paper, or a whiteboard, but the glass conference wall...
Why SF? From what I've seen the London tech scene is really kicking off now. Some of the better funded start ups here are even starting to compete with finance jobs salary wise. And on finance: There are loads of jobs that industry in London, C++ and python make the world go round in hedge funds and investment banks!
Could you share what companies you are referring to? Which finance companies use Python? I am soon to graduate and I would like to find something in London that is using Python or C/C++.
Don't want to get too far off topic (or reddity), but Hogwarts seems like more of a trade school. (Great for magic, not for a university education or for fields such as computer science.)
Background: London. Comp Sci. from top 10 worldwide college. 2 years C++, Python, iOS experience in well known company on high profile project. Internship at start up with VC funding before that. Github profile with open-source projects, own projects etc. Started blog etc...basically everything that is recommended.
Studied for 5 months (up to and including interview time) and did projects whenever I could. Applied to 40 companies in San Francisco. Got 12 straight no thank you, 2 interviews and the rest ignored.
Started process on Jan 1st 2014. Had interviews at Yahoo! and Palantir. Former, pulled the plug when the H1-B deadline was looming and they felt it wouldn't be done in time. They suggested a workaround to work out of London and try next year and then they pulled that idea a few days later when they didn't have the team in place to support it. The latter, I did 1 telephone interview which went fine, then on-site where I was quizzed for 1 hour in functional programming (never done any before and job is in Java) and had to code not on paper, or a whiteboard, but the glass conference wall...
Will have to wait another year.