Even before stackoverflow was available, my ability to solve a problem on the spot was probably not that great so my success in passing technical interviews seems like a lot of luck in hindsight - in my actual work I had to solve similar issues in successful technical interviews, and this is over four different industries/positions. This is versus unsuccessful ones where I haven't looked at the thing in question in years or ever so I am pretty much going in cold on the question. I've seen some people talking about going through every question on leetcode or hackerrank and being able to recall a solution instantly to prep for a Google style interview so you have to ask yourself if you think it's worth that kind of effort.
Don't take your lack of success now as a very good measure of your ability, it sounds like your company might not hire you if you applied to it even though you are really good at your job.
Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
31–40 of 129 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#32A lot of people recommended practicing coding problems. Along with this, I would add practice talking to people you don't know.
Go to networking events and meet-ups. Offer to give mock interviews to people more junior than you. Have coffee with founders to give them feedback on their ideas. Anything that puts you in unstructured conversation with strangers will make you more comfortable and confident in an interview. You get better at reading people and start to see things from both sides.
Being a software engineer often mainly only requires communicating with a mostly unchanging group of people. Interviewing well requires being able to communicate efficiently with someone you just met. During an interview if you can direct less time and mental energy at just communicating you'll have more for demonstrating that you'll be able to do the job.
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#33Apply to companies that don't do whiteboarding/phoneboarding. I don't know, maybe this is a US thing, or the Big Four thing, but down here in London I am yet to encounter a company that does whiteboarding.
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#34> But each failure kind of brings me down, and makes me think that I'm a bad engineer
First off, you are not a bad engineer for failing a technical interview. Over the past 3 years, I've applied for hundreds of roles across dozens of companies. I've been through dozens of interviews and I've got offers from (or worked at) Uber, Twitter, Microsoft, Tesla, etc. The side of the story I don't focus on is that I've had over 200+ rejections. Some after first rounds, some just after they look at my resume. Rejection is part of the game but you just need to push through it. Here's my advice.
- As other comments have said, it's definitely a numbers game. Some days you just don't mesh with your interviewer, others you know the answer to their coding question before they've even finished asking it. Just apply over and over if you want the best odds. You can't get too emotionally attached to any single interview opportunity. I've had to apply for ~50 roles for each offer I get. That's just the way it works.
- Practice a ton. It sounds like you are more worried about coding under pressure and thinking through the answer while you are in the middle of trying to explain your thought process to the person interviewing you. I recommend pramp.com You interview someone for 30 minutes over the webcam and then they interview you for 30 minutes. It's super convenient and gets you very comfortable thinking through problems on spot with someone else watching you. I normally do ~10 pramp.com interviews while I'm preparing for an upcoming interview. In person interviews with friends is good too but less convenient than just signing up online for a time slot.
Just remember that bad interviews don't make you a bad engineer. At the end of the day, no one will remember dozens of rejections, but they will remember the job you eventually land. Keep interviewing till you get an offer that you're excited about. Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#35Before this discussion starts between how the interview process sucks. Here is my 2 cents: 1. Pick up leetcode (or whatever rocks ur boat). 2. Do a lot easy questions and understand the pattern. 3. Do medium level questions and understand the pattern. 4 If you are aiming for Big 4 do Hard. Coding interviews is all about finding the pattern and applying it. Only way to be good at it is practice. Don't give interviews…
Anyone has any top list in terms of most interesting/creative/fun? Because, I find most of these tasks quite boring - even if the solution is not clear from the start, it just feels too contrived and you know that it's aimed at some particular algorithm and the data structure.
Instead of Leetcode I'd recommend starting off with Firecode.io. It's a lot more structured and there's a lot of bells and whistles included in the package that make solving these problems fun.
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#36> But each failure kind of brings me down, and makes me think that I'm a bad engineer First off, you are not a bad engineer for failing a technical interview. Over the past 3 years, I've applied for hundreds of roles across dozens of companies. I've been through dozens of interviews and I've got offers from (or worked at) Uber, Twitter, Microsoft, Tesla, etc. The side of the story I don't focus on is that I've had ov…
> Over the past 3 years, I've applied for 300+ roles across 90+ companies
not to bite on what you're saying (it's mostly accurate) but you've interned - the bar is much lower for interns than even junior devs.
>I've applied for 300+ roles across 90+ companies
i am interested in how you've managed to apply to multiple roles at the same company? is this across 3 internship seasons?
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#37>there's also extreme examples like the inventor of homebrew that got rejected by google because he couldn't reverse a binary tree. HN has rehashed this debate plenty, but I don't think you should necessarily see this as an example of a dramatic failure of the Google SWE interview process. Homebrew became a success due to great vision and execution, not because it solved a challenging technical problem. Howell seems…
Given the prevalence of language package managers that struggle with both correctness and performance, I’m inclined to believe that brew actually does solve a challenging technical problem.
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#38Apply to companies that don't do whiteboarding/phoneboarding. I don't know, maybe this is a US thing, or the Big Four thing, but down here in London I am yet to encounter a company that does whiteboarding. https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
+1
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#39> But each failure kind of brings me down, and makes me think that I'm a bad engineer First off, you are not a bad engineer for failing a technical interview. Over the past 3 years, I've applied for hundreds of roles across dozens of companies. I've been through dozens of interviews and I've got offers from (or worked at) Uber, Twitter, Microsoft, Tesla, etc. The side of the story I don't focus on is that I've had ov…
I commend what you did and where you're coming from but going through 200+ rejections is just soul wrenching, and it's probably not what the OP wants to hear. Something is very wrong in this industry if its hiring practices are so that someone competent needs to go through that many interviews (and rejections) before finding work.
Re: Ask HN: How to not fail on coding interview questions?
#40> But each failure kind of brings me down, and makes me think that I'm a bad engineer First off, you are not a bad engineer for failing a technical interview. Over the past 3 years, I've applied for hundreds of roles across dozens of companies. I've been through dozens of interviews and I've got offers from (or worked at) Uber, Twitter, Microsoft, Tesla, etc. The side of the story I don't focus on is that I've had ov…
> Over the past 3 years, I've applied for 300+ roles across 90+ companies not to bite on what you're saying (it's mostly accurate) but you've interned - the bar is much lower for interns than even junior devs. >I've applied for 300+ roles across 90+ companies i am interested in how you've managed to apply to multiple roles at the same company? is this across 3 internship seasons?
> I am interested in how you've managed to apply to multiple roles at the same company? is this across 3 internship seasons?
A lot of companies will list the same roles across different teams. Applying to (or interviewing with) all the different teams helps your chances. I'm at Tesla right now and I applied for 15 different roles over the span of 3 years before they gave me an offer.