If I were interviewing someone, I would be more likely to test someone's general problem solving skills, questions that illustrate how a candidate thinks and approaches a challenge. This of course becomes more subjective, but can really help identify creative talent. Who knows, you might even learn something too.
This is probably a big part of the puzzle type questions that companies like Microsoft and Google seem to favor.
Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ability requires memory, at least for basic things. You can't be a good programmer and forget the syntax of the language you are working in. If you need to look up something as fundamental as switch statement in the internet, it's like a writer looking up words in the dictionary before writing them down in his novel.
Writers very frequently use the dictionary. There is no problem with it, that's why we have dictionaries.
Not for scrabble disputes?
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ability requires memory, at least for basic things. You can't be a good programmer and forget the syntax of the language you are working in. If you need to look up something as fundamental as switch statement in the internet, it's like a writer looking up words in the dictionary before writing them down in his novel.
I think switch is a particularly bad example here. Honestly, I can't (accurately) tell you the last time I used one. It's not an every-day construct for a lot of people.
Neither Python nor Haskell have it - as far as I know. Perhaps you can create one out of monads though.
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#34A trivial coding problem is essential. I've seen people with 10 years of experience in XML#Java.NETEnterprise2012 who don't understand conditionals, loops, or boolean expressions. For phone screens, I find Steve Yegge's guide a useful starting point: http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/five-essential-phone-scre... I'm not a fan of asking candidates to reverse a string or to implement atoi or a binary search, because t…
We use the (generalized) Euclidean Algorithm quite often in proofs. But - I study math.
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#35I think taking some time to sit down and _read_ some code is one of the best and least used techniques during an interview. I think it's more of an indicator for job performance than writing some green-field code. After all, on the job, more time is spent reading and understanding code than writing code with no preexisting context.
You may use the solution your last candidate came up with as an example.
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#36From the employees point of view: I would have no problem to do a coding test as part of an interview.
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think switch is a particularly bad example here. Honestly, I can't (accurately) tell you the last time I used one. It's not an every-day construct for a lot of people.
Neither Python nor Haskell have it - as far as I know. Perhaps you can create one out of monads though.
Actually, case is built into Haskell: it's the evaluation primitive in Haskell Core; see Don Stewart's blog post http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2008/05/16 .
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. My first job they gave me a copy of Deitel & Deitel's "C How to program" along with the test. You actually lost points if you didn't open it!
You know the syntax of switch in the language you have been using in the last three months. If you don't, something's wrong!
Actually, if you never use switch, then that's a symptom of being good at OO.
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#39I like to believe that I can get a pretty good understanding of someone's technical abilities by asking thorough questions about his previous experience, and maybe ask them to explain a couple of basic patterns or programming concepts to me. I remember interviewing a senior java developer who claimed 5+ years of experience and had no idea what a Singleton was. What made it worse was that even after explaining it to her, she was unable to figure out how to implement one.
Developers asked the strangest questions when interviewing other developers. I worked with a guy once who liked to ask his interviewees what the decimal value of 0xFE is. One candidate didn't know the answer so my coworker didn't think he could possibly be a good software engineer. I admit that (having done assembly coding in school) it seems odd that any software engineer wouldn't be able to figure out what FE is. But I still thought it was a bad way of testing technical skills. Would you rule out a candidate who doesn't know 0xFE ?
Re: Ask HN: coding challenges as part of interviews: yes or no?
#40Trick questions, or questions with some kind of gottcha have no place in interviews, However, simple, straightforward programming exercises are essential. I've seen people who claim to have X years of industry experience who can talk a good game, but literally can't write a switch statement without reference to the internet. I also like to ask people to peer review some code with both obvious and more subtle errors i…
I agree wholeheartedly with the above. Gotcha questions are nice if you value having a sense of superiority over your candidates. Seeing how someone approaches a simple coding exercise tells you a lot about their techniques. Two examples stand out: 1) A guy who had more Java certifications than had eaten hot dinners couldn't complete the simple exercise after three or four hours of effort. 2) Guy initially attempted…
This is exactly how I was hired at my current employer. The VP of product dev interviewed me, and asked very general tech questions regarding work I've done. Then I was hammered by my now-direct manager. I didn't have any resources, but his questions often evaluated my thought processes as well as my coding skillz.
I should add that I thought I bombed the technical interview. So much so that I wanted to ask the VP if he had the right guy when he called with the offer.