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Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

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Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#151

Post by peteri »

eric_bullington wrote: post #86

I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40 and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year. In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result in an offer. But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which I repeatedly blanked o…

I've just got a new job after around 15 interviews[1], the technical bit I can do, the softer bits (people skills etc) are something that I need to practice and it takes a few interviews.

However I did put quite a bit of effort in revising my basic coding stuff before I hit the interview trail and in general I don't apply to places I really want to work at until after I've managed to get a few trial runs under my belt.

I wouldn't sweat the freezing I've done the same thing when someone asked me a question about stuff that's on my CV but no other interviewer had bothered to ask about. It should get better.

[1] some failed at phone interview, others at face to face

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#152

Post by ansimionescu »

eric_bullington wrote: post #86

I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40 and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year. In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result in an offer. But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which I repeatedly blanked o…

Here's some stuff to get you started, hope it helps: https://github.com/andreis/interview

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#153

Post by [deleted] »

jbcurtin2 wrote: post #149

> Hi, my name is Aline. I used to code for a living. Now I hire engineers. One of the things I've done that I'm most proud of is Lessons from a year's worth of hiring data, where I showed that, in an engineering resume, pedigree isn't a particularly valuable signal (whereas typos and grammatical errors are) So what happens if you're lystdexic?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#154

Post by banjomonster »

smm2000 wrote: post #110
robbyking wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy I use is a coding interview is like asking a musician to play a specific song; chances are, a classically trained pianist won't know the chords to a specific pop song, but that isn't any indication of their skill as a musician. The interviews I had with the company I work for now were amazing; they asked me some basic questions to verify my resume wasn't completely BS, then asked me to discuss previous pr…

Better analogy is that classical musician is given sheet music to pop song and is told to play it on his favorite instrument. If he is good musician, he should be able to play it reasonably well even without practicing. There are musician who play extremely well but only after practicing one song for a long time - this type of interview sucks for them but they are minority. Most musicians suck with or without practic…

In an audition, musicians are usually asked to play a mix of prepared and sight-read pieces (though sometimes the sight reading is from standard repertoire, so they may have encountered before). Both are helpful in discerning how qualified the musician is. And sight-reading is incredibly important for most jobs musicians get hired for - in most freelance situations, they'd get a 3 hour rehearsal, or essentially a guided run through of the performance, then they play the gig. So that may not be an accurate analogy, given that writing on the fly isn't part of the programming repertoire - most programmers are allowed to think before they write anything down. Also musician's don't write - performing is very different than writing- so perhaps a composer would be a better analogy.

Maybe it would be a more accurate measure of ability to ask software engineering applicants to read code and explain what it does, or to judge them as you'd judge a composer, by their portfolio.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#155

Post by justinpaulson »

onislandtime wrote: post #85

Dear software professional: if you have been rejected because of a coding interview, don't feel bad or discouraged. It has little to do with how smart you are. Unfortunately, this style of interviews is likely ineffective and leads to hiring people who look alike and have similar skills. Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking is a skill that…

The point of these type of interview questions is to see how well you can reason and communicate. It is not to see if you know how to solve that specific problem, and if an interviewer is using it like that then they are not a very good interviewer. A standardized test does not substitute for actually talking to someone while they solve a problem and seeing that they can think logically and communicate those thoughts.

It is more about the communication aspect of the question, not about getting to the answer. Because communication is a lot more important in business...even tech business...than you seem to think it is.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#156

Post by eru »

pooper wrote: post #136
JPKab wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently was flown to Austin for an interview. The entire reason I was brought down was because of Python ML projects on Github. The technical interview consisted of nothing, and I mean NOTHING but super advanced SQL questions. (over the phone, I had specifically stated I hadn't used SQL in years) My expectation was that I'd be interviewed using Python and asked to perform ML related tasks. When I mentioned that I…

Maybe if I am in a similar position, I should demand compensation for my time. That way I'll at least get to visit friends and see scenery around Austin. I wonder if a demand for compensation (besides airfare and stuff) would fly...

I usually just stay longer on my own dime. The company doesn't care whether they pay for flying you back immediately or two weeks later.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#157

Post by justinpaulson »

general_failure wrote: post #25

This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding interview. IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding intervie…

'It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required.'

Public speaking is something you really should take the time to get good at. I think you are greatly underestimating the importance of communication skills in the workplace...even for developers.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#158

Post by eru »

banjomonster wrote: post #154
smm2000 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better analogy is that classical musician is given sheet music to pop song and is told to play it on his favorite instrument. If he is good musician, he should be able to play it reasonably well even without practicing. There are musician who play extremely well but only after practicing one song for a long time - this type of interview sucks for them but they are minority. Most musicians suck with or without practic…

In an audition, musicians are usually asked to play a mix of prepared and sight-read pieces (though sometimes the sight reading is from standard repertoire, so they may have encountered before). Both are helpful in discerning how qualified the musician is. And sight-reading is incredibly important for most jobs musicians get hired for - in most freelance situations, they'd get a 3 hour rehearsal, or essentially a gui…

That would be an interesting way to apply something like re-captcha: ask them to fix two bugs in open source applications. One bug that you've actually already fixed, so you know how hard it should be and can calibrate; the second bug is open.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#159

Post by eru »

chrissnell wrote: post #105
eric_bullington wrote: post #86

I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40 and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year. In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result in an offer. But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which I repeatedly blanked o…

I'm right there with you. 39 years old and I've been doing Linux systems administration and writing code since college in the mid 90s. Aced every interview I ever went to up until a couple of years ago. These Google-style coding interviews for systems/operations roles are the death of me and it's a shame. I have deep systems experience and I spend a lot of my spare time coding in Go [1] but I have little formal CS ed…

Pragmatically, why don't you spend a couple dozen hours drilling typically interview questions? It's easy enough to learn enough about, say, sorting in a few hours to pass most interview questions about it.

Re: Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

#160

Post by justinpaulson »

cnp wrote: post #28
general_failure wrote: post #25

This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding interview. IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding intervie…

Exactly my thinking as well. Dig in, look around, its obvious what I can do, and what I'm capable of learning. Ask me to code a sample app and comment every function with detailed explanations of my thought process. Add me as a collaborator to GitHub and request that I make some pull requests on your product. Live coding interviews are more irrelevant than irrelevant and completely ignore the fact that many people --…

Maybe doing well in front of groups is a skill that companies want in their employees.
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