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How to Pass a Programming Interview

blog.triplebyte.com

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Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#11

Post by ammon »

valine wrote: post #4

It very much depends on the gig, but I would add another item to the list: Show a basic understanding of UX design. Companies need people who can mediate between designers and programmers. While demonstrating an understanding of Photoshop and Illustrator says nothing about your skills as a programmer, it could be the thing that makes you stand out from the crowd.

We've not seen very much focus on design in interviews (very few companies talk about this when telling us why they like/dislike candidates). We do see a lot of focus on interest in what the company does. I think that pitching design skills as a passion for making the company's product better is the best way to go.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#12

Post by valine »

jameshart wrote: post #5
valine wrote: post #4

It very much depends on the gig, but I would add another item to the list: Show a basic understanding of UX design. Companies need people who can mediate between designers and programmers. While demonstrating an understanding of Photoshop and Illustrator says nothing about your skills as a programmer, it could be the thing that makes you stand out from the crowd.

But "an understanding of Photoshop and Illustrator" is to "a basic understanding of UX design" as "an understanding of vi or emacs" is to "a basic understanding of distributed application architecture"

The only reason I mentioned Photoshop and Illustater is because they're easy things to put on a resume. "Knowledge of design principles" is a little more amorphous.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#13

Post by ammon »

vkjv wrote: post #10

> "That’s exactly the point. These are concepts that are far more common in interviews than they are in production web programming." The list includes things like Big-O analysis. While, formal analysis is certainly not a day to day occurrence of most programming, knowing what the runtime complexity of the code you are writing is almost always important. While, I generally don't care for most algorithmic problems, I a…

So, I see where you are coming from (I actually love academic CS). But the VAST majority of the programming work out there does not require any Big-O analysis. It just does not. It's used as a tool in interviews to (essentially) look for rigor. The problem is that this harms people who are rigorous as hell in low-level details of JS and V8 (something I'd posit is actually more useful to many more companies), but never studied academic CS. There's nothing wrong with valuing the skill of complexity analysis. But there's a mismatch in how common it is to look for this.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#14

Post by kelvin0 »

What if designers had to go through a similar interview process? Here are some colors, please arrange them in palette groups that are color coordinated for a given visual effect? Why is red font on blue background bad, please justify? That would simply be hilarious.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#15

Post by Harj »

pyb wrote: post #9

Another great post from Triplebyte, but I am confused about their model. Why would candidates want to apply to Triplebyte, if they still have to go through the companies' full interview process on top of the Triplebyte process ?

If you apply to Triplebyte you don't go through the full interview process at the companies we introduce you to. You skip the technical phone screens (most companies do 1 or 2 hour long phone screens before bringing candidates onsite) and go straight to on-sites.

Where we can really save time is focusing on the matching process of candidates to companies. Interviewing is tiring and we find candidates often stop talking to companies they were initially excited about because they're exhausted from interviewing (usually after 4 on sites) and just want to accept an offer

We wrote before about how much hiring preferences vary across YC companies (http://blog.triplebyte.com/who-y-combinator-companies-want). By using data we get from the Triplebyte interview, we can send you to the companies where you've the strongest likelihood of passing the technical onsite. The result is getting the best set of offers to choose from, rather than picking from what's available before interview burnout sets in.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#17

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal »

bshlgrs wrote: post #3

Another tip which I give: Interviewers vary widely in how much they care about whether your syntax is accurate, whether you handle invalid inputs, and whether you write unit tests. It's really useful to ask the interviewer whether they want you to worry about those things. If you handle invalid inputs for an interviewer who doesn't care about that, they're going to be a little annoyed by you going more slowly than ne…

Good point, I've encountered this. Some candidates unfamiliar with the process may not even realize they want you to ask that, I didn't know when I started out and used to think a good interviewer would specify what they want, that may not be true, although it would be a nice thing to remind a candidate they can ask for clarifications not just about the question but about testing and such.

I know some interviewers may be interested in helping but it's important to note assholes exist, especially at larger companies. There can be head games and assumptions made where they needn't have been. Even when I've been hired it can feel like if I'd done it again I may not have been. Try your best but don't be too upset if it goes badly either. Similar questions often come up too, it's actually amazing how many questions there are about linked list and trees.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#18

Post by superuser2 »

ammon wrote: post #2

A large number of bad things influence interview decisions (credentials, targeted practice, how well you know the specific algorithms that come up again and again in interviews). I hope that more programmers getting better at interviewing skills will help move companies toward measuring actual programming skill.

My credential represents hundreds of hours of programming projects over several years. For that reason alone it is a much better signal than an interview will ever be.

It also establishes depth and breadth of familiarity with a variety of fundamental topics demonstrated through exams and large programming projects: program design, networking, operating systems, security/cryptography, team software engineering practices, algorithmic techniques and analysis, etc.

You fundamentally cannot assess this as well as my alma mater can because my alma mater has 4 years of me working under realistic conditions (laptop, internet, colleagues, deadlines on the order of weeks) and you have, what, 5 hours of me standing at a whiteboard?

Credentials are seriously underrated.

CS programs are not created equal. If you find that candidates from a particular school aren't necessarily competent, then you should value candidates from better, harder schools. If you find that candidates from well-respected schools aren't necessarily competent, then you should respect them less (US News isn't always right) and respect other schools more.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#20

Post by alistairSH »

bshlgrs wrote: post #3

Another tip which I give: Interviewers vary widely in how much they care about whether your syntax is accurate, whether you handle invalid inputs, and whether you write unit tests. It's really useful to ask the interviewer whether they want you to worry about those things. If you handle invalid inputs for an interviewer who doesn't care about that, they're going to be a little annoyed by you going more slowly than ne…

Is there any reason an interviewer should care about syntax, etc?

When I interview, I ask for psuedocode - I don't really care what language the interviewee uses, I do care that they can get their point across.

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