How to Pass a Programming Interview • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#101

Post by mech4bg » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #56

ionforce wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had people interview claiming to know X and then not code in X correctly. So... that's a red flag. We allow interviewees to pick their strongest language. But if you end up picking something that doesn't exist, well, you aren't earning yourself any points.

I've had interviewers look at an unweighted keyword digest from my resume, apparently without reading said resume (which clearly states my current skill focus on the top, which has evolved quite substantially over time). And then start "grilling" me on a language that appeared on a job description from 10+ years ago.

Take out any of that old stuff. It's not necessary. Your resume should fit on one page, two at absolute most, and only include things that you would expect to be grilled on. If you are annoyed about being tested on something on your resume, take it out.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#102

Post by atom-morgan » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

Aleman360 wrote: post #66

How I did it for a Microsoft interview: cram for a weekend with a good algorithms text book. I do UI development where 99% of the work is figuring out the UI framework but the study session definitely got me into the right mindset for interviews.

It really makes the whole thing feel like school right? Every time I'm on the job hunt I have to study all the stuff I never actually use while I'm working.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#103

Post by silverdrake11 » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

kelvin0 wrote: post #14

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.

Designers have portfolios where the interviewer can see the previous work they've done

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#104

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

quanticle wrote: post #57

ammon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 neve…

But the VAST majority of the programming work out there does not require any Big-O analysis. Your point is simultaneously valid and irrelevant. The vast majority of programming doesn't involve any Big-O analysis. But if you can't do Big-O analysis, there are problems where you will be stuck. Your code will be running slowly and you won't know why, and all the micro-optimizations in the world can't make a O(n^2) algor…

You don't need to know how to prove a big-O to optimize an algorithm. Anyone who can think about what their code is doing will have at least some sense of how much it is doing.

Honestly, I don't think calculating the O(f(n)) is ever worth it outside of academia. Intuition is only slightly worse, and it is just so much time-cheaper.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#105

Post by mtford » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

osagatisop wrote: post #49

I really wish that at some point during my CS education I would have realized how typical programming interviews worked and just how impossible they are for me. None of my internships had this sort of stuff and after a long string of failures interviewing after graduating, I can openly admit that being able to solve algorithm stuff just isn't in my blood. It doesn't matter how many books I read or questions I practic…

I feel ya buddy - come and join the wacky world of front end development where these things matter less ;)

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#106

Post by kod » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

dkopi wrote: post #74

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…

You can always preempt the whiteboard issue by bringing a laptop along. "Hey, I'm a lot more comfortable writing code on a keyboard and with an IDE. Lets program this together in a text editor instead of a whiteboard".

Speaking as an interviewer, don't do this to me without prior discussion.

Being able to discuss things on a whiteboard is a necessary skill for working in a co-located office. This includes pseudocode.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#107

Post by jlarocco » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

The point of most job interviews is to weed out people who need to read articles like this one.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#108

Post by staunch » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

> candidates who have worked at a top company or studied at a top school go on to pass interviews at a 30% higher rate than programmers who don’t have these credentials (for a given level of performance on our credential-blind screen).

Welcome to Silicon Valley meritocracy.

And it's much worse for founders seeking investment, where there are no hard skills to test at all. It's almost purely about being the same class as the investor.

Which is why you get only upper class people funding upper class people, which then hire upper class people. The 99% only makes it in because there aren't actually very many qualified people among the "elite".

From http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html

> We'd interview people from MIT or Harvard or Stanford and sometimes find ourselves thinking: they must be smarter than they seem.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#109

Post by vonmoltke » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

deedubaya wrote: post #89

> I fundamentally do not believe that good programmers should have to learn special interviewing skills to do well on interviews > 2. Study common interview concepts lol

You can simultaneously believe a process is bad and advise people to learn it in order to get ahead if you do not have control over said process.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#110

Post by banana_giraffe » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

kelvin0 wrote: post #14

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.

You jest, but my family members in the restaurant industry asks similarly technical questions of a potential chef. Stuff they may not need to know on a day to day basis, but is the technical knowledge of their profession.

I discovered their interviews and mine are largely the same. Technical questions, some time-management questions, and some soft stuff to make sure they'd fit in the team.