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How to Pass a Programming Interview

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Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#321

Post by vlasev »

superuser2 wrote: post #132
dkopi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Indeed, having the candidate use their laptop gives the interviewer a valuable signal, too: whether the candidate has a coding environment they are comfortable and fluent in. Are they stumbling on their editor, or is it an extension of their mind?

So, what about those who only have a desktop? If you want candidates to code on a computer, provide one. Although that had its own issues as well.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#322

Post by eecks »

emodendroket wrote: post #242
entitycontext wrote: post #165

It seems like there is a large middle area of concepts in between low-level algorithms/data structures and high-level system architecture that are left out of many of these interview prep guides: * Principles and patterns of object-oriented (or functional) design * Relational (or NoSQL or analytics) database design * Unit, integration and system testing * Logging, profiling and debugging * Source control (e.g. branch…

Sure they do. "Model a parking garage in code" or "design a database with customers, orders, etc" are classic interview questions.

What is expected from something like "model a parking garage in code?"

Something like a garage class that has properties like numberOfCars, maxAmountofCars, maxHeight and methods for insertCar(), removeCar(), isGarageFull() ?

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#323

Post by megablast »

thearn4 wrote: post #193
quanticle wrote: post #72

Being a good programmer has a surprisingly small role in passing programming interviews. And that just says it all, doesn't it? I agree that interviews should test candidates on certain basic skills, including (time/space) complexity analysis. But do you really learn anything by asking the candidate if they can recite the time complexity of a moving window average algorithm (as I was asked to do by an interviewer yes…

> I much prefer "homework" projects I helped a group within my organization with their hiring process recently, and we had pretty good success with assigning a short "take-home" exercise, vs. trying to haze them with a programming problem over a google hangout interview. A problem focusing on a small part of what that group does, but scoped to be doable with 1-2 hours of work.

I guess it works well for people unemployed with nothing else to do, no family, lots of time.

Everyone else, this sucks!

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#324

Post by vlasev »

jakub_g wrote: post #53
bshlgrs wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sort of makes sense. If someone knows a language well, they shouldn't have much trouble writing it syntactically correctly on a whiteboard. Especially in languages which have simpler syntax, like Ruby vs eg Scala.

In his "Programming pearls" book, John Bentley stated that he always first writes non-trivial algorithms in pseudocode, and only then transforms them to the destination language. The point is, it's much easier to focus on the idea of the algorithm when writing it down in pseudocode, without having to worry about c / c++ details that obfuscate the idea.

I think this is less of an issue when you code in Python, where the code is already somewhat pseudocode-ish.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#325

Post by eecks »

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…

There are jobs where you don't have to answer this crap. You'll probably enjoy working in those types of places anyway. Have you tried companies that use software as a tool instead of being software companies? e.g. banks

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#326

Post by jkaptur »

econnors wrote: post #80
LoSboccacc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't pass then since I live in post 2000 and am used to let the IDE handle the nitty gritty details while I focus on the actual meat of creating software

I've had this problem as well. I go back and forth between Obj-c, python, javascript, matlab etc. so much without spending a significant amount of time on any one language that I often feel intellectually deficient because I don't know the nitty-gritty details of any of them. Curious to see what others think - is this something I should stop and focus on? Or in today's development environment is it considered accepta…

I used to be in a very similar situation, but I was convinced otherwise by this article [1]. The fact of the matter is that, yes, it's easy to become familiar with a variety of programming languages, but I think you actually learn a lot more when you double down on a language (platform, ecosystem, etc.) for a long period of time.

Quoting from the article:

> Leaky abstractions mean that we live with a hockey stick learning curve: you can learn 90% of what you use day by day with a week of learning. But the other 10% might take you a couple of years catching up. That's where the really experienced programmers will shine over the people who say "whatever you want me to do, I can just pick up the book and learn how to do it." If you're building a team, it's OK to have a lot of less experienced programmers cranking out big blocks of code using the abstract tools, but the team is not going to work if you don't have some really experienced members to do the really hard stuff.

In areas that I'm just learning or dabbling in (for me, Objective-C), I look things up or reach out to experts. But there are areas where I want to be the expert that others reach out to.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LordPalmerston.html

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#327

Post by shasta »

quanticle wrote: post #72

Being a good programmer has a surprisingly small role in passing programming interviews. And that just says it all, doesn't it? I agree that interviews should test candidates on certain basic skills, including (time/space) complexity analysis. But do you really learn anything by asking the candidate if they can recite the time complexity of a moving window average algorithm (as I was asked to do by an interviewer yes…

> But do you really learn anything by asking the candidate if they can recite the time complexity of a moving window average algorithm (as I was asked to do by an interviewer yesterday)?

This is actually a trivially easy question that gets to the heart of whether you understand the point of moving averages or not (that you can update a sum by subtracting out the value leaving the window and adding in the value entering the window).

"Programming ability" isn't one dimensional. Whether or not the above question is useful depend entirely on what skills are important in a candidate.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#330

Post by kamaal »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #199
staunch wrote: post #108

> 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…

Doesn't that support the fact that it is a meritocracy? Is it not reasonable to expect that top companies and top schools are more likely to employ people who have more applicable talent and skill? At the end of the day, going to a top university or working at an impressive company is always going to be a huge and relevant signal. It's difficult to see a problem with that.

>>Is it not reasonable to expect that top companies and top schools are more likely to employ people who have more applicable talent and skill?

No. Its more like a club.

Join this prestigious institution X, and then you shall enjoy life long benefits of employment, higher than average salary, bonuses, stock, opportunities to travel etc. Even if the person is actually the worst possible employee, or is barely productive. Merely have X on your resume, guarantees you life long privilege.

To know how worst it is you come see how it is in India. There are people who join IIT(Indian institutes of technology), a sort of a chain of colleges which is supposed to be Ivy league. Who says so? They themselves, because saying anything other wise means putting your own career in danger. There are coaching institutes, who train you just to get an entrance. Doesn't matter what you go and do there, in fact from there on you may do nothing in your life at all. The whole purpose of getting into those colleges is to enjoy lifelong privilege of having access to alumni who will ensure you a good career regardless of your performance.

The day you remove the real metrics of merit and put in artificial flags. People will do no real work and try to gather as many flags as they can.

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