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How to Pass a Programming Interview

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Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#561

Post by kafkaesq »

autarch wrote: post #536
collyw wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you paying as much as Google? Is your job going to give the same prestige as having "worked for Google" on your CV? I am not saying that you are wrong, but applying to Google does sound like it will have many benefits above your average company.

Google is hardly the only company to do in-person all day interviews. I've had several in my career, none of them with Google. IIRC, they were with Shopzilla and Grant Street Group, and Livetext (not exactly Google-famous companies). I wasn't thrilled about flying out for 6 hours of interviews, but at the time I thought it was reasonable for them to ask for this. I'm not sure I'd do it again unless I was incredibly e…

And the above poster would seem to have an eminently sensible interviewing style, himself:

http://blog.urth.org/2016/03/08/tech-interviewer-theory/

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#562

Post by EpicEng »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #382
EpicEng wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, as long as you _never_ need to trust said dev to do anything complex. It's fine to have mediocre developers perform mediocre tasks, but if you want more from them someday you may be in trouble.

That's not really fair, people don't grow unless they're challenged. Some people really do never advance past a certain point, but a lot of people write someone off as mediocre when they're just still in the process of gaining skill. Also, they only assess ONCE, which is pretty bad if we're trying to establish how good you are forever and always.

That's true, but how do you discern between someone who has potential and has not yet been challenged, and someone who simply doesn't care? In my experience, the best will challenge themselves to learn new things on their own.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#563

Post by EpicEng »

digler999 wrote: post #343
EpicEng wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, as long as you _never_ need to trust said dev to do anything complex. It's fine to have mediocre developers perform mediocre tasks, but if you want more from them someday you may be in trouble.

to me, complex, and complex-ITY are entirely different matters. I want a smart programmer who can figure out really complex bugs (something you cant figure out from google/wikipedia). Not someone who memorized the big-O performance tables of 8 different data structures (something you CAN look up on wikipedia ).

Optimally, I would like both. I agree that wrote memorization is not a very useful skill, but I'd like to know that they can grasp concepts, and I find it hard to believe that there are a bunch of skilled devs out there with great potential who don't or can't understand algorithmic complexity. Interviewing is hard though, I'm not trying to say that any one question or metric should necessarily rule someone out.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#564

Post by graycat »

the_af wrote: post #553
graycat wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, right, programming interviews are from Alice in Wonderland and not about programming. Gee, I'm glad I'm programming, for my own startup. Wait while I ask my founder, CEO if my programming is good -- got an answer back right away, my programming is fine!

> So, right, programming interviews are from Alice in Wonderland and not about programming. I don't understand your irony. No-one is saying that. We're saying that programming interviews are often not ONLY about programming, and unfortunately the parts NOT about programming tend to overshadow the parts that are. Therefore, interviewing requires preparation. Are you bitter that programming interviews are like this? If…

I'm saying that programming interviews have descended into tea leaf reading.

People with obviously high qualifications are being rejected for no good reasons.

The situation was not always so.

Apparently the people doing the interviews are more interested in being nasty than hiring people to get more work done. For this situation to hold, there has to be not much demand and a big supply. So, the process is free to descend into totally silly games. It's the Queen in Alice in Wonderland and "Off with their heads".

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#565

Post by Joof »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #144
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 personally also prefer take-home projects over being grilled on my ability to solve obscure algorithms problems under pressure. However, this second route also comes with a number of issues. The most annoying of which in my experience is the amount of time investment each interview requires from the candidate. At least in the traditional technical interview, interviewers and candidates tend to be roughly equally in…

Don't worry it should only take an hour or two; an afternoon at most!

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#566

Post by emodendroket »

eecks wrote: post #322
emodendroket wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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() ?

Probably that and, I don't know, maybe modeling a Car class and various subtypes that inherit from it?

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#567

Post by emodendroket »

jlarocco wrote: post #332
emodendroket wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. It's to weed out people who wouldn't think to or know where to find it.

Rote memorization of a guide or following a "script" is not the same as qualifying for a position. A sufficiently experienced and knowledgeable person will be doing things similar to what's in the guide because they've learned to do so through experience, not because they read it in a silly guide. People seeking out the guides are typically the same ones who don't have the experience to back up what the guide tells t…

I'd guess very few people use every one of these things on a day-to-day basis and in my experience the bigger companies actually encourage you to brush up on algorithms before interviews with links to resources you can use. If you're really hopeless it's not like two weeks of study are going to teach you everything you need to know.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#568

Post by soham »

kafkaesq wrote: post #558
soham wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply because it is quite difficult to explain the concept in writing. What does it mean to have an intense bootcamp just to prepare for interviews? What's the method? etc. I want to take the time to talk to everyone who is interested in the course. Because the concept is new, people have all sorts of questions. Can't possibly address all of them in writing. I don't have a team of salespeople and haven't spent a pen…

Simply because it is quite difficult to explain the concept in writing. Then maybe it's not such a good concept.

Or possibly because it's a new concept, which takes more text to describe. More text than what can be included above the fold, and more than what most people read attentively these days.

After all, it's an 8-week intensive course, mostly for CS grads, that grills you hard, and is not cheap. As a consumer hence, I'd highly prefer to talk with someone. Not to mention, all educational institutes have an enrollment process that needs you to talk to a human.

At some point, when it becomes more common and well-accepted, we will condense it, but it feels a little too early to do so.

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#569

Post by Jemmeh »

m4tthumphrey wrote: post #459

When I interview candidates I sit with them for half an hour or so to get to know them. Then I give them purposely broken, poorly written piece of code which I tell them to pull apart. This proves incredibly effective as even if they miss some of the more obvious errors I can at least point them in that area and then see if they can see the problem on their own. There are about 100 different things to talk about so i…

Love this idea, doesn't take a lot of time and I think it's a pretty good measure. Anyone have anything against this?

Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview

#570

Post by judahmeek »

cookiecaper wrote: post #358
ammon wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry that you had a bad experience with us. Evaluation is a really complicated thing. The bar that we use for evaluating the take-home project is to treat it as real work, e.g. would a teammate feel good if you were working with them on this task, and you came back after half a day with this. Because we can't see process, all we can do on the take-home track is judge of the finished result is professional-level…

I think that you almost have the right idea, but 3 hours is too long. I believe a programmer can demonstrate his ability to perform the basics in 1 hour or less. This respects the candidate's time and it also encourages the test's designers to select the most trivial project possible that shows the basic skills they're looking for. That's really what's important. Larger projects take up more time and introduce a larg…

As a wannabe junior rails developer, I really like the idea of a technical assessment like this. It seems very practical, yet it's not overly complex.

Have you considered requiring a thought process journal as well?

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