Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 330 posts

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#221

Post by [deleted] »

blindhippo wrote: post #206
wheaties wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because we all know that your ability to implement a red-black tree from memory has a direct correlation with your ability to implement some random business logic or CRUD app. Oh wait, they don't.

I used to think along these lines. Then I started doing 10+ interviews a month and realized a very clear reality: basic CS knowledge and problem skills is far more important to me and my team then knowing how to slap together some semblance of a working CRUD system. I ask "algorithmic" questions, normally expressed as a legitimate business case (invent a real world problem, solution is implement some algorithm or use…

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#222

Post by Terr_ »

ktRolster wrote: post #122
ubernostrum wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking a person to traverse and modify a linked-list (a very common problem) or to implement a B-tree are not 'tech outside their job' Yes, it is. More to the point, it's built-in bias toward recent college graduates. Once someone's actually been out in the real world programming for several years, any space in their brain's metaphorical working set that was ever dedicated to remembering how to do this stuff has long…

I'll be honest, traversing a linked-list and implemented a B-tree (assuming someone reminds you what a B-tree is) are not particularly difficult problems. If you have trouble with those, I'm going to really wonder if your programming skills are really very good to begin with.

Individually, with minor refreshing-study, perhaps no.

But in practice it's merely one of hundreds of things that might get instantly sprung on you as you stand before a whiteboard. In addition, developers with actual jobs can't stay in a continuous cycle of "exam cram" to the same extent that unemployed recent graduates can.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#223

Post by Isn0gud »

witty_username wrote: post #216
vog wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers still look very high from a European point of view. It seems it makes a huge difference whether a society deeply cares about educating the population, or cares just superficially. For example, in Berlin you spend less than 300€ per semester, a CS master takes 10 semesters regular time. Add two semesters to make the time more realistic, and you end up with 3,600€ which are roughly $3,800. Oh, and it cont…

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

One could very much argue that having educated people is more beneficial to the society, and therefore for everyone, than it costs the society. Also educated pay more taxes individually since they usually earn more.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#224

Post by throwaway_374 »

enjo wrote: post #157
fecak wrote: post #56

Thanks for writing this Aline. As a recruiter for almost 20 years, I wish I had access to all my data and then the time to compile it, and anecdotally I'd expect the finding about MOOCs would be similar. The most selective of my hiring clients over the years tended to stress intellectual curiosity as a leading criterion and factor in their hiring decisions, as they felt that trait had led to better outcomes (good hir…

"Intellectual curiosity" was my primary attribute for many years. Particularly when I was young and didn't really know any better. It makes sense doesn't it? Someone who is interested in learning for learning's sake will be a better developer! Except I'm convinced it's not really true. It's something that is horribly subjective and really self-selective. It's funny, intellectually curious people often have exactly th…

As it happens I have a poor temporal memory so the most important tool I have is I always carry my notebook and jot down everything that gets said, particularly as my previous role involved coordinating and managing teams and projects.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#225

Post by fapjacks »

witty_username wrote: post #216
vog wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers still look very high from a European point of view. It seems it makes a huge difference whether a society deeply cares about educating the population, or cares just superficially. For example, in Berlin you spend less than 300€ per semester, a CS master takes 10 semesters regular time. Add two semesters to make the time more realistic, and you end up with 3,600€ which are roughly $3,800. Oh, and it cont…

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

Yeah, it's sort of like American corporate subsidies: Not every taxpayer owns a petrochemical company. But every taxpayer pays for those that do.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#226

Post by collyw »

blindhippo wrote: post #206
wheaties wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because we all know that your ability to implement a red-black tree from memory has a direct correlation with your ability to implement some random business logic or CRUD app. Oh wait, they don't.

I used to think along these lines. Then I started doing 10+ interviews a month and realized a very clear reality: basic CS knowledge and problem skills is far more important to me and my team then knowing how to slap together some semblance of a working CRUD system. I ask "algorithmic" questions, normally expressed as a legitimate business case (invent a real world problem, solution is implement some algorithm or use…

Some of us don't "slap together some semblance of a working CRUD system", but put a bit of thought into it in order to make a maintainable app that works as it should and is scalable when necessary. That requires plenty of knowledge, but algorithmic CS stuff isn't high on that list.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#227

Post by chvid »

I have been through an interview process many times; I have never been asked a technical question / asked to do on blackboard or on computer problem solving.

I guess that that form of interviewing is simply not common in my neck of the woods (Denmark).

I am curious to what sort of questions / tasks are actually given to the interviewee?

And are they in any way biased towards more textbook/academic ones? (I.e. "implement bubble sort" rather than "create a blue button").

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#228

Post by tedmiston »

jonathanfoster wrote: post #103
forrestbrazeal wrote: post #71

The author draws a hard distinction between Udacity/Coursera MOOCs (good) and traditional master's degrees (bad). I'll interject that with Georgia Tech's Online Master's in Computer Science program [0], which is delivered via Udacity and insanely cheap [1], you can get the best of both! (Their "Computability, Complexity and Algorithms" class is one of the top Udacity courses cited in the article.) Keep in mind that a…

$6,600 [1] for a master's from a top 10 computer science program [2] is an absolute steal! My master's program costs that per semester. [1] https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/prospective-students/faq [2] http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

Something to consider is that many people in CS grad school pay no tuition at all via grad assistantships, either research or teaching.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#229

Post by collyw »

nine_k wrote: post #163
moxious wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice, but I think we'd be hard-pressed to ever agree on what intellectual curiosity even is. It's one of those "I know it when I see it" things. I could evaluate whether a person has it (to my standard) but would someone else accept my call, 5 years later, for their company?

A proxy might be "did you study something non-trivial, without your work forcing you to, in last 1-2 years?"

I start a lot of things like that (currently trying to learn Rust). A lot of the time other things take over in my spare time and I never actually get anywhere. Having a job where you can put consistent practice into new technologies makes a big difference. I week at work is probably equal to more than a month of my spare time.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#230

Post by collyw »

VLM wrote: post #127
hcatlin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this happens, yes. But, that's not what's going on here, IMHO. Asking a person to traverse and modify a linked-list (a very common problem) or to implement a B-tree are not 'tech outside their job' Most of these interviews are more like math problems than anything a practical developer would encounter. Shit, if these interviews were "What do you think of node?" or "What is Go's concurrency model?" I think ex…

The problem is its possible to run a B-tree implementation and see if the unit tests pass or non-technical interviewers can compare the official solution to what the candidate is talking about fairly easily. I've never used Go, don't really plan to unless I have to, nothing wrong with it just not my area of expertise and I'm busy with other toys although I'm sure its a very nice language, and if I went up against a n…

Actually BSing in tech makes you look very poor if you don't come out with a convincing answer.

(I listened to a training video given by a Marketing Cloud consultancy at my work. Someone asked "what is FTP" after seeing that as an option to upload files. Lots waffle including "the cloud" and no actual answer. The person asking the question was no wiser, and my opinion of the consultant went way down).

Post reply on HN