Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

Post by Washuu » Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 10:34 PM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #127

kafkaesq wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have one candidate who has seen all of this stuff before and can use it directly from memory, and another candidate who has been busy raising kids and has never seen this stuff before, who do you want to hire, all else being equal? The one who's raised kids† obviously. As that's approximately 3-4 orders of magnitude more difficult -- and indicative of not only of general character (by itself hugely important),…

I would say further, that If you are in a position to be implementing some non-trivial algorithm that's not currently in the toolbox, then your best approach is probably to go read a few papers first, and make sure that the algorithm you're looking at has not been surpassed. (Or, perhaps, you just need to dig something up from the '70s. A lot has been forgotten). Then again, if you can implement Paxos on the first tr…

Post by vellum » Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 10:36 PM UTC

brianpgordon wrote: post #60

> The process “freezes out many of the people who are underrepresented in the software development field,” Larson wrote. “If you’re busy working and raising kids, you want to spend as much of your scarce time as possible learning to code — not performing rote memorization that won’t matter once you start your job.” I'm not sure I buy this argument. If you have one candidate who has seen all of this stuff before and c…

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 10:40 PM UTC

ClayM wrote: post #36

sidlls wrote: post #18

This is a tough subject. I don't believe deep understanding of algorithms and data structures is necessary for the vast majority of engineering tasks. Most (almost all) engineers can get by understanding complexity notation and a matrix comparing time/space complexity for various algorithms and data stuctures, no memorization required. And even that is overkill, as most of time the "natural" one suggested by a proble…

I throw real life problems I've run into (and fixed!) at people and ask them to give me things they would do to troubleshoot, and compare it to what I did. Always nice when somebody suggests something new. I also ask 10,000 foot questions. "Say you're wanting to build a new app that behaves like Instagram. What's your hosting platform, your technology stack, and explain why?".

Post by ourmandave » Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #127

kafkaesq wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have one candidate who has seen all of this stuff before and can use it directly from memory, and another candidate who has been busy raising kids and has never seen this stuff before, who do you want to hire, all else being equal? The one who's raised kids† obviously. As that's approximately 3-4 orders of magnitude more difficult -- and indicative of not only of general character (by itself hugely important),…

I would say further, that If you are in a position to be implementing some non-trivial algorithm that's not currently in the toolbox, then your best approach is probably to go read a few papers first, and make sure that the algorithm you're looking at has not been surpassed. (Or, perhaps, you just need to dig something up from the '70s. A lot has been forgotten). Then again, if you can implement Paxos on the first tr…

Post by StavrosK » Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

memracom wrote: post #84

I am a real Software Engineer. I don't remember all the details that are seconds away via Google or other reference documentation. I focus my brain power on thinking about the problem, trying to see it in the wider context, and understanding the needs of the users in my problem domain. I weigh the different solutions, choose a reasonable one, and implement a prototype that I can refactor into shape, step by step. And…