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Tech Interview Torture Chamber

mattfriz.com

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Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#221

Post by AnimalMuppet »

collyw wrote: post #213
harryh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect anyone to have red-black trees memorized. But I do expect an engineer at any level to be able to, say, rebalance a binary tree through brute force.

Is it something you do on a day to day basis? If so, then fair enough. If not you are being a twat.

I have to admit, my initial reaction was about the same as yours. But after a minute or two of thought, I did know how to do it, even though I haven't ever (directly) used a binary tree in 30 years as a professional software engineer.

I don't think it's out of line to expect a senior person to have the breadth of knowledge to be able to work, at a basic level, with basic data structures. To have memorized all the details of stuff they don't use? No. To have a basic knowledge? Yes.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#222

Post by flukus »

Frondo wrote: post #186
flukus wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people should think more when they write, and make sure they think about what they're saying Maybe you should just stop overthinking what they wrote.

How is this overthinking? They used heavily gendered language, someone pushed back, and I backed the person who pushed back. You're probably a dude, too, huh, so reading he/his/him all the time doesn't phase you. Oh well. Keep goin', bro.

> How is this overthinking?

Because it's based on the assumption that gendered language is unwelcome in the first place.

But continue if you like, the more normal people that see how ridiculous modern feminism has become the better, they'll take it less seriously.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#223

Post by harryh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #221
collyw wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it something you do on a day to day basis? If so, then fair enough. If not you are being a twat.

I have to admit, my initial reaction was about the same as yours. But after a minute or two of thought, I did know how to do it, even though I haven't ever (directly) used a binary tree in 30 years as a professional software engineer. I don't think it's out of line to expect a senior person to have the breadth of knowledge to be able to work, at a basic level, with basic data structures. To have memorized all the det…

Exactly. It's not about knowledge. It's about being able to figure out a relatively straightforward problem. It's a test of ability.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#224

Post by marktangotango »

throwanem wrote: post #161

Work for companies that need you more than you need them, and know it. If you can't find companies like that where you are, consider being somewhere else. There's more to the world than the Silicon Valley treadmill.

Indeed, I'm in the Midwest and my equivalent San Francisco salary is $240k, straight salary before bonus. The tech is old and shitty, but a lot of companies are in a position to modernize or die. Senior devs are in high demand.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#225

Post by flukus »

eshvk wrote: post #196
flukus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This means that a recruiter, several engineers and a culture interviewer have to also be present after work hours Well no, there doesn't have to be that many people in the interview, especially the first one. I've never heard of recruiters being there for the interview at all. > I wouldn't want to work in a place that does this on the regular. Depends, some might allow the interviewers to start late or to take an t…

> Well no, there doesn't have to be that many people in the interview, especially the first one. I've never heard of recruiters being there for the interview at all. The recruiter's job is to make sure the candidate gets to the right office room in time; makes sure that if an engineer drops out that there is someone else to pick up the slack. Also, if the candidate has a public freakout or decides to get nosy and pee…

I've never seen or heard of a recruiter doing that. Is this an internal recruiter of some sort?

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#226

Post by krzrak »

ryandrake wrote: post #215
krzrak wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed someone habitually goes to 10 interviews a month, even if they have a job. I want an employee who works, not is constantly looking for some new gig. Anyway, speaking from my experience in software development, most people I hired (and me, my friends) interviewed with 1-3 companies before choosing a new job. Once or twice I met people who bragged about "having 17 offers on the table, so you need to hurry wit…

Not sure if any of that makes sense. If a candidates wants a job they need to interview. Not all interviews result in offers. My experience has been it's about 10% or so, depending on how good/bad the market is. So to get 1-3 offers you probably need to interview at 10-30 companies. What are you expecting?

I don't know, it just is like this. I don't make here some general theory, just present my experience.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#227

Post by louthy »

deathanatos wrote: post #158
louthy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming 3/4 of my life and I'd fall over on that stuff. I'm a CTO of 12 years and I'd fall over on that stuff. I have a successful open-source project [1] which is all algorithms and data-structures , and I'd fall over on that stuff. At some point interviewers must get it, that these artificial test environments bear no relevance to how we write code in the real world, and putting these false constraint…

> these artificial test environments bear no relevance to how we write code in the real world I keep hearing this, and perhaps I'm not part of the problem. But at a prior company I worked for (which was quite good), our go-to phone screen was "implement min()". This screened an absolutely staggering (to us) fraction of the candidates. I don't see how asking someone who claims to have years of experience in engineerin…

I think implementing min is slightly different to remembering the rotation algorithm for an AVL tree (for example). But still, my point wasn't to not test, it was to allow the candidate all of the tools of their trade whilst being tested. 'Air coding' (a phrase I use for white-board/paper/verbal coding) is not a good indicator in my humble opinion.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#228

Post by palakchokshi »

mastratton3 wrote: post #96
palakchokshi wrote: post #26

The one I love is when they ask questions that are completely unrelated to what the position is for. e.g. I applied to a startup company that sold used cars online for a senior web dev position. Their junior dev asked me about a maze solving algorithm. I knew the VP of engineering through one of my contacts and sent him an email asking him how a maze solving algorithm relates to web development. To his credit the VP…

I agree with this mostly, but I've also heard that algorithms questions can be a good proxy for actual software engineering skills. I've never validated this claim but I'm curious if anyone has any research on either side of the argument.

This is anecdotal but in my experience a better signal is whether the candidate codes with best practices in mind. Give a moderate complexity design problem and watch for use of best practices/design patterns (good commenting, SRP, DRY, DI, IOC, etc). That tells me the code that person will write can be understood and maintained by someone else. After all the person who wrote the code is not necessarily the person who's going to maintain and enhance it for the lifetime of the application.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#229

Post by rhizome »

ar15saveslives wrote: post #153
Frondo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting thought experiment, if the original poster had qualified every statement in a different way... "you just start working with a white person , giving the white person basic isolated tasks, and as the white person successfully progresses with their work, task are getting more and more complicated (salary, permissions as well). After few months of such freelance-ish work you can know for sure that thi…

Music, sweet music.

What's it like, always needing people to know how much you like guns?

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#230

Post by rhizome »

0xdada wrote: post #4

> Everyone that interacts with the candidate must offer a beverage or a trip to the bathroom as many times as possible throughout the day. Bladder manipulation is a powerful interrogation tactic. I used to do this, I guess it's time to stop

Put water bottles on the interview table and offer the bathroom at the end of a stage of the interview, not as a "how ya doin', need anything?" introduction.
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