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

Data Structures for Coding Interviews

interviewcake.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 238 posts

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#11

Post by 0xADEADBEE »

nichochar wrote: post #7

> Don't worry—we'll skip the convoluted academic jargon and proofs. Aaaaand this is why I hate using this as a method for interviewing. I actually care a great deal about people that care about that stuff. I would rather you know all the principles and can reason your way back up, however slowly, than repeat something you've practiced enough for an interview. I understand the author really only wants to help people,…

...and we've come full circle. The industry demonstrably brought this upon itself by cargo-culting Google's interview process; combine an environment where people are expected to know how to invert a BST for a Django or Rails job with a group of people who are naturally inclined to optimise and shortcut and this is exactly what you can expect to happen.

From a personal perspective, if I were to decide to switch jobs, I'd break out Cracking the Coding Interview rather than reading papers detailing how best to implement a Splay Tree because it's simply a better use of my time for the task at hand. I'll cheerfully read the latter on my own time, but not in preparation for an interview.

I don't see this culture changing anytime soon. 1) it's difficult to make an industry-wide shift and 2) more crucially, no-one has found a better way of doing it. It'll be interesting to watch though.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#12

Post by gameguy43 »

numbsafari wrote: post #10
gameguy43 wrote: post #2

Original Author here. Happy to answer questions about this piece or coding interviews in general! And eager to receive any feedback. Thanks for the post!

I gave up reading your site because of the obnoxious popovers. It's super annoying.

:(

Ok, time to rethink the email opt-ins.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#13

Post by ing33k »

gameguy43 wrote: post #12
numbsafari wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up reading your site because of the obnoxious popovers. It's super annoying.

:( Ok, time to rethink the email opt-ins.

I would have ignored that advice if your target audience were non tech users.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#14

Post by GuiA »

nichochar wrote: post #7

> Don't worry—we'll skip the convoluted academic jargon and proofs. Aaaaand this is why I hate using this as a method for interviewing. I actually care a great deal about people that care about that stuff. I would rather you know all the principles and can reason your way back up, however slowly, than repeat something you've practiced enough for an interview. I understand the author really only wants to help people,…

Do you care a great deal about that stuff because the job you're recruiting for legitimately needs it, or are you hiring people to crank out Rails/Django/React.js/etc. to add a few more textfields on a webpage? Because many people who are in the latter camp think they are in the former, and that's what got us to where we are.

There's nothing wrong with the latter, btw. Just that if your job is 90% copy pasting from the React docs and 10% coming up with a clever solution based on academic papers, then it's a much better use of your time to hire people who seem like they can get shit done and train & mentor them, rather than trying to hire the ultimate programmer who will ace your amazing question in exactly the time allotted, saying exactly what the interviewer wants to hear.

(the people who read academic papers over breakfast would much rather be at a job where the 90/10 split is the other way around, and will jump ship in the blink of an eye if they've been misled about the job)

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#15

Post by nikofeyn »

i actually have began to enjoy places that use these types of things for interview questions. it's a good way for me to know that i don't want to work there.

i once interviewed at a prominent company focusing on a certain language. they specifically stated in their job application that they just wanted motivated, enthusiastic, and smart people and that they didn't care if you knew said language. i sent them my resume with some recent code from my job since i had, within a few weeks, learned their language of choice on the job and on the fly for a project. it got their attention since it was decent code for someone new to the language. in the interview, they proceeded to quiz me on the language, including very specific details of how the language is implemented and things that don't even matter in day to day use of the language. and most of the stuff was something you could easily learn over a period of days or a week by just reading. it still boggles my mind. people, even very smart people, have no idea how to interview.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#17

Post by biocomputation »

gameguy43 wrote: post #2

Original Author here. Happy to answer questions about this piece or coding interviews in general! And eager to receive any feedback. Thanks for the post!

Cool site. C++ graphics programmer here. I would like to add that knowing one thing extremely well - even a fairly small thing - can have amazing results in interviews. I can write just about anything, on command, in GLSL.

This has gotten me more interview offers and job offers than I can count, and it really didn't take me all that long to learn.

I hate to promote memorization, but honestly, it works. Some people argue that memorization isn't the same as learning, and it's not. But it definitely helps you learn and increases understanding.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#18

Post by BurningFrog »

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #11
nichochar wrote: post #7

> Don't worry—we'll skip the convoluted academic jargon and proofs. Aaaaand this is why I hate using this as a method for interviewing. I actually care a great deal about people that care about that stuff. I would rather you know all the principles and can reason your way back up, however slowly, than repeat something you've practiced enough for an interview. I understand the author really only wants to help people,…

...and we've come full circle. The industry demonstrably brought this upon itself by cargo-culting Google's interview process; combine an environment where people are expected to know how to invert a BST for a Django or Rails job with a group of people who are naturally inclined to optimise and shortcut and this is exactly what you can expect to happen. From a personal perspective, if I were to decide to switch jobs,…

> no-one has found a better way of doing it

Some people definitely do hiring in different ways.

Time will tell if they're actually better.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#19

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

nikofeyn wrote: post #15

i actually have began to enjoy places that use these types of things for interview questions. it's a good way for me to know that i don't want to work there. i once interviewed at a prominent company focusing on a certain language. they specifically stated in their job application that they just wanted motivated, enthusiastic, and smart people and that they didn't care if you knew said language. i sent them my resume…

yes. The interview process is something out of the eighteenth century. It's just funny that with all the data collection and testing capabilities we have developed, we can't figure out how to create creative interviewing processes that target specific needs. I think it points more to the employers often not understanding what specific candidte qualities would actually make their team stronger. Sometimes, it's the glue that is most needed, and no one has figured out how to test for glue or morale optimization. These would be helpful target areas. They need to look at why certain world-class sports teams and arts organizations are so successful at what they do. A lot of this has to do with heart and morale. This process drains such qualities from candidates over surprisingly short periods of time.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#20

Post by esfandia »

gameguy43 wrote: post #2

Original Author here. Happy to answer questions about this piece or coding interviews in general! And eager to receive any feedback. Thanks for the post!

Your explanations were excellent. I especially liked the way you introduced hash tables using a simple array where the indices had special meaning.

The diagrams are clear and helpful.

Only nitpick: not sure how somebody who is supposed to learn what an array is by reading this is supposed to already know the meaning of Big O notation. So maybe a little intro to Big O complexity somewhere in there would help as well.

Post reply on HN