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Data Structures for Coding Interviews

interviewcake.com

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Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#81

Post by bastijn »

cakedoggie wrote: post #76
bastijn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, if he would have given that answer instead of saying others did it I would have answered the question. However, his answer indicated they asked just because of asking. Second, even when you have those reasons ask questions on actual situations that would occur on the job. You run a large C# code base that struggles with its size and configuration complexity vs flexibility? Ask questions on how he would design…

Isn't that answer obvious they? They need to know if you are skilled enough, and this is the quickest way to find that info out.

Skilled enough to do what exactly? Answer data structure questions? This is my point. Are the question relevant to the job and does their answer qualify them for it?

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#82

Post by thaumasiotes »

savanaly wrote: post #74
pavlov wrote: post #62

Hiring engineers based on data structure trivia is like hiring a marketing department based on spelling bee scores.

In that one wouldn't want to hire someone as a marketer who couldn't spell "cat"? Not because it's necessary to be able to spell "cat", even, but because the inability to do so might indicate in a bayesian sense that the person is not likely equipped to do the job.

Not really apt as to spelling bees. High-level spelling bees try to use words that are as obscure as possible, because people will happily go forever on words they know.

SAT vocabulary questions are chosen to be informative about the test taker's IQ; spelling bee words are chosen to be unfamiliar to everyone. You get a list of words that you're supposed to memorize; they could just as easily be random strings.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#83

Post by thaumasiotes »

CharlesLiuCN wrote: post #29
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…

That's true, but this kind of interview questions will always be asked even for so called BAT in china.

What is BAT?

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#84

Post by 1024core »

gameguy43 wrote: post #67
trevor-e wrote: post #58

The article is really well written and has amazing design, but honestly does not seem very helpful. Isn't most of this learned in the first year of university? Who is the target audience in that case? Given the title, I hoped to learn some lesser used data structures rather than what a pointer is. With that said, I do look forward to future articles!

Author here :) Thanks for the note--this is interesting. Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff, or learned it but forgot it. Interesting to hear you had a different assumption from the title. If you want something trickier, check these ones out: https://www.interviewcake.com/question/stock-price https://www.interviewcake.com/question/swift/find-duplicate-...

> Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff,

But then why would they be interviewing for a coding job anyways? Shouldn't a coder know what's a RAM, and that it's different from secondary storage??

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#85

Post by watwut »

ng12 wrote: post #56
bastijn wrote: post #50

I once walked into an interview with such questions. On the first question I asked them why they asked the question. The interviewer looked puzzled and asked me to finish the question. I again asked him why, what part of my job would require it. He couldn't answer that question whilst he was an engineer at the department I was interviewed for. I asked a follow-up question if he had the same questions when he joined,…

> I could have answered the question easily but what for? To show that you're not a complete diva who's willing to put in some work even if it's unpleasant? The question I ask is not real, either. It's entirely contrived. But I ask it because it's the best way I know to identify candidates who: 1. Can think critically about a data structure. 2. Can communicate with me about how to solve non-trivial problems. 3. Can t…

I always wonder about genius developers who throw fit when someone asks them to implement linked list (the actual chapter in the linked article). I understand the complaint when people get asked to balance red black trees out of nowhere or something else more complicated, but this article is very basic.

Yeah, this can be memorized pretty easily, but "lets talk about how passionate you are" which is invariably suggested as alternative is even easier to fake for people with good social skills and charisma (and puts actual minority of real geeks at disadvantage).

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#86

Post by gameguy43 »

1024core wrote: post #84
gameguy43 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here :) Thanks for the note--this is interesting. Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff, or learned it but forgot it. Interesting to hear you had a different assumption from the title. If you want something trickier, check these ones out: https://www.interviewcake.com/question/stock-price https://www.interviewcake.com/question/swift/find-duplicate-...

> Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff, But then why would they be interviewing for a coding job anyways? Shouldn't a coder know what's a RAM, and that it's different from secondary storage??

I'm thinking a lot about folks who come out of coding "boot camps." Those folks for the most part have /heard/ of "RAM" and "disc," but might not know why they both exist and what each one does.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#87

Post by daliwali »

I got an impression who their target audience is, based on the examples used, drinking kombucha and listening to Spotify.

All the young, beautiful people who wouldn't have ever taken a computer science course if it weren't such a lucrative industry to be in right now.

Maybe with this guide they can pass an interview at a big company where they just twiddle with bits all day. I won't be holding my breath until they can produce something useful.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#88

Post by 1024core »

gameguy43 wrote: post #86
1024core wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff, But then why would they be interviewing for a coding job anyways? Shouldn't a coder know what's a RAM, and that it's different from secondary storage??

I'm thinking a lot about folks who come out of coding "boot camps." Those folks for the most part have /heard/ of "RAM" and "disc," but might not know why they both exist and what each one does.

I would not want to hire anyone who doesn't have _some_ idea of what these things are, and how they work.

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#89

Post by trevor-e »

gameguy43 wrote: post #67
trevor-e wrote: post #58

The article is really well written and has amazing design, but honestly does not seem very helpful. Isn't most of this learned in the first year of university? Who is the target audience in that case? Given the title, I hoped to learn some lesser used data structures rather than what a pointer is. With that said, I do look forward to future articles!

Author here :) Thanks for the note--this is interesting. Target audience is folks who never learned this stuff, or learned it but forgot it. Interesting to hear you had a different assumption from the title. If you want something trickier, check these ones out: https://www.interviewcake.com/question/stock-price https://www.interviewcake.com/question/swift/find-duplicate-...

I suggest that you market the series in a different way, perhaps "An Introduction to Data Structures", or something along those lines. Out of all the bullets in your outline you really only cover lists (random access, linked) and hash tables as actual data structures. That's partly why I expected a totally different article based on the title.

You could argue that the others are technically data structures, but I'm willing to bet most people will assume your standard list, map, heap, trie, tree, graph, etc. It's kind of like saying "Calculus for AP tests" and then only covering algebra up to Riemann sums.

Thanks for the links, I'll give them both a shot.

edit: just remembered that Calculus isn't on the SAT :)

Re: Data Structures for Coding Interviews

#90

Post by bkovacev »

narak wrote: post #49
Mutinix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he's being hyperbolic, maybe not. But that's entirely besides the point. I'm absolutely certain that there are many, many engineers who failed interviews because they couldn't write a zig-zag string and could yet come up with good solutions to problems at a real company. > what do you expect a programmer who can't reinvent a half-decent bubble sort to do But interviews aren't testing for that. The guy who inven…

Good CS fundamentals are important because they are transferable skill to a wide array of problems a startup may face. Just because someone wrote an impressive framework or library doesn't mean given a complex problem outside of their known domain (web framework design or package management tool), they would be have the necessary background to solve it. With strong math and CS knowledge, you can reason through almost…

> Array of problems a startup may face.

Not every company is a startup.

I'd much rather say a company like Google might have problems that require deep knowledge both inside and outside of someone's domain, but startups - no. They need to ship and optimize on the go, rinse and repeat.

> With strong math and CS knowledge, you can reason through almost any problem.

Until you can't. Math and CS, while certainly giving new perspectives, don't add much to the actual solution. What makes developers great is experience and not some text book knowledge of a topic. Hands on experience is a game changer.

Majority of the developers don't work and will most likely never work on something life-changing that they need to know every algorithm and data structure out there. Their time is better spent elsewhere.

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