A whole class for technical interviews seems like overkill.
It also gives me an uneasy feeling of being in a tech bubble.
Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
31–40 of 292 posts
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#32If there is whole course on "interviewing", in or of top schools no less, then the interviews really became divorced from any meaning. That should be seen as major red flag that industry is doing something wrong.
Maybe there should not be cookie cutter interview at all, but more of harder look at which skills and personality traits are really needed for this or that position.
And I tend to do good on whiteboard interviews.
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#33I always thought the the technical white board interview never really matched what was expected.
A binary tree search has little to do with figuring out the pros and cons of which api to code against.
How about a scenario where you get to try to find a bug with legacy code?
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#34This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry.
>> FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry.
Industry is sane. They ask stuff relevant to actual work or real basics. They don't make a gameable process full of rules and techniques.
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#35This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry.
Depends on what you mean by "preparing". There isn't another engineering industry I can think of where an engineer with more than a couple of years of experience is going to be asked to whiteboard this sort of crap. I mean, my aerospace engineer friends don't have to prepare by reviewing their PDE, vector calculus, and linear algebra classes, which is what the analog to programming interviews of this sort would be.
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#36This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry.
Sister is a travel nurse. She does not prepare for interviews and typically has several a year. Her entire interview process goes: call the agency and tell them she is looking for a new position, have one to several 30-45minute phone calls with hiring managers at the hospitals she is interested in (she actually took one once in the middle of a wine tasting - and got the job), then wait to hear back.
That's what it's like for many other in-demand and well paying industries (she's mid-20's and makes low six figures in San Jose). Stop pretending like everyone else has to deal with the same bullshit as you, hiring in tech is BROKEN. Other industries do it better.
People's lives are dependent on how well she does her job. Are the hoops you have to jump through justifiable for how "important" your job is?
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#37This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…
Why should interviews test your ability to solve a problem you never expected to have to solve, rather than test your ability to prepare, research, and teach yourself?
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#38The on-the-spot technical interview is the biggest waste of time in the history of humanity. Everyone underperforms in technical interviews. I've conducted a number of them and I've never learned a single thing other than the fact that people make surprising mistakes when under pressure in contrived situations. Here's something that I think works much better: come up with a novel challenge that requires a couple hours of honest effort and have candidates present their solution to you when they come in.
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry.
>> FWIW, preparing for interviews is standard practice irrespective of the industry. Industry is sane. They ask stuff relevant to actual work or real basics. They don't make a gameable process full of rules and techniques.
It's been my experience that any industry that
* Is attractive enough (compensation, lifestyle, etc.)
* and has a larger supply of qualified applicants than desirable positions
Will result in applicants preparing for however they are interviewed, tested, etc. This isn't unique to software engineering interviews. People prepare for interviews or exams in finance, law, medicine, etc. They all have a system that is gameable. It might be newer in software engineering interviews, but that is mostly because CS is now incredibly popular and top talent is compensated very well.
Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview
#40What the hell?
Shouldn't we focus on creating great engineers instead of training them to make a good impression on an interview?
I think is completely immoral. Becoming good at something is a matter of consistent practice that brings experience and expertise over time. There is not other way around it.
People might pass the interview but their hat will fall in a matter of weeks. This is PUA for interviews by a University, this is really depressing.
The only thing that gives me hope is that great engineers will always solve problems no matter what. Tech hiring is going to become much harder.