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Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

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Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#51

Post by jasonkester »

Swizec wrote: post #42
mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

This sounds like you're having the wrong conversations. With all your experience, why are you still going into companies through the front door? Where's your network? Fundamentally: Why are you having the "Can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" conversation instead of the "How much value can you add to this company" conversation? Perhaps my experience as a consultant/freelancer is breaking my perspective. It's…

Well said. It occurs to me that my last job interview that involved convincing the other party that I was a good developer was back in 1999 when I had just a few years of experience.

Since then every gig has come via an introduction by a former boss or co-worker, or by introducing myself to somebody with hiring authority and using a pile of impressive artifacts to skip the "can this guy do the work" questions.

The first several years of your career should be getting yourself into a position where nobody would ever dare ask you to sort things on a whiteboard.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#52

Post by ryanar »

lilott8 wrote: post #43
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #14

> But the aha moment for me was that not everyone does well in those fast-paced brainstorming sessions. A lot of people (including me) prefer to sit with a cup of coffee and some data and try to think things through. This is me. Hard to get that across in an interview, but once people work with me, they're cool with me coming back an hour later in an email with some thoughts on the last meeting topic. They know and r…

My life's motto is: "Let me think about it, I'll get back to you."

That same nugget was in The Pragmatic Programmer which I recently have been reading. In regards to estimates or questions about things you don't know, if you can't give a good answer on the spot the second best answer is "Let me get back to you.". The bad answer or estimate will just cause pain for your team/org.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#54

Post by b_tterc_p »

mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting algorithms, sure.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#55

Post by compsciphd »

BurningFrog wrote: post #23
coralreef wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google stopped asking brainteaser questions like that because they found no correlation in its hiring usefulness.

I'll be the obligatory ex Googler claiming Google never did ask brainteaser questions, or at least they were long gone by 2006.

I was asked to estimate Pi using a unit circle (diameter = 1) inscribed in a unit square (side = 1) around 2012-2013. In a manner that would have a controllable amount of precision.

They wanted monte carlo (more darts, more precision), I went riemann sums (smaller delta x, more precision). It totally through me off my game for the rest of the interview as I was constantly thinking about it.

while not quite a traditional brain teaser, there are a couple of insights one has to get to solve it

1. ratio of circle area to square = pi/4 (but remember, you don't know pi yet, just that it exists, the point is to estimate it)

2. a way to make use of that ratio (i.e. monte carlo, pick a random 2d point (on both x,y from -0.5 to 0.5) if the distance from (0,0) is greater than 1, it is only added to the square, otherwise it gets added to both.

combine the 2 insights and you get pi ~ 4*circle/square

(as mentioned I went with riemann sums, where I calculated the area under the curve of the circle's arc in one quadrant, but same idea you get pi ~ circle_arc_area/.25)

those 2 points aren't quite obvious (I went riemann sums as area questions made me think calculus and went totally down that rabbit hole), and in 30-40 minutes of brainstorming (first 10-15 minute discussion about the person, then actual interview question, then 5+ minutes for any questions you have for the interviewer) can be difficult for many people to get.

The problem can then be, many people can't just stop thinking about a problem they struggled with and will continue to process it (hurting their following interview Qs),

i.e. even if that interviewer thought I did sufficiently, I believe it hurt me on the following Qs as I couldn't just let it go, which in the real world is how I think many people work. If they are struggling with how to solve something, they are dealing with it even when they are supposedly focused on other things (say in meetings, eating lunch....)

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#56

Post by izacus »

mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

Did you, in your "proven career", ever work on the systems the size of Google Cloud and having same amount of users?

Because cheap stuff you can run away with on 1mil users suddenly falls apart when you need to serve more across continents and suddenly you kinda need to know what all those words in documentation actually mean.

Also, as for CV, everytime I've interviewed people I've gotten more than I few people that lied in their CVs. Persumed "senior developers" who couldn't do a fizzbuzz in their chosen language and tooling. CVs are utterly worthless from interviewers perspective - there will always be someone with exact same CV like you have but will be utterly incompetent.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#57

Post by jasonkester »

khazhoux wrote: post #47
Swizec wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like you're having the wrong conversations. With all your experience, why are you still going into companies through the front door? Where's your network? Fundamentally: Why are you having the "Can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" conversation instead of the "How much value can you add to this company" conversation? Perhaps my experience as a consultant/freelancer is breaking my perspective. It's…

If you apply for a full-time software engineering position at a large company today, you will be run through the all-day series-of-hourlong-interviews, even if you are a referral. It is possible for the hiring manager to work closely with recruiter and recruiting coordinator to craft a more customized interview process, but that's rare (and, impossible at a place like Google, which decentralizes hiring). The value of…

You use the term "apply for a job", which might explain the disconnect. The post you reply to isn't about applying for jobs.

You don't want to "apply" for things. You want your google VP to be having a beer with your ex-boss and worrying that his pet project was going to fail because they just can't find a guy who can really $X.

But your ex boss knows a guy who absoulutely can $X, and just finished $X'ing his company back from the brink of disaster. Lets give him a call to see if he's available.

HR will be told to give that guy an offer and, optionally, collect a resume to keep on file.

That's what we're talking about here, and it's where you want to get yourself if you want to build a career as an individual contributor.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#58

Post by kurtisc »

izacus wrote: post #56
mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

Did you, in your "proven career", ever work on the systems the size of Google Cloud and having same amount of users? Because cheap stuff you can run away with on 1mil users suddenly falls apart when you need to serve more across continents and suddenly you kinda need to know what all those words in documentation actually mean. Also, as for CV, everytime I've interviewed people I've gotten more than I few people that…

A new grad certainly hasn't. Microsoft are saying here that the older interviews didn't test for skills that would actually be used.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#59

Post by izacus »

Swizec wrote: post #42
mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

This sounds like you're having the wrong conversations. With all your experience, why are you still going into companies through the front door? Where's your network? Fundamentally: Why are you having the "Can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" conversation instead of the "How much value can you add to this company" conversation? Perhaps my experience as a consultant/freelancer is breaking my perspective. It's…

> Fundamentally: Why are you having the "Can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" conversation instead of the "How much value can you add to this company" conversation?

Because people lie. It's that simple. Referrals lie, CVs lie, friends lie to get friends in a position. Do understand that there's a fundamentally different set of problem a 40.000 FTE company has to deal with in comparison to a 30 person startup.

Also is doing a full day interview really such a horrible sacrifice for most paid jobs in the world? Professions like laywers and doctors need to go through significantly longer hazing rituals to get to FAANG income... is a month of study to be essentially among the most paid people in the world REALLY such a horrible thing?

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#60

Post by anewguy9000 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #14

> But the aha moment for me was that not everyone does well in those fast-paced brainstorming sessions. A lot of people (including me) prefer to sit with a cup of coffee and some data and try to think things through. This is me. Hard to get that across in an interview, but once people work with me, they're cool with me coming back an hour later in an email with some thoughts on the last meeting topic. They know and r…

thinking. it's almost a lost art.
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