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Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

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Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#12
Honestly if I ever had someone yell at me in an interview I'd just pick my stuff up and walk out.

Cheap way of figuring out you don't want to work there. Give feedback to the recruiter of what is unacceptable behaviour.

As to the actual point I'm with you: be explicit. I write std::cout too. Not that I'd get upset if someone used "using namesace std" as long as such using statements are used judiciously, it's fine. Like if someone creates something claled "cout" in namespace "foo" and then writes this:

    using namespace foo;
    ...
    cout 
Then yeah I'd ping them on a code review.

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#13
> The interviewer just lost it. Went on this rant

> And he was just plain mad. Uncomfortable mad.

Good thing you found this out during the interview. No way you would want to deal with this on a daily basis. That's insane. If the company has an HR department you should consider telling them what happened.

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#14
You were interviewed by someone dumber than yourself. It's simply amazing when someone gets angry about something and they are also wrong.

You should name and shame them. Imagine if you didn't have the good fortune to be interviewed by this person. You would be spending the next 2 years debugging his merge code haha.

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#16
I had an interview where the interviewer was much more concerned about looking smart and presenting his cleverly chosen question, than ever wanting to know if I was a good candidate.

I even told him that his overbearing interjections we’re throwing off my rhythm.

I never heard back from him. Probably for the better.

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#17
That tells you a lot about the company. Even if he didn't yell at you and just spent a lot of time arguing about code style, it still tells you a lot about the company - that they are probably a lot of architect astronauts who are more concerned about minutiae than shipping software.

Also a warning sign - applying for a senior level/architect position and most of your interview is spent writing leetCode and not discussing higher level concepts.

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#19
No matter what type or kind of interview you go to, it is unacceptable to be treated like this, even if you have started talking nonsense or unrelated to the interview questions.

This guy's attitude represents what is currently happening inside that company: the environment must be extremely toxic to work in and as the others have said, you have just dodged a bullet.

In all seriousness, I wouldn't want to work for such a company, even if they paid me 1 billion dollars.

Prestige and dignity above all mate, heads us!

Re: Ask HN: Scolded on a job interview for not namespacing

#20
post #3

Based on your description of their behavior, the interviewer sounds like an socially insecure and technically incompetent programmer. Even worse would have been if you were hired and worked with this person as organizationally senior to you (shudder). Not exactly "Mr. Mentor" material.

I can't imagine a universe where a well-qualified senior developer would be so obsessed with such a pedantic thing. To call the code unreadable because it needs a small refactor... that interviewer was clearly letting their emotions guide their thought process. Advise why to use the namespace, hear what the interviewee has to say, tie off the discussion, and move on.

"Rockstars" who can't teach do long-term damage to engineering culture.

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