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Today's Coding Interview Game

shubharamani.com

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Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#111

Post by risotto »

btilly wrote: post #106
tgflynn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were looking to hire a developer I would do the following : 1) Select a set of candidates based on their resumes making the assumption at this point that their resumes are honest. Good candidates should have at least worked on some interesting projects so their resumes should look interesting. Most lame candidates wouldn't even be able to invent a credible interesting project. 2) Do phone interviews where I woul…

I'm sorry, but this process would not work. You are basically filtering for presentation ability. But 3/4 of programmers are introverts, and giving presentations is simply not part of their job. You're therefore selecting for the wrong skills until the contract step. At the contract step you create another problem. Good programmers who want to be employees probably already have jobs and are somewhat risk adverse. Tha…

We do almost exactly this at my company and it works wonders.

Presentations are not about powerpoint. They are about geeks geeking out with other geeks. Every talented programmer I know has a pet project he'd love to talk your ear off about.

The presentations we solicit are often little more than the candidate opening up a text editor and showing off some code, and fielding tame questions from the other developers.

As for the contract position, everyone that is motivated to switch jobs, or to come work for us, can find time to do the really simple tasks we split off for $100/hr.

It is also made clear that if you've made it to the contract, we are extremely interested in hiring you, or else we wouldn't give you access to the repo or the team. The gig is to give both sides a chance to see what working on something real feels like.

We have found only excellent developers after this process. That said, it probably doesn't scale very well, and I'm sure we've unfairly weeded out many good devs.

Also, we skip a lot of the BS if there someone comes highly recommended from current employees or other partners we trust.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#112

Post by tgflynn »

Xurinos wrote: post #108
btilly wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but this process would not work. You are basically filtering for presentation ability. But 3/4 of programmers are introverts, and giving presentations is simply not part of their job. You're therefore selecting for the wrong skills until the contract step. At the contract step you create another problem. Good programmers who want to be employees probably already have jobs and are somewhat risk adverse. Tha…

You are basically filtering for presentation ability. ...unless you are looking to hire someone in sales or someone to represent you. :) But I agree with you. For something like software development, I think the presentation process can be improved by talking to the candidate as part of the presentation, not just letting them starve in front of an audience. Let's not rule out the presentation mechanism; you can learn…

Also the candidate would be evaluated on the content of the presentation - not his presentation skills per se.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#113

Post by mikeklaas »

grayhairmomma wrote: post #83
mikeklaas wrote: post #8

If I found this article by a potential applicant, I'd be much less likely to hire them. Besides the obvious red flag of the sentiment why should I have to code at a programming interview , the knowledge that they have been rejected by many other companies would make me worry.

Sorry you feel that way. Several hiring managers from top companies feel differently than you though, because they have contacted me directly and even asked me to apply at their companies. Does this mean that I've got an instant job ? Of course not. I still have much proving to accomplish -- to these hiring managers and their crew. But they obviously see a glimpse of something special in me -- which you don't. I spea…

Good luck. I hope those leads work out for you.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#114

Post by aplusbi »

grayhairmomma wrote: post #84
edw519 wrote: post #80

on a white board, no syntax errors, compilable Huh? You're worrying about whether or not what you write on a white board will compile? How do you know? Press a magic button to OCR what you've written, download it into some computer somewhere, and compile it? Sounds like you're interviewing at firms with technology I didn't know existed. Your interviewers have you code on a white board so that they can evaluate you ,…

Thanks for your support. The reason I mention "on a white board, no syntax errors, compilable" is because I've been dinged at the whiteboard for these silly reasons. No shit ! And Gayle Laakmann, author of "Cracking the Coding Interview" actually says it's important to write nearly perfect code at the whiteboard.

How do you know you were dinged for these silly reasons? Did they actually tell you that?

I wouldn't be surprised if there are programmers out there who ding candidates for silly reasons like that, but in my experience they are the minority.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#115

Post by darwinGod »

darwinGod wrote: post #68
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hired someone who did brilliantly on walking and talking through all the conceptual issues. Turned out they couldn't code, and they couldn't touch someone else's code without breaking it. I need to see someone code.

Like the subtle use of the word 'they', incorrect grammatically,correct politically

Didn't realize this usage of singular they was correct-thanks for pointing that out! :-)

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#116

Post by okaramian »

btilly wrote: post #106
tgflynn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were looking to hire a developer I would do the following : 1) Select a set of candidates based on their resumes making the assumption at this point that their resumes are honest. Good candidates should have at least worked on some interesting projects so their resumes should look interesting. Most lame candidates wouldn't even be able to invent a credible interesting project. 2) Do phone interviews where I woul…

I'm sorry, but this process would not work. You are basically filtering for presentation ability. But 3/4 of programmers are introverts, and giving presentations is simply not part of their job. You're therefore selecting for the wrong skills until the contract step. At the contract step you create another problem. Good programmers who want to be employees probably already have jobs and are somewhat risk adverse. Tha…

I think I'm kind of introverted but I can still interact with human beings. A good programmer should be able to communicate with other human beings, and a presentation (which in this case I believe is "Tell me about a project you've worked on recently?") isn't out of line at all. I talk about what I'm doing at work pretty consistently; you're basically being put in the same position during the interview you would be when having to explain your work to a CTO or someone in a similar position.

And the problem with coding interviews is that they filter out other good candidates, and I've seen plenty of companies complaining that "They can't find any qualified developers."

I would not blame the developers for this, I'd blame their selection process for focusing on things most developers don't really touch or care about when they're working on a project.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#117

Post by aplusbi »

agentultra wrote: post #81

Coding problems in interviews can be a put off for me (though not a complete turn off if everything else about the job looks good). 1. It shows unfamiliarity with my work. It seems rude to invite me all the way into your office just to be filtered. In a perfect world (or at least the one I knew some years ago) I'd be invited into an interview because you were already familiar with my work and wanted to talk to me --…

My company is currently in the middle of a lot of college recruiting. Most college students/recent grads have very little to show. If you're lucky they had the forethought to save some of their school projects and post them online.

Even a lot of industry people don't have much to show. Plenty of decent programmers don't have serious side projects (or aren't comfortable releasing them to the public).

As for regurgitated answers, I keep my eye out for those. You can usually tell if someone has seen a similar problem before. If I think they have I ask them. I sometimes ask a different question to see if it was raw ability or familiarity.

They do tell you a lot. They tell you whether the candidate can actually write basic code or not. I'm not trying to see if you are a great programmer, I'm trying to see if you are a bad programmer. It can be really difficult to spot a great programmer, but it's usually very easy to spot a bad one.

Anxiety is a real problem however. I try to take that into account but it affects so many people in so many different ways.

Personally I think resume's are worthless. I think the best form of application would involve some form of code submission - either a simple "screener" problem or perhaps a personal project. That might still be followed by an on-site screening interview (people lie and cheat all the time).

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#118

Post by golgo13 »

I dunno guys. Shouldn't the C++/C#/Java dudes be ready for this? I am an SQL Server Dev/DBA and the code/design something on paper type questions are expected for us. Plus it goes even deeper with DMVs, system stored procedures, etc. I just don't get why the dev folks are surprised when an interviewer asks them to implement a doubly linked list or something along those lines.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#119

Post by MetallicCloud »

buro9 wrote: post #77
sokoloff wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage people like yourself to put enough information your HN profile that you can be reached for networking purposes by other HN readers. Many of us may be in a position to offer interviews for non-suck jobs or pointers towards same, that we aren't going to post in open comments to the entire HN community, but would send targetted to the email in your HN profile. If you are shy or anti-marketing, you may…

Seconded. I'm hiring and whenever I see HN posts I like I check profiles immediately for location information and contact details, or at least info on where I might find out more about someone. HN is networking. Make yourself discoverable.

Thanks for the tip guys. Updated.

Re: Today's Coding Interview Game

#120

Post by sokoloff »

MetallicCloud wrote: post #119
buro9 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. I'm hiring and whenever I see HN posts I like I check profiles immediately for location information and contact details, or at least info on where I might find out more about someone. HN is networking. Make yourself discoverable.

Thanks for the tip guys. Updated.

You now have location there (which turns out to be fairly close to one of our facilities) but no contact information, so I still can't reach out to you.

If you're extremely uncomfortable listing an email address (or lisp form that evaluates to one or something similar), you can reach out to me based on my profile, but I'd really urge you to list some contact information in your profile, even if it's a throwaway account that you can easily walk away later from if the volume becomes overwhelming. If you're reaching out to me, add "HackerNews" in the subject line, please.

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