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I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

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Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#151

Post by threwawasy1228 »

opportune wrote: post #4

I guess if you don't like the company's interviewing process you don't have to work there. Unemployment rate for software engineers is pretty low these days so just go with somewhere else. I'll keep working at places that ask programming questions because basically all the highest-paying places do that these days. And as snobby as it sounds, I want to keep working with other people who can pass algorithms teasers Als…

Can you or anyone cite where you have read that the unemployment rate for software engineers is low? I'd love to see it but I'm not able to find much trying to search for a citation on this point. I'm not sure that it is actually low, but this seems to be a common parlance amongst recruiters.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#152

Post by fhbdukfrh »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #104
caymanjim wrote: post #85

Interviewing people is hard. Most people suck at it. I've interviewed over 100 people in my life, and I've been interviewed about ten times. I know I still suck at it. The code test is one of the more annoying facets of interviews. On the hiring side, it's an efficient way to screen and vet candidates for basic skills. It's relatively low cost to the employer to have a recruiter issue the test. If you come up with yo…

I've had interviews start very positively with such an approach of questions, but then "just to be thorough" I have them code something simple on the whiteboard and they completely fail. Some of them couldn't even get nested for loops to work correctly. If you're hiring someone to write code for you, you need to have them write code in the interview. There's no substitute for it. Obviously, you can improve the experi…

This doesn't Test if they can develop software; this tests if they can diffuse a bomb.

Also there's no point in bringing someone in for an interview before they've shown any coding experience. It's a colossal waste of time for everyone, including the candidate

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#153

Post by jpeterson »

kache_ wrote: post #126

The reason that people still ask algorithmic questions is because they work for avoiding false positives. False positives are a lot more damaging to a company compared to false negatives. While algorithmic questions can get many false negatives, they don't get much false positives. What does it mean for a software developer? Spend a few hours a week doing leetcode questions. They're really not that hard.

"they work for avoiding false positives"

Citation needed. I have many years of experiential evidence that suggests otherwise.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#154

Post by collyw »

mondoshawan wrote: post #138
Stronico wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far it's worked very well for me. Since I've started using it (admittedly my sample size is small) I've found some very effective programmers, and automatically filtered out a lot of egotistical types. Software is usually a collaborative effort and this technique helps in that regard.

I've done well over 200+ interviews myself, and been on hiring committees where I have had chances to review other interviews. This kind of behavior usually trashes the following ones and aets the candidate up for failure.

To be fair I have "fessed up" to not knowing about a subject that was mentioned on my CV where I had used the tech a little bit 5+ years ago. Been offered the job both times. Though I could see if you hadn't had that experience it wouldn't be the answer that you would want to give.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#155

Post by Stronico »

mondoshawan wrote: post #143
jstanley wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite the same as a trick question (which I agree you should avoid). He's not looking for the interviewee to say "I don't know" to any particular question. The correct answer is a perfectly acceptable answer too. The unacceptable answer is to make up bullshit, which is precisely what he's trying to filter out.

In the process you are pushing the candidate to the breaking point and eliminating any confidence they may have had in their abilities. They will end up demoralized and most likely fail the following interviews if they're the nervous sort. If they're smart, they'll bid you goodbye and you end up with a black eye reputation.

Any interview (of mine) is a conversation - they're not something you pass or fail - it's just a way for a potential employer and employee to get to know one another so they can make better decisions. Nobody won, lost, passed or failed. The interview is just there to provide more information to determine if the potential employer and employee would fit well together.

If I were in an interview that was presented as a zero sum game I would walk out too.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#156

Post by daveFNbuck »

coleifer wrote: post #135
kache_ wrote: post #126

The reason that people still ask algorithmic questions is because they work for avoiding false positives. False positives are a lot more damaging to a company compared to false negatives. While algorithmic questions can get many false negatives, they don't get much false positives. What does it mean for a software developer? Spend a few hours a week doing leetcode questions. They're really not that hard.

Yeah, I studied for an interview and it paid off huge. Just treat it like a cs exam and you'll be fine.

Getting past the interview isn't the only step to being fine. I also want to work at a company where my co-workers know what they're doing. When the hiring process uses an irrelevant filter, you end up filtering out qualified people and letting in unqualified people.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#157

Post by scarface74 »

kache_ wrote: post #126

The reason that people still ask algorithmic questions is because they work for avoiding false positives. False positives are a lot more damaging to a company compared to false negatives. While algorithmic questions can get many false negatives, they don't get much false positives. What does it mean for a software developer? Spend a few hours a week doing leetcode questions. They're really not that hard.

The one whiteboarding code review I had was to pseudocode a merge sort on the board. I knew the question he was going to ask because I had two coworkers who had gone through the process previously, one had worked with the company and the other declined the offer.

I already had an offer by then but I did the interview for grins and giggles and didn’t try to remember what a merge sort was. I actually wanted to test the culture of the company. If they ask me to write a merge sort and I don’t know the algorithm, will they describe it on a high level or will they look at me derisively? That would tell me a lot about the company.

Well anyway, the guy was nice enough, I did the mergesort on the board, got an offer but decided if their interview for “senior engineers” consisted of the ability to do a merge sort instead of deeper architectural questions, that wasn’t the company I wanted to work for.

When I conduct interviews, I have a simplified non working (but compiling) class that is a sample of the types of problems we solve everyday with a set of failing unit tests. We pair program and they have to see if the tests pass.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#158

Post by echelon »

collyw wrote: post #140
coleifer wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I studied for an interview and it paid off huge. Just treat it like a cs exam and you'll be fine.

I did that nearly 20 years ago. Why do I need to do it now?

Because you want the job.

If you don't put in the work, someone else will.

These are high paying positions. You can't just expect to lazily stroll in.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#159

Post by david-gpu »

collyw wrote: post #140
coleifer wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I studied for an interview and it paid off huge. Just treat it like a cs exam and you'll be fine.

I did that nearly 20 years ago. Why do I need to do it now?

Because you are applying for a job where the interview requires you to answer that sort of questions. Maybe you don't want that job so much, and that's okay. Personally, I would refuse to do take-home projects, and that's also okay.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#160

Post by majkinetor »

dijit wrote: post #38
icedchai wrote: post #36

Good DevOps engineers are software engineers that can also do infrastructure work. They should be able to code. Unfortunately, many are "cloud sysadmins", for lack of a better term.

_Good_ DevOps engineers are anyone on either side of the discipline spectrum who can work with the other side. DevOps are teams, not people. https://devops.com/is-devops-a-title/

I know that everybody say this, but my experience in real world tells me differently. DevOps is a skill, beside being anything else.

Good DevOps engineers are above everything else good developers. Those kind of developers like to control every aspect of the final product so then they enter system administration, networking, deployments, metrics etc.

On the other hand there is DevOps culture and teams and that is something else and can be reasoned about separately.

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