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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

#181

Post by Circuits »

I think I got lucky. I landed a job at the first company I applied too about 6 months before graduating. I was asked only two technical questions neither required a white board. The first was about how to deal with a temperature sensor which was giving erratic readings. The other was about sorting arrays. Since then I have participated in about 5 interviews of other hopeful candidates. My company's approach to the interviewing process seems to be rather straight forward:

* Does the interviewee have a basic understanding of what we do? * Does it seem as though they will fit well here? * How do they deal with failure? * Are they excited about working for us?

and the one thing that seems to be most important:

* If they don't know how to do something are they willing to put in the time to learn?

It seems to have served us well. I am always surprised when I read stories like this where candidates are turned away for not being able to build a quad-tree on a white board in 5 minuets whilst hanging upside down by their toes and repeating the alphabet backwards...

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

#183

Post by WhompingWindows »

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.

Can you explain that? Wouldn't being skilled at algorithms be a false positive at times for dev-ops skills in OP's scenario? Maybe the algorithmic knowledge is simply rote and practicing, as opposed to skills and knowledge in dev-ops specifically.

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

#184

Post by kd5bjo »

Balgair wrote: post #167
jasonpeacock wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair, the reddit post was about a DevOps applicant being asked a single dynamic programming questions for the interview. It's as if you asked an auto repair mechanic about designing involute tooth profiles on fishbone pattern gears in a transmission. Sure, if they could do that, then yes they'll be a great technician, but it has nothing to do with brake jobs and oil changes. EDIT: Per the responses in the reddi…

We don’t know what expectations were set in the interview for the solution space, but anyone with (Unix) ops experience should have the thought “grep can do that” pop into their head. And people with a formal CS education should be able to come up with the dynamic programming solution.

So, whichever side of dev-ops you lean to, there’s a reasonable answer that should be within your field of expertise. And given Palantir’s line of business (the company involved), I wouldn’t be surprised if dissecting a byte string with limited information about it’s structure comes up from time to time in their actual work.

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

#185

Post by diminoten »

scottLobster wrote: post #89
libria wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although in the interview I might politely ask (after solving the problem) what relevance it has to the job, just to make the point. I highly advise you don't do this, because I don't consider it polite. Everyone tries to be objective in final review, so don't jab them with something snarky they'll remember about you while discussing your performance. It's an exercise, it's artificial. Can you convert an abstract i…

I wouldn't ask it snarkily. I've been hired for jobs before and then asked to work on stuff that, while related, was nowhere in the job description. Got hired to do Java/C++ development, was pushed into being part-time sysadmin for our primary test environment because my team had spare capacity and our dev-ops team didn't. There were times I went 6 months without touching a line of Java or C++. Another guy I worked w…

There's literally no way to not ask that snarkily. Don't do it.

Also, it reeks of "justice driven opinion having" which is scary beyond reason for an employer, e.g. "They didn't ask for this feature the right way so I'm not going to deliver it/deliver it in a way that makes them unhappy."

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

#186

Post by scarface74 »

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…

Yes but I’m not writing code everyday on a whiteboard, I’m writing it in an IDE with access to Google.

When I am at a whiteboard I am drawing very crude architectural diagrams.

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

#187

Post by joeax »

jpeterson wrote: post #153
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.

The whole "false positives" narrative is an example of the "saying something enough makes it true" fallacy.

I've interviewed dozens of people, and you can easily root out false positives by asking about their prior experience. Simply probing about things like design patterns to challenges with Javacript front-end coding is enough. If the candidate can go into explicit detail about past projects including bugs they fixed and limitations they came across in a Angular 6 project (as an example), then that's usually a good sign they know what they're talking about.

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

#188

Post by fdjlasdfjl »

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…

We draft a test tailored to each position. I couldn't even imagine using some canned crappy algo test. People claim more skill on their resume than they typically have, so having a test on the tools they'll actually use is a great way to determine fit for intermediate and senior roles. We also run the test for junior roles but there is a loooooot of latitude on the test, we're mostly interested in how they respond to interview questions.

Also I feel that a paper test (without google) is important because I see "failures" who get the concepts right but fuck up the syntax or easily google-able things.

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

#189

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

Nested loops are difficult to code up on a whiteboard, much easier to do on a computer with a code editor. It’s just difficult to manage the real estate, while fixing edit errors on a whiteboard is super messy (I’m left handed and constantly smudge also), easily throwing me out of my code think.

Who the heck writes code on a whiteboard for production anyways?

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

#190

Post by diminoten »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #108
shepardrtc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they generally do require programming knowledge Yes > probably an algorithm here and there No Even Amazon doesn't ask about algorithms for DevOps. When I interviewed with them for a DevOps position, they asked me to write a Python script to parse logs files. They also asked about various linux commands that you would use to work with those same logs. Pretty relevant. But the interviewer never once asked about algor…

Hm. I spoke with Amazon (AWS) recently (haven't interviewed yet), and they made the express point that if I were to accept an interview that I should brush up on my algos and HackerRank questions because they loved HackerRank and would surely use a series of those-style problems throughout the interview process. My last in-depth interview was a take-home/collaborative project (paid) for a smaller company here in Cana…

It's probably per-team, someone on here mentioned that's how Google works at least.

Someone I know did an AWS interview round during business school, and they do this thing called "bar raising" (IIRC) that involves one of the interviewers literally doing something unpleasant to see how you react (e.g. picking their teeth in the camera, cutting you off when you speak). Very odd.

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