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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

#281

Post by pnathan »

jlengrand wrote: post #77

I got into the habit of answering those questions orally, and then directly asking when was the last time it has been used by the person interviewing. In some cases the interviewer didn't quite like it, but most of the times it actually led into interesting discussions (finding questions is hard, what they are trying to gather as info ...). I'm based in Europe though, so YMMV

Ha, I'm up front: "this is a synthetic question, which has the purpose of x,y,z". Synthetic questions don't rely on specific tools, or specific problem framings, it can be thought of in isolation.

E.g., I usually put a database question on interviews, for the purpose of seeing what and how much the candidate knows about databases.

I also like doing a design question regarding handling larger data and doing back of the envelope complexity analyses of the solutions they come up with. I.e., what I expect a colleague to be able to do when we're working at our desks.

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

#282

Post by scarface74 »

varjag wrote: post #268
scarface74 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a great point we hear often, so I incorporated it into our last round of hiring. Some still couldn't do it with an IDE, their language of choice and access to Google. (sorting an array, with any algorithm you want)

Would using a built in library be acceptable? Actually in C knowing how to use qsort() does require having a little knowledge of how function pointers work. If they did, I would ask them what could be some drawbacks of using the built in qsort function (function call overhead).

On the other hand, would you accept a bubble sort as a solution? Or the most degenerate case- a bogosort ;) ?

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

#283

Post by pault »

dbancajas wrote: post #279
pault wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My resume speaks for itself. At the time of this writing, I am working with someone who has 10+ years of experience, including former positions as a lead developer. I was involved in the interview process and made the recommendation to hire, as they were able to answer a lot of domain-specific questions very well and had a good knowledge of the ecosystem. Fast-forward three months, and I am spending hours per day s…

what was wrong with this code? I don't deal with exceptions a lot so not familiar with the idioms here. Is it because the catch is not doing anything at i<3? And then at i==3 it just breaks from the for? So rendering the whole thing useless ?

`if i<3: continue; if i==3: break;` is what a for loop does. You don't have to manually control it.

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

#284

Post by threwawasy1228 »

kamarg wrote: post #271
threwawasy1228 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a bigger problem is that they probably weren't lying or fabricating their resume. They probably weren't trying to trick you in some way, they probably just have actually programmed like this for the last 10 years! In a lot of work environments especially in the midwest, it isn't surprising to encounter people like this that don't know basic best practices. The standards for what a company wants from their pro…

As someone from the Midwest I can assure you that we don't have a larger percentage of crappy coders than the coasts and tech hubs do. We spend just as much time fixing the code from your terrible developers as you do from ours. It's really a lack of training provided by companies and that most 4 year degrees don't actually prepare people to write good maintainable code so new developers have to luck into finding a m…

I didn't mean it to be insulting or to imply that there are not talented people in the Midwest. What I mean is that if you look to places like Louisville, KY for just one example, or Dayton, OH and look at the type of pay that is being offered there, it is vastly below the coasts. Even adjusted for cost of living and other expenses, many cities across the midwest pay below what is a reasonable market value, and naturally they only get people who will accept those below-market rates.

When I said 'the midwest' in my original post I didn't mean places like Chicago, St.Louis, or Indianapolis that pay industry standards adjusted for cost-of-living. It isn't out of the realm of possibility though for someone to get 10+ years experience in a place like Lexington and have them still not know basic things EVEN after having been trained.

Again this is just my anecdotal experience, I don't mean to insult anyone from these places. This is about brain-drain and salaries, not about anything intrinsic about a place or their people.

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

#285

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

pault wrote: post #205
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…

> My resume speaks for itself. At the time of this writing, I am working with someone who has 10+ years of experience, including former positions as a lead developer. I was involved in the interview process and made the recommendation to hire, as they were able to answer a lot of domain-specific questions very well and had a good knowledge of the ecosystem. Fast-forward three months, and I am spending hours per day s…

Entrepreneurial engineer here...

If I ever hire an engineer for my business -- I hope it'd be someone I've already worked with and know -- but if it had to be someone random, I'd pursue this method:

1) Solicit Resumes

2) Pick N candidates

3) Phone screen to make sure they aren't complete assholes

4) Stack rank & pop top candidate

5) Pay them to develop a feature on contract

6) If satisfied, repeat step 5 until ready to hire; else repeat step 4.

I think it'd be important from the start to let candidates know they might need to do a week or more of work (for pay) before getting a final hire. Some people would be put off by this, sure.

But I suspect the people put-off would be people desperately seeking full-time employment. I think it might attract a lot of talented people that don't want to go through a 4-week long ceremony of an interview process that takes up days of time with no pay, though.

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

#286

Post by _pgmf »

scarface74 wrote: post #161
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.

But I don’t think I would want to work for a company full of people hired via that process. I’ve met too many smart people(tm) who spend more time arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of pin than they spend figuring out how they can ship software faster/better/profitably.

I don't understand why you feel it's necessary to share your personal justifications (rationalizations), other than you're trying to normalize your own mediocrity. Which, by definition, already is normal.

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

#287

Post by aianus »

pault wrote: post #233
sokoloff wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this person doing (valuable) work that would even require hiring a replacement? If not, fire them. If so, lobby to secure a backfill and then fire them.

The crux of the problem is that we've interviewed dozens of applicants and none of them have been able to pass the sniff test. We are setting the bar pretty low, but the average skill level of the people we've had access to is shocking. There just isn't a supply of good developers for companies that aren't FAANGs or unicorns. And before anyone says we aren't paying enough, or we are being unfair, the reason these int…

Could you not hire someone smart who doesn't already know react/redux and teach it to them? Or give them a couple of weeks to do some tutorials?

I knew almost zero about web dev (I had been a decent C++/Java/Scala backend programmer) when I was hired to work in a web dev role -- I spent the first two weeks doing RoR tutorials on the internet and was just as productive as anyone else a couple of months after that.

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

#288

Post by _pgmf »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #156
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.

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.

I worked at a place with a demanding interview process for about 3 years and the people I worked with were excellent. Nobody is making you do anything you don't want to do. So drop the attitude and the childish entitlement.

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

#289

Post by coleifer »

jpeterson wrote: post #165
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.

That 90%+ of the hiring signal can be projected onto "hours spent on leetcode" is exactly why this process has become a parody of itself.

Who cares. It might as well be experimental theatre for all I care. If I want the job, I'll put in the effort. It's that simple.

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

#290

Post by 52-6F-62 »

scarface74 wrote: post #194
52-6F-62 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you are talking about something different. The parent poster was referring to a Devops position. Were you looking at a software engineer position?

I wasn't really actively looking for anything—they contacted me about a range of positions that centred around special projects that ranged in subject matter/disciplines.
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