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Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

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Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#21

Post by md2020 »

songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

Currently a junior in a reasonably well-regarded (and difficult) CS program, this is 100% how I feel. As a result of my genuine interest in the material being taught and desire to do well on course projects, I do not have the time or energy to be grinding Leetcode and HackerRank to the extent that I've read others do. Yet every company I apply to will not even speak to you unless you pass their brain-teaser-esque HackerRank problem, many of which are somewhat ambiguous and have typos in the problem statement. It's infuriating and seems like it only incentivizes the behavior you describe here.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#22

Post by patrickthebold »

Koshkin wrote: post #17
songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

How’s this different from a school exam preparation tool? It won’t teach you the subject; and if it did then what’s the harm?

It isn't but you shouldn't use those either.

Assuming you are taking classes to learn things rather then get a job.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#23

Post by patrickthebold »

haecceity wrote: post #3
lazyant wrote: post #2

in golang

I think python is the most efficient language to use in interviews tbh. Functional languages might be better depending on the problem but you don't want people thinking you're a witch or something.

I'd like to learn APL solely for interviews.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#24

Post by harikb »

songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

Sometime, "good candidates" shop around for more offers. It is not always clear any greater effort would actually yield better candidates. Where I work, the entire interview process is just a filter to remove the absolute worst. Then it is a game of luck - whether we can meet the insane demand of the one we liked and whether we are just another "offer" for them to negotiate elsewhere.

I think if companies are better at firing/managing mediocre employees, we wouldn't have so much bad apples trying to make their way in.

Part of the problem is the scarcity of engineers. There is an entire swath of great people, by that I mean decent folks who would be great at what-we-do, entirely avoiding the field because of per-conceived notions or some stigma or the other. If there a better and bigger pool of candidates, the bad ones will naturally leave the field.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#25

Post by Antoninus »

songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

This is something I've been going through for the past 2 months. The last few years I've been contracting with IGOs and VCs. Going through interview rounds with medium-large companies and some FAANG has had me purely doing algorithm problems instead of actually building or writing. But hey at least I can find the common elements between two graphs and return their values as a lowercase string.

Something happened between 2012 and today where you could get by one referral and a conversation with a tech lead. Maybe it's the influx or new grads entering the field.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#26

Post by johnwh »

haecceity wrote: post #3
lazyant wrote: post #2

in golang

I think python is the most efficient language to use in interviews tbh. Functional languages might be better depending on the problem but you don't want people thinking you're a witch or something.

Python (or really any dynamic programming language) makes interviews a lot easier, however I have started asking more in-depth questions to make sure they actually understand Python and have done a little bit of research into the language and implementation.

I have noticed some colleges have been teaching more to the interview, so their grads can crush some problems in Python but fail when you ask them to implement a helper they were using. I am not talking about implementing a heap either, I am talking about merging objects.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#27

Post by scarface74 »

songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

Why should he care about “being a good engineer” if all he has to do is reverse a binary tree on a whiteboard and make more money than he probably ever dreamed of?

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#28

Post by herval »

The new trend in SF/bay area seems to be companies you’re applying to preparing you _specifically_ for the questions they’ll ask. People realized no one memorizes one specific search algorithm or puzzle, so they now tell you, before the interview, that you’ll be asked problems A, B and C.

Not “algorithm problems” or “search” - “we’ll ask you to revert a doubly linked list”.

It’s bizarre.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#29

Post by songzme »

md2020 wrote: post #21
songzme wrote: post #12

It pains me to see another Coding Interview preparation tool. It's such a sad situation in the current industry. Students learn to game the system to get a high paying job. Students who care about what they are working on will painstakingly try to perfect their projects. They don't have time to game the system and therefore have a hard time getting a coveted job. Companies want to hire "the best" so they usually hire…

Currently a junior in a reasonably well-regarded (and difficult) CS program, this is 100% how I feel. As a result of my genuine interest in the material being taught and desire to do well on course projects, I do not have the time or energy to be grinding Leetcode and HackerRank to the extent that I've read others do. Yet every company I apply to will not even speak to you unless you pass their brain-teaser-esque Hac…

I'm sorry you feel this way. The best advice I can come up with is, either find a product space you care deeply about and see how far you can take it or swim with the wave and start preparing for coding interviews.

Re: Coding Interview Problems with Detailed Solutions, Test Cases, Program Analysis

#30

Post by cjohnson318 »

I like using the Blum Mental Hash as an interview question. As far as I can tell, it's not mentioned in any interview cram lists, and it's complex enough to see how candidates split up a problem.

https://scilogs.spektrum.de/hlf/mental-cryptography-and-good...

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