Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

news.efinancialcareers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 731 posts

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#271

Post by meheleventyone »

an_opabinia wrote: post #214
gumby wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. I feel precisely the opposite: if you work somewhere with people you like working with (and who like working with you) then you will start t…

No dude, I’ve been burned by exactly what that poster described. Being well networked just gets your application opened. The leetcode is what gets you hired. The people who would hire me without leetcode were either trying to take advantage of me or have never been my coworkers. As another commenter said: Leetcode, leetcode, leetcode.

I think it really depends on how and where you get referred. Bigger companies are likely to be process heavy and inflexible.

My last three interviews and job moves have all been from referrals or old colleagues. None had coding challenges and all resulted in job offers. But that was a small satellite team for a big org and two early stage startups.

It’s also a consequence of timing and luck though. I’d definitely be prepping harder for job hunting.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#272

Post by koonsolo »

andrew_ wrote: post #88

Tech hiring is severely broken. 22 years in and it's only gotten worse. We still tolerate PhD Comp Sci algorithm questions for frontend developer gigs, endless series of array shuffling and sorting, canned problems intended to "measure your problem solving ability," ridiculous hypotheticals (e.g. whiteboard how you would build Slack), and a litany of other tactics that recruiters or old school management thinks are r…

You can't believe how many people are unable to do the basic things like sort an array.

These kind of questions is not to see how smart you are, it is to weed out all the ones who don't event get the most basic parts of programming. And I can assure you as someone doing a shitload of interviews, that a huge part of candidates doesn't understand the basics of programming such as sorting an array.

If all candidates had a minimum competence, sure we could do other kinds of things. But right now, you will first have to pass the "I can do newbie programming" tests.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#273

Post by selimthegrim »

jpcooper wrote: post #221
echelon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

I’m spending some time in Constantinople right now, if anyone wants to spend some time lamenting the fall of the Western Roman Empire together. That is, after the weekend plague curfew. Email transitively in profile.

How is the plague of Justinian treating you so far?

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#274

Post by vorhemus »

Every few weeks this topic comes up and the complaint is always the same: Coding interviews have nothing to do with day-to-day work. But who says that this is the goal of those interviews? Maybe these companies simply want young, ambitious and smart people and their coding interviews measure exactly that: Young (has enough time practicing leetcode questions), ambitious (is willing to spend time practicing leetcode questions) and smart (recently graduated and still has detailed CS and algorithmic knowledge in mind and is mentally capable of solving algorithmic problems).

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#275

Post by koonsolo »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #267
koonsolo wrote: post #255

It's easy to complain without giving a better alternative. I see these kind of articles on HN all the time. But nobody really gives a better alternative. Same in this article: "In the past, when I was interviewing myself, I would come across large numbers of really smart candidates all the time." So how did he know they were smart? So anyone with experience in interviewing candidates have a better alternative than le…

The same way you size up anyone else's aptitude, really: by making them feel comfortable, speaking with them honestly, trying to quickly figure out what excites them and asking lots of follow-up questions. When someone is eager and bright, and they've been made to feel relaxed, it's usually obvious. Conducting a great interview is hard. It requires some mentorship and a ton of practice. Not everyone's cut out for it.…

Again an answer with a lot of fluff but no real content.

So what do you ask then? How do you assess the skills of the candidate?

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#276

Post by meekrohprocess »

andrew_ wrote: post #88

Tech hiring is severely broken. 22 years in and it's only gotten worse. We still tolerate PhD Comp Sci algorithm questions for frontend developer gigs, endless series of array shuffling and sorting, canned problems intended to "measure your problem solving ability," ridiculous hypotheticals (e.g. whiteboard how you would build Slack), and a litany of other tactics that recruiters or old school management thinks are r…

Yeah, it does seem like the best jobs are the ones that you don't have to jump through arbitrary hoops for. Ideally, your employer or client will respect you as a human being who has something valuable to bring to the table.

When I find "good jobs", they almost always crop up from serendipity in areas that I am genuinely interested in at the time. Looking back it feels like dumb luck, but the sort of dumb luck that is helped along by trying to make your own opportunities.

If you ever have a chance to talk candidly with an executive or entrepreneur about a subject that you are passionate about...well, at least take the meeting. Those sorts of discussions aren't interviews per se, but sometimes your vision will click with someone else's, and that's where the magic happens.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#277

Post by throwaway201103 »

ornornor wrote: post #227
wolco2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are ads suddenly so evil? Ads are paided messages.

They’re designed to trick you into acting against your best interests. To push you to spend money you don’t have on shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t like, to quote a witty whoever wrote this.

I'd say that sounds like George Carlin but just a guess.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#278

Post by gonzo41 »

sudeepj wrote: post #90
echelon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

> Our craft is becoming arcane I would say is that a lot of hard problems (of last 20-30 yrs) are getting commoditised (e.g. S3, DynamoDB, Redis) and barrier to entry reduced. This would mean increasing the work is "glue & pipes".

Yes it's glue and pipes. Services mean that you can focus on your core product. And most products are...pretty boring.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#279

Post by koonsolo »

tomcat27 wrote: post #114
dilyevsky wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally a scan of string with some basic logic and three cases inside. People would take 30 mins+ and create a giant mess. This was easily 50%+ cases during phone screen and resumes all looked good so not recruiters fault (most of the time).

Hard to believe. Actually I am surprised companies even asks such a simple question anymore. When was that? I have done several LC easy and mediums, have done internships and published papers and didn't even make it to phone screen at every FAANG or other companies whose names carry some weight in future interview opportunities.

That is exactly my experience too as someone who does a lot of interviews.

Basically our job is to weed out the candidates that haven't made it to "newbie programmer" yet, and probably never will.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#280

Post by f4stjack »

Holy crap, I've seen myself in the op here. I used to love coding, owned a c64 and wrote games and other small utilities when I was only a toddler armed with the "programming guide" that came with the ol' breadbox.

After 10 years of "srs coding" I felt like I was burning out and I was burned out. Because the feeling of discovery, solving people's problems and teaching the good stuff kinda disappeared in the churn. What I felt was I was adding data to a database and retrieving it when needed. The software did the required transformations that's all. Back then I was writing Java mainly and its verbosity kinda added to it.

I am not an engineer, my diplomas are on philosophy (bach.), sociology (m.a.) and international relations (bach.). And I used to feel fun and joy while doing that. Now it's all about buzzwords and creating stuff that's not neither usable nor fun.

Anyway sorry for the rambling but as a person who is in his late 30ies I didn't imagine this present, where I feel queasy from coding and think I should "relearn" the trade.

Thank you for reading!

Post reply on HN