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

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

#291

Post by magicalhippo »

svrb wrote: post #176
tinkertamper wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I started trying something new for our interviews. I start with a phone interview that is more about discussing their background, expertise, what they need to feel productive, and explain the role. If I think they’d be a good culture and expertise fit, I send them something like this (I’ve made a few): https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754... . It’s a small “api service” that represent…

TL;DR: you're testing for likability and other emotional response.

We recently spent a long time filling a position. We're a relatively small team, where it is paramount that one works well with the rest of the team.

That doesn't mean you got to fit some tight social profile, far from it.

But since we're a small team each person has a lot of responsibility, and so we need to trust the right decisions are made for the right reasons, that communication won't be an issue, that you can handle dealing with customers for projects and troubleshooting etc.

We don't need the best skilled coders. We need developers who're good at finding solutions to our customers problems, within the constraints of us being a small team with limited resources (time most of all). We need someone who's capable of learning new technologies as the needs arise, and we need someone who can communicate well within the team and with our customers.

When I got hired, my actual coding skill wasn't really a topic. I didn't get a single programming quiz or similar question. They were far more interested in my background, what sort of projects I had been working on, what motivated me etc.

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

#292

Post by distances »

koonsolo wrote: post #284
throwaway201103 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any company want me to write an array sort instead of calling the .sort() method on the standard array class? Is that really the sort of thing they want their devs to code and debug and maintain by hand?

If you can't do a sort, how will be be able to do more high level complex things?

I have never implemented sort after the second university compsci course. I might still be able to write one if I think about it a bit, but just not relevant at all.

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

#293

Post by noir_lord »

throwitaway1235 wrote: post #289
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…

"Few people own desktop computers anymore." I will own a desktop computer until the day I die. Excellent post too.

I mean - desktop processor sales an insanely strong, AMD can't make enough.

Gamers will buy every RTX3xxx card that hits the shelf and every heavy duty programmer I know has at least a fast desktop and often server racks.

I don't think we need to worry about the future of the desktop just yet.

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

#294

Post by gonehome »

twblalock wrote: post #150
MattGaiser wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His point is why bother do the former when the latter is how you get the next job?

Because it's not the latter that gets you the next job in many cases. After you've been in the industry for a while, you are likely to be referred for jobs by former colleagues, or even invited by those former colleagues to come and interview at their new companies. If you excel at your job, your former colleagues will be more likely to do this. They very likely have no idea how good you are at Leetcode-style problem…

At which point you’ll have to do leetcode problems in the interview you got via the referral.

Former colleagues in most cases can just get you out of the application lottery - that’s it.

This is less true in PMish roles where there really isn’t a technical leetcode style interview or at the exec level where the friend is the hiring manager or ultimate decider.

In most cases though? Leetcode still gets you the job.

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

#295

Post by cableshaft »

vmception wrote: post #67
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, 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. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

10 years of experience here Early this year I got good at these problems and the ones I would actually encounter, above the average (based on time to solve, efficiency), as well as the system design interviews and I honestly think the behavioral interviews too, but decision makers just do not want to pay me over $180k. Whether thats salary at a Series B, C or midsize company or big tech companies whose total comp wou…

You created the digital currencies and sold them? So you came up with your own coin then? When was this and how did you convince people to buy it, unless you had an active project for it (or you were intentionally fleecing them)?

You could possibly get away with that a few years ago when people were throwing a bunch of money away on vaporware ICOs, but it's getting cracked down on more now.

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

#296

Post by zwarag »

echelon wrote: post #55
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, 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. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

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…

Could it be that this is a very SV problem? I'm from a European state, I know some people doing programming in Asian regions. What you are describing to me sounds like a bubble. Or I am in a bubble, IDK.

Yes devices can do less than 10 years ago (less arbitrary thing), but they can also do more than 10 years ago. Of course the market in this segment might give you the feeling that everything is dumbed down. These devices are not used solely by very smart people. The most basic of all humans has a phone nowadays. And If apple decides to make MacOS only run singed binaries. That shows that they are targeting people who do not know how to run arbitrary code safely. I am a programmer and when I have to do that I have to think really hard. If my main PC runs stuff that I would rather not like to leave my house. I have to set up a VM and check it beforehand. You still have Linux to do whatever you want.

If people in the job market and Open Source community are getting exploited, it is only a matter of time until something develops to create a force against the exploitment. There are unions (at least there should be) and there are multiple ways to fund Open Source nowadays (Patreon, Gitcoin, Bountys,...).

It doesn't seem to me as everything is moving backwards. It is getting harder to live out the freedom of the individual. But on a macro level, I think things are moving forward.

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

#297

Post by cableshaft »

bit_logic wrote: post #194
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…

This is a good strategy for senior engineers to avoid the leetcode interviews. And to any recruiters and hiring managers reading this, there’s the other side of this. If you want responses from high quality senior engineers, then start your LinkedIn email with “NO Leetcode”. Response rates will likely increase by a lot.

I very rarely respond to recruiters cold emailing me, but if it had NO LEETCODE in the subject line I'd probably respond to every single one.

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

#298

Post by squiffsquiff »

I've tried to actively go against the approach described in this article when I'm interviewing candidates. We allow thirty minutes for live pairing on a pretty generic task. Candidates are using their own device, so whatever OS; IDE etc they like, with desktop shared by video. The idea is to match the work environment as closely as possible, so all resources are available to them- Google; stack overflow; other people's public projects etc. We don't expect candidates to complete the exercise in the time available but we do see how they tackle it

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

#299

Post by gonehome »

koonsolo wrote: post #284
throwaway201103 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any company want me to write an array sort instead of calling the .sort() method on the standard array class? Is that really the sort of thing they want their devs to code and debug and maintain by hand?

If you can't do a sort, how will be be able to do more high level complex things?

I think testing whether someone can recall the implementation of quick sort and has practiced writing it quickly is not really testing for building complexity or solving problems.

It’s testing for practiced solutions of memorized algorithms and a bit of role play.

I get there’s some IQ challenge to preparing this and it’s hard to evaluate skill, but I don’t think this tests much beyond that.

Want to test true basic programming capacity? Do fizz buzz, ask someone to reverse names in a string with loops - everyone should be able to do that without thinking.

That’s actual basic stuff.

High level or more complexity? Discuss a relevant problem the company needs to solve and how they’d approach it.

Better yet discuss a problem and debug it together. Most programming is debugging anyway.

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

#300

Post by sanGupta2 »

squiffsquiff wrote: post #298

I've tried to actively go against the approach described in this article when I'm interviewing candidates. We allow thirty minutes for live pairing on a pretty generic task. Candidates are using their own device, so whatever OS; IDE etc they like, with desktop shared by video. The idea is to match the work environment as closely as possible, so all resources are available to them- Google; stack overflow; other people…

This is also bullshit. Had this type of interview before, and the interviewer has no ducking clue and don’t know how to explain a situation.
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