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Tech Interview Handbook

techinterviewhandbook.org

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91–100 of 132 posts

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#91

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

freedomben wrote: post #63
bussierem wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied CS for 4 years and have used exactly none of it since leaving college. Our devs all help with hiring and agree as a 20-person team that academic "experience" means almost nothing unless you have no other job experience. How little academia prepares you for anything in real software engineering has become a cultural meme.

Did your CS degree cover algorithms and data structures? Did you learn Big O?

I've learned over and over again that Big O is a nice theoretical model, but often doesn't translate. The famous case is std::list looking better than std::vector but almost always being worse, but I've seen plenty of others.

I work on a very large system, but spend far more time chasing down poor performance due to emergent behavior than I do worrying about Big O on some small piece.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#92

Post by oreally »

taurath wrote: post #57
qweqwweqwe-90i wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to work with someone that doesn't have their fundamentals down. Most people spend at least 4 years studying CS, they should know their stuff.

You'd probably be surprised how many people you've worked with who are quite competent if not really great at what they do and have gaping holes in what you might consider fundamentals.

Well what you call fundamentals might not be correlated to getting things done in day to day programming.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#93

Post by purplecats »

drenvuk wrote: post #83
Aeolun wrote: post #48

Wow, literally the first thing I saw when I entered the page was an ad for ‘3 terrible interview answers’ I bounced immediately.

I understand the response but I'm wondering why you don't have an adblocker. even on mobile on ios they exist.

ironic that although not in the manner intended by the advertisers, ads very strongly determine GP's behavior.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#94

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

Aeolun wrote: post #85
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about interviews themselves, but the way people prepare for them. > Do I really need to stop and unwind the steps my mind takes to arrive there If the other person can't tell whether you're regurgitating it or you actually know what you're talking about then yeah probably.

I agree this skill is valuble in interviews, but it doesn’t apply nearly so much in my day job, where I’m already the expert. Hence it’s frustrating that the skills necessary for passing an interview do not align with those necessary to do the job.

I've had a very different experience. Being able to explain my thought process well is a key part of my job, whether its mentoring juniors or building consensus for larger architectural changes.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#95

Post by pbalau »

nvarsj wrote: post #23
yupper32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new grad I didn't have my GPA on my resume and it never actually came up except for the occasional transcript request. I had a fine GPA, but not high enough for it to be a nice datapoint. I had plenty of interest with lots of companies, including many FAANGMGOEWVIOPJW companies. This was years ago though.

Maybe things have changed, but when I went to career fairs as a uni student in the 00s they all asked for my GPA. Less than 3.5 was pretty much an instant no.

> when I went to career fairs *as a uni student*

At that point that was the only thing you could possible show.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#96

Post by dagw »

keithnz wrote: post #28
ecshafer wrote: post #19

I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience. Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its…

I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an interview

I don't mind the stars

The way it is phrased make it sound like he's trying to pull as fast one and make his contributions sound more significant that they where.

That being said, he would almost certainly still end up in my 'interview' pile.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#97

Post by dagw »

qweqwweqwe-90i wrote: post #44
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is such a strange optimization. As an industry we should boycott leetcode style questions.

I wouldn't want to work with someone that doesn't have their fundamentals down. Most people spend at least 4 years studying CS, they should know their stuff.

Most people spend at least 4 years studying CS

Many of the best programmers I've worked with haven't.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#98

Post by smnscu »

qweqwweqwe-90i wrote: post #45
smnscu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been an interviewer with Karat for 2.5yrs, it's genuinely great. https://karat.com/ I know you made the statement in jest, but trying to improve on the interview process is not a bad idea. At the very least, it's less engineering time wasted conducting interviews.

I had an interview with Karat, it was nice: very fast and professional. Only thing that was slightly frustrating at the time was that you guys insist on completely correct solutions. Also, the behavioral part at the beginning felt kind of forced.

There are no behavioural questions, the intro bit at the start is just there to not abruptly start asking questions, help you relax a bit, and also nice in case the client wants to look at the video to find out more about you. We do insist that your code works correctly, that's true. We're not overly anal about the format of your solution, but we do expect to cover all edge cases.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#99

Post by jay3ss »

gorbachev wrote: post #8

"GPA does matter" No, it does not, unless you're a recent graduate. Absolutely nobody pays attention to your GPA, if you're more than a few years in your career.

I know of a company that requires (or at least did a few years ago when I interviewed with them) new grads to have a GPA in of at least 3.0 out 4.0 to even be considered for the position (US-based aerospace company). A classmate of mine had circumstances (mostly out of their control) that caused their GPA to be lower than the threshold so they couldn't hire them despite them having glowing recommendations from current, highly respected employees. The hiring manager wanted to hire them but couldn't. So they were brought in as an intern and was hired as an "internal hire" in order to bypass the hard GPA requirement.

Re: Tech Interview Handbook

#100

Post by fredestine »

ecshafer wrote: post #19

I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience. Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its…

it really depends where you apply tho. most of the startup and FAANG are woke now. they wouldn't hire a sniper except if he is a minority then the balance is even.
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