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An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

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Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#281

Post by mettamage »

angarg12 wrote: post #233

Almost all advice online about interviewing is written from the point of view of the candidate. Sometimes this is good advice, but sometimes it devolves into some kind of astrology, where candidate are just guessing how things work. I've done +300 interviews at FAANG so I can share bit of advice from the interviewer's side. The caveat is that this is based on how I conduct interviews, so YMMV with other people. * Alw…

I appreciate the caveat. Caveats are almost never given when people give advice and it is exactly the thing that people get stuck on when they take the advice to heart.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#282

Post by mettamage »

One thing that I have noticed that FAANG doesn’t do well is: help people with sleep issues.

It’s not their job [0], but I do think there are some talented insomniacs that are great employees (given that they can mostly work on their own schedule, except for meetings). I remember that I interviewed for Facebook and I was so sleep deprived, I could barely write a for-loop. Ironically, I passed that interview but I couldn’t pass others that required some more creative thinking or more memorization.

[0] While it is not their job, FAANG companies do mention that they are accommodating candidates with mental health issues, and I’d argue that insomnia (diagnosed or undiagnosed) should be one of them.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#283

Post by pjmlp »

arduinomancer wrote: post #5

Interviews are really a dumb game these days so if you want to really game it you can go with a statistical approach: * Practice questions by company on LeetCode, sort by frequency of last 6 months and work down the list, do maybe 75-100, the list updates once a week * Search for the company on the LeetCode forums and sort by most recent. If a question is not on LC yet it will likely get posted there, so you can get…

I have a better one, refuse to play the game unless desperate to get a job no matter what.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#284

Post by pjmlp »

Jensson wrote: post #206
vanusa wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try talking about execution, not theory.

You can't communicate experience like you can communicate theory, if you could then it would be called theory instead of practice. Theory is great since it is something we can communicate, whatever instincts you developed working on a big codebase can't be communicated. Some people thing you can, there are lots of talks about these things etc, but in practice you can't teach practice, you need to experience it yourse…

Talk about how the candidate used technology X in practice, what was their role in the project, what worked in practice and what not, how they would approach the bad decisions in retrospective of the lessons learned while using X.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#285

Post by snov »

andrew_ wrote: post #99

Or don't agree to interviews that include algo challenges, leetcode/hackerrank nonsense, array shuffling shenanigans. Choose companies that put thought into their evaluations.

I had the same thoughts, but changed them over time. If not leetcode, it quickly comes to very specific questions about the interviewer's favourite thing and its quirks. A complete hit or miss.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#286

Post by quasiprime »

avl999 wrote: post #19
hsavit1 wrote: post #11

Glad to hear that the software engineer selection method is determined by this very rigorous process of character assessment. No wonder why big corporations produce such amazing teams.

I am not gonna die on a hill defending these types of interviews but they are infinitely better than the alternatives. Alternatives are often subjective criteria like "culture fit" which can lead to nepotism/other types of biases or hiring being done by sorting resumes based on the prestige level of the college of the applicant and just running down the list from the top (which happens in other professions like law).…

Unfortunately subjective criteria are not alternatives to objective criteria but are generally applied in conjunction with them. From my experience, in the past one year and a half I've been interviewing at several companies, and I've done over 20 different code challenges. Even though I passed 90% of those code challenges, only 1 company gave me an offer and that's the company I'm working for right now. Other companies just rejected my application because I wasn't a "cultural fit" or something.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#287

Post by meheleventyone »

MauranKilom wrote: post #270
meheleventyone wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vertex is a point. So a point being a collection of vertices doesn’t make sense. A point in the sense you mean is a collection of real numbers equal to the number of dimensions of the space it’s in.

> A point in the sense you mean is a collection of real numbers equal to the number of dimensions of the space it’s in. Not necessarily. In 3D graphics, it is common to represent points with homogeneous coordinates, where points in N-dimensional space are represented by N+1 real numbers. Using 4x4 matrices [0] to describe affine transformations of 3D points is very convenient. (Agreed with your overall point though.…

The extra real isn’t really part of the definition of the point in space though and isn’t necessary to store to apply a 4x4 matrix. See for example applyMatrix4 in this file: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/master/src/math/Vect...

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#288

Post by Jaygles »

angarg12 wrote: post #233

Almost all advice online about interviewing is written from the point of view of the candidate. Sometimes this is good advice, but sometimes it devolves into some kind of astrology, where candidate are just guessing how things work. I've done +300 interviews at FAANG so I can share bit of advice from the interviewer's side. The caveat is that this is based on how I conduct interviews, so YMMV with other people. * Alw…

Have you ever passed someone who wrote brute force algorithms?

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#289

Post by lkxijlewlf »

shinazueli wrote: post #199
renewiltord wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google translate is sufficient. They’ll do it pretty carefully, complete with “pretend you get stuck at this specific point and if you get asked why to use a hashmap, act baffled for a moment, and then say X”

It’s ridiculously obvious when people have seen the question before. The way we do it is like this: we have like 3 or 4 different small variations on each question. Such that the solution is measurably different, in quite telling ways, but that the given problem looks almost identical. In one specific case the given is identical, but there are 3 variations to the question based on how the candidate asks questions abo…

I'm not attacking you, but at this point in this thread the absolute absurdity in all of this is ... mind boggling.

Re: An Algorithm for Passing Programming Interviews (2020)

#290

Post by kache_ »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #256
kache_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When gaming it is just passing by studying, a repeatable process that anyone (with a CS degree) can do, just means the interview process is quite well designed. The interview process is a test of endurance, not intelligence. And it should be exactly that, since software engineering is mostly an exercise of endurance and focus. Every time a friend of mine QQs about failing a FANG interview, I give them the study presc…

Whats your technique?

3 hours of leetcode every day for 1.5 months 6 hours of sys design over the weekend for 1.5 months
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