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GPS

ciechanow.ski

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Re: GPS

#111

Post by bobthechef »

teraflop wrote: post #84
throwaway110535 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're hiring them to work in that domain, I don't understand why you'd ask that question.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of things it tests for: * Ability to reflect on and critique their own ideas, using technical common-sense. If someone has never had a reason to research or think too hard about how GPS works, then it might be reasonable to initially assume that it sends a signal to a satellite. But hopefully, when prompted to think about it a bit more, they would realize: "Hey, if that…

No post body was provided.

Re: GPS

#112

Post by alesua93 »

teraflop wrote: post #84
throwaway110535 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're hiring them to work in that domain, I don't understand why you'd ask that question.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of things it tests for: * Ability to reflect on and critique their own ideas, using technical common-sense. If someone has never had a reason to research or think too hard about how GPS works, then it might be reasonable to initially assume that it sends a signal to a satellite. But hopefully, when prompted to think about it a bit more, they would realize: "Hey, if that…

> General curiosity and interest in areas outside their field of specialty. This might not be strictly necessary to get a job done, but it probably has some correlation with other measures of technical aptitude that are hard to probe directly.

I think this is a bit misguided, since the scope of things outside of a candidate's field of specialty is tremendously large. Picking a random piece of tech within that space and drilling the candidate about it seems rather unfair.

A better way to handle this would be to actually ask the candidate about what else interests them outside of their specialty. But hey, maybe that doesn't stroke the interviewer's ego enough (:

Re: GPS

#113

Post by thehappypm »

tazjin wrote: post #54
thehappypm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally left the article to come here to see if anyone addressed this yet. I can’t figure out what it means.

It's about literally looking at it (in 3D) and guessing the exact position on the 2D map, which is easier closer to the landmarks. At least that's my interpretation.

Yeah, I suppose it’s like “you are a human standing on a flat plain looking at these 3 landmark towers. Where on the map are you?

Intuitively you would be able to eyeball the angles between the landmarks, and eyeball the relative distances. I don’t think I’d draw a circle though. I’d probably have way less confidence for the landmark farther away and balloon out my estimate.

Re: GPS

#114

Post by Unklejoe »

alesua93 wrote: post #112
teraflop wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of things it tests for: * Ability to reflect on and critique their own ideas, using technical common-sense. If someone has never had a reason to research or think too hard about how GPS works, then it might be reasonable to initially assume that it sends a signal to a satellite. But hopefully, when prompted to think about it a bit more, they would realize: "Hey, if that…

> General curiosity and interest in areas outside their field of specialty. This might not be strictly necessary to get a job done, but it probably has some correlation with other measures of technical aptitude that are hard to probe directly. I think this is a bit misguided, since the scope of things outside of a candidate's field of specialty is tremendously large. Picking a random piece of tech within that space a…

> random piece of tech

IDK. GPS is probably one of the most prevalent technologies used today besides the Internet itself.

Re: GPS

#116

Post by mhb »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #94
goodpoint wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are silly, some are effective ways to measure curiosity and ability to think through an abstract problem.

Yes, but how many of them are relevant to determining if a particular candidate is a good fit for a programming position?

Engineers, not programmers.

Re: GPS

#117

Post by mwfunk »

u385639 wrote: post #90
gsibble wrote: post #75

One of my favorite engineering tech interview questions is asking an engineer how they think GPS works. You won't believe how many people start with: "Well, your cell phone sends a signal to the satellite......." Amazing that even engineers don't understand that GPS receivers don't talk to the satellites.

Not sure why you're getting flack it's a great question and you can learn a lot about your candidate as you work through it.

I assume the responses are from people who didn't know that and are now offended that they would've flubbed what the interviewer considered common knowledge in their field. I could see someone thinking it's not a relevant question for certain types of positions, but anyone getting defensive about it is a little bit of a red flag. Anyone doing development relying on location services or navigation systems should have a general baseline intuition for how those things work, even if it's only the broadest strokes. If someone feels angry about not knowing this, well congratulations, you now know this and no longer have anything to get defensive about.

Re: GPS

#118

Post by seanalltogether »

How feasible is it to speed up the bitrate used by GPS? This really helped explain why it takes so long to get a position based on how slowly these satellites are sending information.

Re: GPS

#119

Post by wonnage »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #100
jason0597 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand how such questions help in the hiring process? It reminds me of the famous "why are pothole covers round" question, still not sure what it achieves.

Actually this is a very good question for engineers , as the (wrong) idea that a smartphone regularly sends data to a satellite shows fundamental lack of knowledge in some very basic physical understanding. The basic understanding should be: transmitting/sending = emitting energy (costly if a device runs on batteries), receiving/listening for a signal = almost for free nowadays. I also like the question because even…

I have a hard time imagining engineers in any other field (e.g a structural engineer) would be getting asked questions about GPS as a proxy for general engineering knowhow.

Re: GPS

#120

Post by alesua93 »

Unklejoe wrote: post #114
alesua93 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> General curiosity and interest in areas outside their field of specialty. This might not be strictly necessary to get a job done, but it probably has some correlation with other measures of technical aptitude that are hard to probe directly. I think this is a bit misguided, since the scope of things outside of a candidate's field of specialty is tremendously large. Picking a random piece of tech within that space a…

> random piece of tech IDK. GPS is probably one of the most prevalent technologies used today besides the Internet itself.

Fair enough. I understand where you're coming from, at the end of the day I guess it depends on the context and the way the question is presented (left-field questions such as this one can be somewhat fun to try to answer and hypothesize about, if the interviewer creates a friendly environment to do so)
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