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I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

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Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#171

Post by soonerroadie »

samatman wrote: post #160
mewse wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked at a tech-focused games company (sadly no longer existing) which had the best interview process I’ve ever seen. They had this massive programmer test. It was something like 40 pages long, hardcopy, double-sided. With answers needing to be written on the test generally in essay format; no computer allowed (and so no real coding involved; it was all about concepts and not about syntax). It covered everyth…

Do you mean by hand, with a pen? The least I would do is politely decline such an interview. I would be sorely tempted to give them the choice between letting me use a keyboard or hearing from an ADA lawyer.

No post body was provided.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#172

Post by sarchertech »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #113
joeman1000 wrote: post #104

Ok, so how are interviews fair at all then? How do they really tell anything about the person, other than the fact they are good at interviews? How is it fair that all the other people queued up to interview didn’t get a shot because they didn’t do as well in a 5 minute high pressure period? This 5 minutes probably determined the courses of their lives. What the fuck? Does anyone feel as flabbergasted about interview…

I also need "time and space to think" (and so would most people), but given the choice between someone who needs time and space to think, and someone who doesn't (either works well under extreme pressure or is just that self-confident), who would you choose? Sure interviews are unfair (there are many problems like the one described in TFA, as well as people who just practice the skill), but are there better options?

> but given the choice between someone who needs time and space to think, and someone who doesn't.

I’ve worked with people who needed time to think, but at the end of that time came up with better solutions than the people who were quicker.

High pressure leetcode tests select for a specific type of thinker who may or may not be good at solving the problems you’re actually hiring them for.

> but are there better options

I’ve had success pair programming together on a problem you both don’t know the immediate answer to. I’ve also had success with allowing candidates to choose take home assignments.

I’ve also had success doing what every other other industry does: trust their resume, ask them to talk me through projects, and talk to references. Then fire them quickly if it turns out they are one of those dreaded fake programmers that everyone is worried about.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#173

Post by seanmcdirmid »

lordnacho wrote: post #163
lrvick wrote: post #134

One time a company I interviewed with asked me obscure algorithm questions about playing card shuffling. As a former professional magician I knew the optimal answers instantly and could jot them down straight away. They had allocated an hour for answers I wrote in a few minutes. I could have told them I had a massively unfair advantage, but I did not bother. They were visibly impressed and told me I was moving on to…

This is what happened at my Oxford interviews. They asked me stuff that I knew the answer to, thinking it would be one of those see-how-he-thinks things. Biggest problem was acting like I didn't know and getting it really fast. Total lottery, they could have asked any number of things that I didn't understand.

Ya, this is hard. I bombed an Amazon interview because the interviewer asked me Alien Dictionary, a well known LeetCode problem that I already worked out while practicing. I told her outright that this was a problem everyone practiced, but she still dinged me for already knowing the answer and not going through the “figure this out flow” (admittedly, I could have handled that better, but it is actually difficult to work through something that you know the answer to but forgot how you got the answer).

At least it was for a job I probably wouldn’t have taken.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#174

Post by yesenadam »

akudha wrote: post #112
Longlius wrote: post #89

Every time the topic of cheating comes up on HN, I become increasingly disheartened by the amount of people chiming in who think it's not only alright to cheat but also laudable to do so. Ethics are foundational to engineering. Jettisoning them is a sign of a discipline in decline.

Cheating is bad - this is an overly broad and generalized position, isn't it? Lets say the blogger had seen that n+1 question online somewhere or in a book (instead of hearing from his friend), before the interview. Is he obligated to inform the interviewer in this case too? There are many people who get stressed and can't really write good code in an interview setting, but are perfectly capable of writing great soft…

I'd like to agree with the statement Cheating is bad. I don't think that's overly broad and generalized, or not nuanced and complex enough, or naive. Like the GP, I'm amazed at the number of people on here[0] who somehow seem to think cheating is fine. In real life I've never heard anyone defending cheating as ever a good thing, I guess. When I hear the word "cheating", it..just sounds like an obviously bad thing. Seems not everyone has that response?! I would have thought it's basic to human decency.

[0] Last time was a week ago, when I and others responded to this comment, which seems to be saying, cheating is ok if the reward is big enough: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31546436

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#176

Post by lapcat »

mewse wrote: post #150
joeman1000 wrote: post #104

Ok, so how are interviews fair at all then? How do they really tell anything about the person, other than the fact they are good at interviews? How is it fair that all the other people queued up to interview didn’t get a shot because they didn’t do as well in a 5 minute high pressure period? This 5 minutes probably determined the courses of their lives. What the fuck? Does anyone feel as flabbergasted about interview…

I once worked at a tech-focused games company (sadly no longer existing) which had the best interview process I’ve ever seen. They had this massive programmer test. It was something like 40 pages long, hardcopy, double-sided. With answers needing to be written on the test generally in essay format; no computer allowed (and so no real coding involved; it was all about concepts and not about syntax). It covered everyth…

> caveat: I wasn’t hired using that test; I had been hired as a junior long before, based on my portfolio and a short interview

That's always the catch. The founders and initial employees of a company never had to go through the crappy hiring process that the company adds later as it gets bigger. And then we claim that the tests make tech a "meritocracy" and "objective", but those at the top are exempt from the tests.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#177

Post by stevage »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #158
joeman1000 wrote: post #104

Ok, so how are interviews fair at all then? How do they really tell anything about the person, other than the fact they are good at interviews? How is it fair that all the other people queued up to interview didn’t get a shot because they didn’t do as well in a 5 minute high pressure period? This 5 minutes probably determined the courses of their lives. What the fuck? Does anyone feel as flabbergasted about interview…

Interviews often aren't fair. However, they don't have to be quiz-style. When I conduct interviews I simply have conversations to explore subjects as if I were talking about an issue with a coworker. I tell them directly that my goal as an interviewer is to give them an opportunity to showcase something they know so I can say good things about them. I give the interviewee a choice of subjects and I let them change th…

That sounds like a really useful, interesting, and perhaps even fun technique.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#178

Post by er888kh »

yobbo wrote: post #74
napo wrote: post #13

I'm surprised that atm there is a consensus in the comments saying that it's not cheating. Companies ask interviewers to not reveal the questions they had to other candidates. It's likely that his friend was told not to say that. Overall he clearly had an unfair advantage, and even if legally it wouldn't be the definition of "cheating" it would go against the intent of the interview: which is to evaluate candidates i…

It's a quiz problem, and it's supposed to have "trick" solutions. However, if he wants to play that game, he should provide proof of his solution, not fiddle with syntax or error checking. That's why discussion is more important, and how he can show that understands what he's doing and not just memorizing tricks. (... none of which matters for his future role anyway.) The formula "falls out" naturally if you're used…

I came up with another solution (which is purposefully complicated): It is known that the sum of n-th roots of unity is zero. So if we choose the n-th roots of unity as ω and calculate Σ ω^ai, the result should be 0 + ω^(the duplicate number).

So I opened the python interpreter, and I used this very trivial method of calculation (instead of summing the sine and cosine functions independently), and using asin and acos functions, got the result. It turned out to be accurate for n=1e6 with an error of ~1e-5. So it should be usable for much bigger n too.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#179

Post by devoutsalsa »

imgabe wrote: post #122
napo wrote: post #13

I'm surprised that atm there is a consensus in the comments saying that it's not cheating. Companies ask interviewers to not reveal the questions they had to other candidates. It's likely that his friend was told not to say that. Overall he clearly had an unfair advantage, and even if legally it wouldn't be the definition of "cheating" it would go against the intent of the interview: which is to evaluate candidates i…

Companies can ask whatever they want. They will ask for two weeks notice but lay you off with no notice. Who gives a fuck what companies ask for? Don’t pretend they are an authority. They’re a bunch of idiots making it up as they go along like the rest of us.

I don’t disagree with anything you said. However, if the prevailing attitude was “fuck these companies that pay me these privileged tech salaries”, we’d all be treated much worse.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#180

Post by piyh »

keraf wrote: post #58

I actually cheated on an online assessment for one of my first programming jobs. It was my dream job and really wanted to get into that company. Under the pressure, I just couldn't figure out the solution to the last challenge which was a recursive algorithm. Normally, I would be able to do this but I just got stuck and in a moment of panic, I StackOverflow'd the question on a secondary device which provided me the e…

I used copilot on a technical screening and saved a huge amount of time so I could catch dinner with my family
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