Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good to know there are hiring managers out there who think like this. Thanks for the reply. May I ask what industry you work in?
I just want to know the company name so I don't accidently ever apply there.
Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
21–30 of 679 posts
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#22We scrapped coding tests at our last round of hiring, but the interviewees were so bad they everyone’s time was wasted. We had to bring it back just to filter people out.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good to know there are hiring managers out there who think like this. Thanks for the reply. May I ask what industry you work in?
I just want to know the company name so I don't accidently ever apply there.
No kidding. I'd be happy to walk through the stuff I have on github but I also don't want my coworkers measured by whether they do the same.
If anything, personal projects can end up being distractions from focusing singularly on work. Even though I'm entirely in favour of them, I also remember when I had a newborn at home and a family member in hospital, and such projects were not at all feasible.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#24The coding interview looks different when you view it for what it would be called in other industries: a licensure examination. It looks particularly insane to relicense for every single job you apply to. It also looks supremely unfair to have proctors for this exam with varying expectations and training to actually correctly administer it.
Yeah, but the variation can be good. If I had to imagine what the hypothetical licensing process would be, I imagine it would be something easy that admits tons of mediocre devs. Plus, would it come in different language/subfield flavors to account for different roles? One job would ask me to implement a custom allocator, and I'd pass; another would ask me how to add Frondle to Artifactory, and I'd fail miserably.
Actual engineering licenses in the US have kind of solved this.
There’s the easy exam that pretty much everyone passes eh e they get their degree (the FE), and then there’s the hard one that not even everyone attempts after a couple years of experience (the PE).
And within each level, you specify your discipline (civil, mechanical, etc) and then are required to have deeper knowledge of several subfields within that discipline.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#25The coding interview looks different when you view it for what it would be called in other industries: a licensure examination. It looks particularly insane to relicense for every single job you apply to. It also looks supremely unfair to have proctors for this exam with varying expectations and training to actually correctly administer it.
Yeah, but the variation can be good. If I had to imagine what the hypothetical licensing process would be, I imagine it would be something easy that admits tons of mediocre devs. Plus, would it come in different language/subfield flavors to account for different roles? One job would ask me to implement a custom allocator, and I'd pass; another would ask me how to add Frondle to Artifactory, and I'd fail miserably.
> I imagine it would be something easy that admits tons of mediocre devs
Given that Medical boards and the Bar strike fear into the hearts of students and demand immense preparation, I think we could do pretty well. The test prep mentality isn’t altogether different from the “grinding leetcode” that happens today anyway. The difference is that it would at least be fair.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
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Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#27I have never heard of the negative base question (I would have never passed that without help): https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/216800/how-i-conver...
My worst interview questions that were silly:
• number theory for django dev: how many prime numbers are there.
• random brain teaser for django dev: infinite lasers pointed in space that turn at each other at the rotational speed of light- does the intersection travel faster than the speed of light
And questions that were very fair that I bombed:
• ms paint fill method on whiteboard. I think I checked diagonals when I wasnt supposed to - i cant remember but they were not happy with my answer.
• for a given phone number and a US dialpad what are all the possible letter combinations for the number? In python this is just the built in cartesian product. But I still struggle to write it from scratch with a recursive function and getting the accumulation correct.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#28The coding interview looks different when you view it for what it would be called in other industries: a licensure examination. It looks particularly insane to relicense for every single job you apply to. It also looks supremely unfair to have proctors for this exam with varying expectations and training to actually correctly administer it.
It would be nice. There are already too many devs and if we can lower that number by controlling the licensing our wages would also stay very high.
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#29Thinking like an engineer, from the companies perspective, its just a filter.
While it could be the case that candidate A who passes the coding interview makes a terrible employee, while candidate B who does not pass the interview would make a better one, it doesn't matter. As long as the pool of candidates who pass the coding interview, fares better than the pool who does not, it will be a useful tool until someone comes up with a better one.
And the alternatives were worse. There was a time where unless you graduated from a top-flight school, or were top X% at one of the better state schools, or had some other "in" (e.g. knowing somebody) the cool kids at the time (Microsoft/Apple/Yahoo/Intel/etc.) wouldn't even talk to you
Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)
#30At this point, I’ve had enough successful positions at hard jobs that I don’t question my competency when I fail a pop quiz. I still don’t know what my favourite Rust crate is. I feel I should have one after being asked more than a couple of times.
You've actually been asked that...? That's a trip. "Whichever one solves the problem at hand."