Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

interviewdb.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 82 posts

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#11

Post by nsxwolf »

For those who work in the dark matter of the industry, there are no real resources because most places don't even have "question banks". When an interview request pops up on my calendar, I just go out and find a random question - it's totally disposable and unlikely to be used again, and we don't interview enough for someone to compile enough information on us.

None of the places I've interviewed at in the last 5 years are on this list. One of them has a single question reported on Glassdoor and wasn't similar to what I was asked.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#12

Post by pc86 »

wcast wrote: post #8
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

In fact, for me it is pretty hard if not impossible to remain genuine to my ability and personal touch to navigate corporate world having to swallow all those keywords and behave properly in front of interviewers. Thinking that hacking/mastering it is often the single way out.

Not sure it should really be "hard if not impossible" to "behave properly."

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#13

Post by TheBigSalad »

INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

I agree but I companies like Meta/Apple/Amazon hire so much that they probably have full time statisticians just to analyze interview process and map that back to performance. So you have to assume this maps to real world success. Even if you are just testing an employee's preparation, maybe that means something.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#14

Post by creativityhurts »

INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

Interviewing went from something you had to get a job to a completely different skill and even a business.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#15

Post by harvey9 »

pc86 wrote: post #12
wcast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, for me it is pretty hard if not impossible to remain genuine to my ability and personal touch to navigate corporate world having to swallow all those keywords and behave properly in front of interviewers. Thinking that hacking/mastering it is often the single way out.

Not sure it should really be "hard if not impossible" to "behave properly."

I took properly to mean conform to a corporate model, rather than something more like 'not childish or rude'

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#16

Post by pc86 »

INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

I struggled early in my career with interviews. Granted this was 2008-2010 era so the job market was not great, especially in a not-quite-urban non-coastal city where I was for a junior developer.

But something did change when I stopped treating interviews as "convince them to like me" / "convince them to hire me" and started treating them as "find out if I want to work (in order) 1) at this company, 2) on this project, 3) with/for this person." I'm sure part of it is just experience, knowing more of the technical stuff, sure, but when you're approaching it honestly as determining whether you give a shit about the person sitting across from you or the glorified Excel spreadsheet you'll be working on it is a lot easier.

It's a big part of why I hate leetcode interviews and consider them a huge red flag especially for non-Tier 1 companies. If your 90 minute interview is 80 minutes of me reversing trees and writing maze solvers then letting me ask 2 questions while you check your email and Slack on your other monitor I am not learning anything from the process and am extremely uninterested in working for you.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#17

Post by lesuorac »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #13
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

I agree but I companies like Meta/Apple/Amazon hire so much that they probably have full time statisticians just to analyze interview process and map that back to performance. So you have to assume this maps to real world success. Even if you are just testing an employee's preparation, maybe that means something.

It's not probably.

The hiring rubric gets items added/dropped based on what portions are statistically significant when compared to post-hire performance reviews.

There's a lot of research in the public about "Structured Interviews".

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#18

Post by kccqzy »

nsxwolf wrote: post #11

For those who work in the dark matter of the industry, there are no real resources because most places don't even have "question banks". When an interview request pops up on my calendar, I just go out and find a random question - it's totally disposable and unlikely to be used again, and we don't interview enough for someone to compile enough information on us. None of the places I've interviewed at in the last 5 yea…

Bigger companies do have question banks. Finding a random question at interview time makes it (1) difficult to compare across candidates; (2) makes the interviewer work too hard since the interviewer hasn't first thought about the question and makes the hints given to candidates less useful.

And Google, being the maker of a search engine, was good at detecting leaks of their questions.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#19

Post by dangus »

This gamified payment model is not my cup of tea.

The whole vibe of this site seems like it’s more interested in growing user count and making money rather than helping people.

I also feel like “crowdsourced” is a euphemism for “stolen content.”

Sure, it’s a capitalist world and I’m not against starting a business, but this feels like something supremely lazy, like the author is hoping to make money without any of the effort of starting a real business. Just be a middleman to other people’s work.

Idk, good luck competing with AI chatbots.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#20

Post by travisgriggs »

Maybe after this “takes off”, they can explore some other domains.

“We built a crowdsourced examiner question database for pilot exams.”

“We built a crowdsourced set of best responses for marginalized peoples who come in contact with hostile police officers.”

So on, so forth.

Then they can franchise it into a set of “exchanges”.

Post reply on HN