191–200 of 354 posts
Check out the last technical interview task that I got ``` Objective: Write a program that prints out a multiplication table of the first 10 prime numbers. The program must run from the command line and print to screen one table.
Notes: - DO NOT use a library method for Prime (write your own) - Use Tests. TDD/BDD - IMPRESS US. ```
I mean I can impress you but how will this correlate with production code?
After reading this I have a dumb question: The person behind the post is a CS major but only played a little bit with the C programming language in college — is this pretty common these days?
Yes, I have seen many CS graduates who couldn't write C or C++ if their life depended on it. In fact, I have seen CS graduates who could explain the theory behind, say, parallel computing in detail, but could barely write scripts. Knowing everything about painting doesn't make you a good painter :).
I don't think I could write a simple echo clone in C anymore.
I miss C, but since entering the "real world" I haven't written a line of C for work purposes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your question about relevance is fair. The author of the blog post kindly submitted here complains that she [I wrote "he" before edit prompted by kind reply below] gets math quiz questions when applying for programming jobs. That's a mistake on the part of the hiring companies in two ways. 1) The main thing to look for when hiring programmers is programming work samples. In general, for any kind of work, a work-sampl…
FYI: the author is a she. I find it fascinating that most posters assumed that the author was male.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your question about relevance is fair. The author of the blog post kindly submitted here complains that she [I wrote "he" before edit prompted by kind reply below] gets math quiz questions when applying for programming jobs. That's a mistake on the part of the hiring companies in two ways. 1) The main thing to look for when hiring programmers is programming work samples. In general, for any kind of work, a work-sampl…
Did you just say that education requirements are legally risky? That is brand new to me. I would love it to be true, but I've never encountered it in reality.
Yes, I did say that. I was surprised to find, upon a close reading of the Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971) case,[1] that the Supreme Court held in that case that not only was an IQ test an illegal hiring requirement, in the circumstances of that case, but so was a high school diploma requirement. The usual headline description of that case mentions only the holding about the IQ tests, not the holding about school credentials. Either kind of requirement could be challenged by a rejected job applicant based on that Supreme Court precedent.
[1]
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your question about relevance is fair. The author of the blog post kindly submitted here complains that she [I wrote "he" before edit prompted by kind reply below] gets math quiz questions when applying for programming jobs. That's a mistake on the part of the hiring companies in two ways. 1) The main thing to look for when hiring programmers is programming work samples. In general, for any kind of work, a work-sampl…
FYI: the author is a she. I find it fascinating that most posters assumed that the author was male.
Here's the test I've used in the past: Before the interview, I ask them to write some code to access an HTTP endpoint that contains exchange rate data (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY etc.) in XML and to parse and load said data into a relational database. Then to build a very simple HTML form based front-end that lets you input a currency and convert it into another currency. I ask them to send me either a link to a repository (…
What I like about your method is it also allows you to catch folks who fudge the work product.
Hiring engineers is hard, and companies haven't really figured it out yet. Even the best companies rely on puzzles and gimmicks that often have little to do with day-to-day programming. At one company I interviewed with, I was asked to implement a queue using two stacks. At that time in my programming career, I had worked with C, C++, Obj-C, Lua, Python, JavaScript, SQL, and a handful of DSLs developing games, game d…
If you're wondering, the "two stacks queue" is an easy way to write a simple immutable queue for a functional programming language. You use one functional stack for enqueueing and one for dequeueing. When the dequeue stack is exhausted the enqueue stack is "flipped" into the dequeue. Amortized runtime is O(1) per operation.
Now that I know this would be for a functional language, it makes way more sense. At the time I couldn't get over why you wouldn't just use a doubly-linked list like the standard implementation in most OO languages.
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Okay, but any specific suggestions on how to do that?
Start with a simple interview which simply checks that the person (a) has a brain; (b) is somebody you're comfortable working with. Then do a short-term contracting gig (maybe just 1 day). If it works well, hire them. Edit: clarify length which even the best people could do.
There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…
Could someone explain what 'mean validity' means in [1]? Also, how good of a GMA score is needed? That is, how good of a score would be needed for me to stop looking at other candidates?
1) "Validity" here means hiring of better rather than worse workers, as all workers can be rank-ordered as to work performance, as compared to doing nothing to select workers.
2) Usually in hiring, it's enough to outrank someone else in a hiring criterion, for example general mental ability, without necessarily reaching any particular score level. The general idea is to rank higher than the other applicants when applying for a job, and to choose higher-ranked rather than lower-ranked applicants when hiring other people.
I'll see if I have time to add specifics later after some activities with my family.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your question about relevance is fair. The author of the blog post kindly submitted here complains that she [I wrote "he" before edit prompted by kind reply below] gets math quiz questions when applying for programming jobs. That's a mistake on the part of the hiring companies in two ways. 1) The main thing to look for when hiring programmers is programming work samples. In general, for any kind of work, a work-sampl…
Did you just say that education requirements are legally risky? That is brand new to me. I would love it to be true, but I've never encountered it in reality.