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Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

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Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#71
I'd rather hire a smart person and teach them X then hire someone who knows everything about X but lacks creativity, logic, and reasoning.

This!

That one sentence pretty much addressed all of your questions and concerns. So instead on hacking the apparent process, read that sentence again and get it. This is pretty much an absolute truth in almost any industry for almost any skill. It's especially true in tech because:

  - "X" will be different in 2 years anyway.
  - "X" will be VERY different in 4 years.
  - Well funded companies want long-term talent.
  - Start-ups seeking their place want long-term talent.
  - Companies with long-term vision want long-term talent.
  - A jack of all trades is usually better than a master of one.
  - If it's so complicated to learn, it's too complicated to use.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#72
post #51

Are algorithm questions really that useful when looking for a candidate? I find myself being really nervous about applying to other jobs because I'm not formally trained in CS. My job and side projects are mostly web sites that require knowledge about how to architecture software but I very rarely write complex algorithms. If something comes up where I need to optimize something I can usually spend some time Googling…

I'm a full stack developer. Currently focusing on iOS. Interview questions should really depend on the expectations of the type of software being developed.

I've been to a couple interviews lately and this has been the first time (in my career) that I have been tested (with time constraints too, mind you). I was either pointed to a whiteboard, or sat in a room with nothing but a couple sheets of blank (unruled) paper, a non-erasable pen, and a list of ~10 algorithms questions with a few to be implemented and their running time, and memory footprint to be explained.

I was not prepared, at all.

I have been developing software for about 17 years. Do you have any idea how many times in my career I have been asked to write a heap sort, a trie, or create a power set? Never. So, I had forgotten some of the specifics of how to implement them. Let alone on paper. A quick note... My handwriting is atrocious. I'm 41 and I am extremely embarrassed as to how bad it is. I can play classical guitar, but I screw up everything I write or attempt to draw. I thought it was a dyslexia thing or something, but I don't seem to have enough of the symptoms for that. That's pretty much why I liked using a computer when I was younger; I could fix my mistakes. So, needless to say, when I am asked to write stuff down I kind of freak out.

Anyway, there is a reason I have reference materials and the Internet. If I don't remember the specifics of something, I go look it up. I know what a lot of data structures and algorithms are, but I just don't bother memorizing all their specifics. I know what to look for. I read the description and can decide what the best thing to do is. Sure, I remember the basics of the major algorithms and data structures, and some of their their Big O characteristics. Implementing these isn't really what I do on just about any given day.

So, what have I been doing about it? I've been spending the last couple weeks going back over the "Algorithms" book (http://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/) and grabbed all the videos from the Coursera courses on the same book/topic.

I admit it's all my fault. I have written a lot of very successful applications over my career. These have fulfilled requirements for power generation, real estate, healthcare, search engine, and marketing companies. Using higher level abstractions (like using an OO language) with industry tested APIs for sorting, lists, trees etc.. kind of makes you push that stuff to the side because for 95% of the development, that kind of low level detail is just not necessary.

Now, of course, this really depends also on what type of development you do. Sure, if you are writing a lot of C code, you may need to manually write these structures. Or, if you are writing low level code (game event loops, collision detection, file system stuff, you know) that needs to run as optimally as possible, sure. A lot of us write applications that take in data, and spew it back out. Heck, a lot of developers are forced to write just a hell of a lot of SQL queries and they'll never see a data structure beyond a class file, an array list, and a result set.

Again, I am attempting to better myself now. I don't know how long it will be before I can answer some of the more crazy questions I have been asked though.

TL;DR I was not prepared, at all.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#73

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I'm curious, should answering this question be expected of a non-senior dev? This kind of knowledge is acquired by running into broken code - that is, by chance. I'd think someone with a couple years experience only could conceivably not, for example, have called a method directly and had this refer to a global object instead. Until then one might just assume Javascript's this works like this in other languages. In fact, that's what I did until your post just made me look it up (though I only code for side projects, not professionally).

I'm also surprised to hear that people learn jQuery and omit Javascript. Personally I resisted using jQuery because I didn't understand what was happening nor would you read the code easily. Plus, it was actually extra work because if you knew another language you could pick up Javascript easily. With only jQuery you are pretty much limited to what's already made for you.

If anyone wants to look at one of my sites, I'd be curious how I stand as a developer.

http://www.sudokuisland.com/

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#74
post #41

Concerning that they ask you computer science questions when you will be working on the front end. What if you were to ask CSS and Javascript questions to a DBA? Do you see how absolutely ridiculous that sounds?

More ridiculous than asking CS questions of a front end dev. I'm a self-taught front-end dev who has flunked numerous interviews because of a lack of CS degree and being able to get through the sorting algorithm questions. I then went home and have spent lots and lots of time teaching myself those fundamentals, if only to interview better. Those fundamentals have made me a vastly better front end dev, able to efficie…

Can you give some examples of which algorithm have been the most relevant/helpful?

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#75
post #71

I'd rather hire a smart person and teach them X then hire someone who knows everything about X but lacks creativity, logic, and reasoning. This! That one sentence pretty much addressed all of your questions and concerns. So instead on hacking the apparent process, read that sentence again and get it . This is pretty much an absolute truth in almost any industry for almost any skill. It's especially true in tech becau…

I've done very little HTML,CSS but I feel confident that I could become proficient as a front-end dev. But it is going to take months. I assume you are saying that these companies are hiring based on expected performance at 1+ years. They don't expect the person who gets the job to be making major front end code changes the first month?

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#76
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like, "we want smart people, so let's optimize our interview process to find smart people, and give everyone the same interview questions." The problem here is that firms tend to prefer giving "engineering interview problems" to everyone, and do not want to segment interview questions by position.

Because that takes a lot more time for the interviewers. For a growing tech company, they could have as many open reqs as they have engineers. Crafting questions for all of those positions takes a lot of time that most companies don't have time to do.

Hiring is pretty much the most important thing you do as a company.. if you can't spend an hour per position developing applicable questions for each position, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#77

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

To the people who wish they could answer that question with confidence, I recommend getting this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Effective-JavaScript-Specific-Software...

Just got it and I feel like it clarified so many things about Javascript that I didn't have down cold as a self-taught pragmatist.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#78
I was full stack at my old job, so I do phone screens for front end engineers now. It's incredible how many people claim "front end" and fail at basic JS, HTML api, or page optimization questions yet do well at algo questions. I am far from an CSS expert but if we didn't ask questions like "how would you optimize the static content of the page?" I'm sure we would end up hiring OK general devs who actually don't know anything about front end.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#79

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I'm curious, should answering this question be expected of a non-senior dev? This kind of knowledge is acquired by running into broken code - that is, by chance. I'd think someone with a couple years experience only could conceivably not, for example, have called a method directly and had this refer to a global object instead. Until then one might just assume Javascript's this works like this in other languages. In f…

!!!!

This kind of knowledge is acquired by reading 'Javascript the Good Parts'. It goes without saying that someone who considers themselves a good frontend engineer has read this book.

edit: I am a frontend tech lead (not even in SV!!) and my most junior engineer will answer the question correctly. I can't even fathom how one could contribute to a non-toy app without knowing this.

Re: Interviewing as a Front-End Engineer in San Francisco

#80

We were hiring a non-senior full-stack developer recently and I noticed there were no "frontend" questions on the list, so I added what I thought would be a question that any developer with frontend experience could answer, and would also pave the way for some more interested discussions for an advanced candidate. The question was something to the effect of "In JavaScript, what is the value of 'this' in a method?" I…

I've been doing Javascript for a few years and recently answered a few StackOverflow questions. One was regarding "this".If anyone wants to hire my ass feel free to contact me. One of my techniques for learning has been by going on interviews and flopping, then going back and learning all the interview question material on my own time. Wash and repeat.I've been doing this bullshit since the first day I started teaching myself. It all began with an interview that required knowledge of strictly HTML & CSS. Suffice to say after I tried to mimic an unordered list with 12 div blocks I didn't get the gig. Things are better now. I promise! Where am I? Whats this padded wall doing here? !!!!
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