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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

#121
post #19

You were interviewed by back-end engineers. That's what they knew. My question is why didn't you leave the interview upon seeing it was a waste of time?

My experience is that interviews only appear to be wastes of time in hindsight. They are not zero-sum, and due to the nature of the beast there is no way to figure out that you're scoring an "F" rather than a "B+".

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

#122
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, hold on there. These "anyone who" statements chafe me; like the junior dev who exclaimed "anyone who doesn't write unit tests shouldn't call themselves an engineer" in a meeting filled with people 15 years his senior who had collectively shipped far, far more successful software than him, without writing tests. Several years ago, I led two different front-end web teams at a large, well-known company. I wrote a l…

That's cool. But don't write JS if you don't know what this does, because it will bite you.

You JS cretins are the worst. I never ceases to amaze me how seriously you take syntax bikeshedding and browser quirks over the big picture. No other community even comes close to the pedantry and nitpicking I've observed among most JavaScript developers.

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

#123
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, hold on there. These "anyone who" statements chafe me; like the junior dev who exclaimed "anyone who doesn't write unit tests shouldn't call themselves an engineer" in a meeting filled with people 15 years his senior who had collectively shipped far, far more successful software than him, without writing tests. Several years ago, I led two different front-end web teams at a large, well-known company. I wrote a l…

That's cool. But don't write JS if you don't know what this does, because it will bite you.

Or just avoid using `this` unless you're sure about what it does in a particular context.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed that the term "engineer" in "front-end engineer" implied software engineering capability. Although, like usual, it's dangerous to make assumptions.

In the context of software "engineering"/programming, the term engineer has been bastardized to the point of losing all meaning. To call someone who programs at all an engineer is, in my opiinion, embarrassing, especially when juxtaposed with actual engineers (e.g. mechanical, acoustical, aerospace etc.) who went through a hell of a lot more to be able to be called an engineer than a 4 year CS program. People like Jo…

I think people just like to be called engineers because they think it entitles them somehow.

Next thing we'll see front-end doctors?

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

#125

I know it's a bit off-topic, but I'm a student so anything about interviews interests me a lot. For the Bacon Number question, I'm struggling a bit to get my head around a good way to do it. My immediate idea is to derive a graph where nodes are actors and an edge between 2 actors means they've been in 1 or more films together. I believe the shortest path between them and Bacon could then be found by breadth-first se…

A simple upgrade to your algorithm would be bidirectional search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_search

This image from Norvig's AI may help explain it better than the wiki page: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~a159302/lesson3/fig03_17.gif

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

#126

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…

For those curious, here's a great summary of key JS concepts to know: http://stackoverflow.com/a/2629004/1538708

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed that the term "engineer" in "front-end engineer" implied software engineering capability. Although, like usual, it's dangerous to make assumptions.

In the context of software "engineering"/programming, the term engineer has been bastardized to the point of losing all meaning. To call someone who programs at all an engineer is, in my opiinion, embarrassing, especially when juxtaposed with actual engineers (e.g. mechanical, acoustical, aerospace etc.) who went through a hell of a lot more to be able to be called an engineer than a 4 year CS program. People like Jo…

I was following along and agreeing, right up until this part...

"People like John Resig, Jeremy Ashkenas can lay claim to being software engineers..."

Hahahaha. You have got to be kidding me. A couple of 20-something JavaScript hackers who became somewhat well known by memorizing browser quirks and writing tacky, amateurish compilers? If we're going to talk about Software Engineers as compared to Aerospace Engineers, you're going to have to raise the bar quite a bit further than that. Rob Pike is a Software Engineer, Jeremy Ashkenas is the Rasmus Lerdorf of CoffeeScript.

It just goes to show, you can read and agree with hyperbole in principle, right up until the authors of it embarrass themselves by demonstrating just how low their standards are and just how unlikely they are to appreciate the substance of what they're saying.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of software "engineering"/programming, the term engineer has been bastardized to the point of losing all meaning. To call someone who programs at all an engineer is, in my opiinion, embarrassing, especially when juxtaposed with actual engineers (e.g. mechanical, acoustical, aerospace etc.) who went through a hell of a lot more to be able to be called an engineer than a 4 year CS program. People like Jo…

I think people just like to be called engineers because they think it entitles them somehow. Next thing we'll see front-end doctors?

Interestingly, "front end doctor" is a real term (referring to people who work with cars.)

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of software "engineering"/programming, the term engineer has been bastardized to the point of losing all meaning. To call someone who programs at all an engineer is, in my opiinion, embarrassing, especially when juxtaposed with actual engineers (e.g. mechanical, acoustical, aerospace etc.) who went through a hell of a lot more to be able to be called an engineer than a 4 year CS program. People like Jo…

How about your average moron with an engineering degree like me? In Canada, there's a very strict definition for engineer. If you don't have an engineering degree from an accredited university, and a professional designation, you cannot call yourself an engineer. They take it very seriously since it's a regulated profession. Obviously everyone is free to draw their own lines (outside of Canada at least). I always tho…

>I always thought an engineer was someone who puts scientific or mathematical theory into practice and to solve technical problems.

100% agree. In the US I don't think it's as strict as Canada (may be wrong) but I know one has to take an FE to be called one. People in the software field, however, running around themselves engineers are more often than not, not putting any theories into practice but instead using the tools that actual software engineers (those that create software packages/tools/languages/compilers etc) make, essentially making them a journeyman of sorts.

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

#130
post #105

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…

Can I ask where (location) was this? I have trouble understanding how someone would call himself a JS developer and not knowing it. I'm not at all a JS developer (even though lately I've been knees deep in nodeJS code) and most of my experience is away from the browser, but even I knew this. I was responsible for hiring at a previous company and I did see some people passing as Senior SQL developers without knowing h…

A state government agency about 2 hours south of Seattle, WA. What happens is that Microsoft, Amazon, etc can offer 50 to 100 percent higher salaries and more interesting problems than we can, so most of the really skilled devs go there (I don't blame them). So out pickings are almost always slim.
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