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Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

darrenkopp.com

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Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#3
> Q: Assume that you have an infinite stream of data that is coming in from multiple threads in an unordered fashion. Write the stream items to the console in order.

If I were the interviewer I would be interested in what clarifying questions the candidate would ask and/or how they would highlight parameters and assumptions needed because the question is vague to the point of being unanswerable otherwise.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#5

[flagged]

So you don’t interview anyone whose work is company proprietary?

nope. tech is so fast moving if you're not at least experimenting with your own code then you're not going to be a good fit. we tend to also hire engineers who have contributed to open source.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t interview anyone whose work is company proprietary?

nope. tech is so fast moving if you're not at least experimenting with your own code then you're not going to be a good fit. we tend to also hire engineers who have contributed to open source.

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?

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#8

[flagged]

You're missing out on lots of amazing people who treat programming as work and have other hobbies. Or people in temporarily different situations (like young kids). Or people with more important things happening in their life. You're effectively filtering for mostly people in their 20s.

I mean, it's your choice, but your loss too.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t interview anyone whose work is company proprietary?

nope. tech is so fast moving if you're not at least experimenting with your own code then you're not going to be a good fit. we tend to also hire engineers who have contributed to open source.

Most code is not written with the latest technologies or techniques though.

Why would being up to date matter?

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#10
The 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.
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