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Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

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Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#101

Post by flor1s »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #80
czardoz wrote: post #3

This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…

The reality is the majority of tech interviews today are filled with questions/tasks that have little or nothing to do with the actual job you are going to be assigned. In fact an average programmer doesn't actually need to know a single piece of computer science or math (almost all such stuff is abstracted by common libraries and frameworks, whatever is not can be looked up on demand) nor to memorize anything (thank…

I don't think these kind of coding interviews are given to average programmers though, and if they are I'm sure they are taken with a pinch of salt (or with a lot of help from the recruiter, or using simple tasks such as FizzBuzz [1]).

In my experience, having been an average programmer (and maybe still being, I hope that by now I'm at least slightly above average) who worked in The Netherlands at a "system integrator", a web dev "sweat shop" (some projects using 10 year old tech, relatively high staff turnover) and even a startup, such companies don't ask for whiteboard coding, however take home projects are quite common.

I also interviewed at some more "hot" unicorns in Japan, which do have these kind of questions (using a dehumanizing online test in fact).

1: http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#102

Post by sulam »

Blazespinnaker wrote: post #79
czardoz wrote: post #3

This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…

Preparation is a huuuuuuge part of being successful in the workplace[1]. Simply showing up just doesn’t cut it. Part of interviews aren’t even testing skills, but testing prep. Of course, you want to test for innate genetic talent as well. Good interviews do that, but as with gattaca, we see that desire and sincere interest counts too over genes. Preparation, sincerity, and genes. That’s what I like to see in potenti…

The idea of screening for a software engineering gene is patently absurd. In an ideal scenario, we screen for the ability to do the work the job requires. In the normal scenario, we screen for some mix of that and the ability to apply cookie-cutter techniques to (hopefully) novel problems in the space of ~45 minutes. Some companies also ask you to do a sample practical problem either on site or on your own time. None of this indicates anything about someone's "innate genetic talent", if there is any such thing.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#103

Post by UncleMeat »

tinokid wrote: post #55

Could there be a clearer sign that the quality of higher education in our time is in steep decline? If, one hundred years ago, Oxbridge had floated the idea of sanctioning a student to embark on a program of study designed to anticipate questions that might arise in a job interview, it would have been as preposterous as suggesting that the Queen should take her meals in a pub. And yet today, we have one of the preemi…

40 years ago, my mom took a one credit course in undergrad for her cs degree that was on resume writing, interviewing, and negotiation. Is this so different?

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#104

Post by dietr1ch »

czardoz wrote: post #3

This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…

I think it's rather silly to "prepare" for an interview, but IMHO what they expect at Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft is not something you should really need to prepare for if you took the time to really understand the algorithms and general techniques you study as a CS undergrad.

Rehearsing at a relaxed pace over a single weekend should be more than enough, particularly to get used to discuss your ideas and using a whiteboard.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#105

Post by ng12 »

dietr1ch wrote: post #104
czardoz wrote: post #3

This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…

I think it's rather silly to "prepare" for an interview, but IMHO what they expect at Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft is not something you should really need to prepare for if you took the time to really understand the algorithms and general techniques you study as a CS undergrad. Rehearsing at a relaxed pace over a single weekend should be more than enough, particularly to get used to discuss your ideas and using a…

I completely agree. Every time I start a job search I dust off my copy of "Cracking the Coding Interview", do a half dozen problems on HackerRank and I'm good to go. Sure, it's not exactly the skillset a professional software engineer needs -- but if you're a professional software engineer it really shouldn't be that hard.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#106

Post by bitL »

Just wait until you start interviewing at even crazier companies than FB/Google that would like you to tell them 20 ML algorithms, 20 computer vision algorithms, compare expected results of non-linear optimizations applied to some weird Deep Learning problem and analytically justify it (why is it worse/better than SGD on this loss function?), then off to some deep domain knowledge, conjure graph algorithms on the spot on problems you've never seen before, all in 1.5h, expecting Stanford/MIT PhD-level answers.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#107

Post by u801e »

tinokid wrote: post #69
bearforcenine wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt this is a sign of a decline in quality of higher ed, and more a sign of the popularity of CS as a major and software engineering as a career. These kinds of courses and prep has existed in similarly popular fields for many yeas: law, medicine, finance, etc.

1) Those are professional schools 2) Even so, no respectable law school offers a bar prep class. Nor does any med school offer "How to ace the USMLE".

> Nor does any med school offer "How to ace the USMLE".

Some medical schools will use NBME (National Board of Medical Examiners) subject exams as final exams for various third year clinical rotations. Through a combination of experience on the rotation and studying material from textbooks and review books, the exams serve as good preparation for the USMLE step 2 exam since the test style is largely similar.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#108

Post by barry-cotter »

closeparen wrote: post #66
bearforcenine wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been my experience that any industry that * Is attractive enough (compensation, lifestyle, etc.) * and has a larger supply of qualified applicants than desirable positions Will result in applicants preparing for however they are interviewed, tested, etc. This isn't unique to software engineering interviews. People prepare for interviews or exams in finance, law, medicine, etc. They all have a system that is game…

“Interviews or exams” That you think interviews and exams are interchangeable concepts illustrates the problem. Nothing wrong with a rigorous filter at the gates of the profession, but lawyers don’t need to spend months studying for each company’s half-assed version of the bar exam each time they change jobs. Our industry is dysfunctional because, unlike law and medicine, no one trusts the credentialing mechanisms.

What credentialing mechanisms? As we’re told over and over a CS degree is not a trade qualification. Having a CS degree is no guarantee of being able to program either. The example of Microsoft and Cisco qualifications is not stellar either. They’re often seen as a negative signal. And most working programmers don’t have a relevant credential unless you count a Bachelor’s degree which is more a certificate of middle class membership than necessary to work as a programmer.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#109

Post by bitL »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #80
czardoz wrote: post #3

This is what I was afraid of. I always thought interviews were something where you present your abilities, experience and knowledge. It should not be something you "prepare" for because then you're not showing off your skills, instead you're just regurgitating what you are trained to do. I do somewhat blame the whiteboard culture, but I guess that's the one that has given the best results so far. I've no doubt that i…

The reality is the majority of tech interviews today are filled with questions/tasks that have little or nothing to do with the actual job you are going to be assigned. In fact an average programmer doesn't actually need to know a single piece of computer science or math (almost all such stuff is abstracted by common libraries and frameworks, whatever is not can be looked up on demand) nor to memorize anything (thank…

It's a fitness test. Are you going to bring me value, or are you on the verge of burnout with outdated skills, trying to live off your past? "What did you do for me today?" is what matters for company to stay afloat and brutal competition is the way to achieve it. What kind of society it creates is another question.

Re: Stanford CS9: Problem-Solving for the CS Technical Interview

#110

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

closeparen wrote: post #66
bearforcenine wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been my experience that any industry that * Is attractive enough (compensation, lifestyle, etc.) * and has a larger supply of qualified applicants than desirable positions Will result in applicants preparing for however they are interviewed, tested, etc. This isn't unique to software engineering interviews. People prepare for interviews or exams in finance, law, medicine, etc. They all have a system that is game…

“Interviews or exams” That you think interviews and exams are interchangeable concepts illustrates the problem. Nothing wrong with a rigorous filter at the gates of the profession, but lawyers don’t need to spend months studying for each company’s half-assed version of the bar exam each time they change jobs. Our industry is dysfunctional because, unlike law and medicine, no one trusts the credentialing mechanisms.

Our industry also has quite a lot of self-taught professionals, who can perform as well as their college educated counterparts, which is something you won't really get in professions like Law or Medicine. I think that's a good thing, when it comes to software.
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