Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

Post by wolco » Sat, May 18, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

mrisoli wrote: post #48

iamaelephant wrote: post #9

"I'll spend hours brushing up on Scheme just to test you on something completely irrelevant to the role just because I like playing Resumé Gotcha". Yeah that's a thanks but no thanks from me. I wouldn't work for this guy in a thousand years.

It's a good investment for the company, if the interviewer can red flag a candidate who is blatantly lying on his resumé because the candidate would assume no one would know said technology, it would save a lot of money from cutting ties with an employee in a later stage. As an anecdote, I used to work for a company and would require candidates to know some Ruby, for one guy with several years experience in Python we…

Post by je42 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

Post by ubercow13 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #96

twelve40 wrote: post #39

> He reasoned through the problem, wrote the code, it ran perfectly the first time. I hired him. I get the overall sentiment, but come on, "I hired him" sounds like self-absorbed anecdata - so this post is about how to quickly appeal to some manager dude on the interwebs? A more useful metric would be, did this hire survive the first two years, and what do the people around him have to say about his performance. > It…

Bullshit. It'll go like this: Interviewer: here, a laptop with vi Applicant: I've never used vi Interviewer: just hit "i" to be dropped into insert mode, then just navigate with the arrows and use backspace like in any other editor. Ask me when you're ready to save and I'll teach you the magic incantation. Applicant: types away If you're not able to code in what's essentially just a test box then that's a useful thin…

Post by izacus » Sat, May 18, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #24

emidln wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great reason to learn vi for basic editing tasks. It's everywhere. Even if you typically use a different editor/ide, vi is a common ground. Disclosure: I'm an emacs user

It’s kind of weird to NOT know basic vi/vim if you get to a certain point in your career. If you can’t at least open the software, go into insert mode, and save/quit, have you ever had to ssh into a remote server and edit a config file before? Only excuse I could think of is if you literally did everything in windows for your entire career.

Post by trickstra » Sat, May 18, 2019, 12:12 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #87

trickstra wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ad 1.) yes, being a contributor doesn't automatically make you good programmer. But having 7 years of coding practice in several companies kinda does, because why else would those companies have you for so long? Yet these programming interviews are required even for them. Probation period is much much more telling about a programmer than the 15 minute coding task.

> But having 7 years of coding practice in several companies kinda does, because why else would those companies have you for so long? Several jobs in 7 years might very well imply several companies gave that person a chance and then gave up. I often got questions about that years ago, and it was completely reasonable, at one point I'd worked in 4 different positions in 5 years. (There were good reasons for it and I h…