Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Worst interview questions for software developers

fibery.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 253 posts

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#121

Post by Ekaros »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #88
Volundr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually disagree on 10, I just estimated the population of New York then looked it up and was off by an order of magnitude. Good chance I'd do worse in an interview situation than sitting at home. A few more estimates with errors of this size and we've learned what? I have a poor grasp of US census data? Unless this is a realistic approximation of the kind of thing your doing with this job, the time in the intervi…

"why are manhole covers round" So they don't fall in. Next question.

Round shapes handle the pressure of the surface and soil better is the true reason I have heard.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#122

Post by trickstra »

Volundr wrote: post #62
FabHK wrote: post #57

That is a terrible list. Many of those questions are perfectly fine. 10 - Fermi problems. Good to get an indication of a candidate's problem solving skills. 9,8,7,6 - The candidates's motivation, weaknesses, strengths, plans. What's wrong with that? Evidently, you have to modulate the answers somewhat, but the extent to which you do that well is indicative of your understanding of the job requirements, the competitio…

I actually disagree on 10, I just estimated the population of New York then looked it up and was off by an order of magnitude. Good chance I'd do worse in an interview situation than sitting at home. A few more estimates with errors of this size and we've learned what? I have a poor grasp of US census data? Unless this is a realistic approximation of the kind of thing your doing with this job, the time in the intervi…

the goal of these tasks is not to provide the most correct answer, but to show how you think about problems. Even the fact that you googled the right answer after may set you apart from candidates who just don't care, and that's relevant for the job. Of course if the recruiter judges candidates based on how close they were to the correct number, then they are doing it wrong and you might want to stay away.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#123

Post by kcartlidge »

I love interviews. And in contrast to most of the advice on that page, I'm totally honest even if I get the questions about strengths and weaknesses etc.

* If I'm going to be working with/for these people I want it to be a good fit. Honesty increases the chance of that, and reduces the chance I'm going through the whole job-hunting process again in the near future.

* Interviews can be a great opportunity to assess the current expectations of others in the industry, which is really helpful for staying current. This isn't always true of course, but enough of my interviews are of a pretty technical nature that it generally is.

* If the interviewer asks probing enough questions I can often learn something new about myself by seeing what (honest) answers I arrive at.

They're also fun; interesting opportunities to meet new people. It helps that I've got a good track record of getting the roles I apply for, but I'm not sure whether I enjoy them because I'm usually successful or whether I'm usually successful because I enjoy them.

Either way, whilst not all of those questions are appropriate I'll still answer them honestly. And to me, the worst interview questions are leetcode and algorithms (unless they directly reflect the nature of the work expected of course). I have a general background awareness of such stuff, but you'd be better off checking my search engine skills to make sure I can find them if I ever need them.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#124

Post by neilv »

poutrathor wrote: post #112
neilv wrote: post #97

> I would say, “I’ve got bills to pay, and I know a bit about websites. But you can hire me as an assistant to the system administrator too if you want.” Unfortunately, when you give such an honest answer, you’re asked to get the hell out of the interviewer’s face. So you have to cheat. Don’t make people cheat you. This is important, IMHO. So many companies set a tone of dishonesty and playing-to-the-metrics, startin…

I am surprised by your feedback as we have heard for years that Chinese students cheat all the time. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cheating+chinese+student&t=newext&...

The first hit I got from that search URL was of severe prison terms to people caught cheating on a national exam in a huge country. (Meanwhile, I read of rampant cheating by US college students, and professors bemoaning that administration won't even punish caught students.)

Also, I wouldn't know what to make of all the search hits I might read, especially since presumably there's cultural context I don't understand.

If you work with engineers from China, I suspect you'll notice many favorable qualities. Maybe including an implicit "No Jerks policy" (in American tech company terms).

You'll also notice that they're all distinct individuals (in American terms), and though it might be human to prejudge groups/labels of others, that's not fair to individuals, and we strive to be better than that.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#125

Post by LAC-Tech »

karaterobot wrote: post #48

> How do you see yourself in five years? Man, this question. I was asked this question in an interview for a startup. I gave the regular answer that was expected of me. The interview went well, and at the end when the interviewer (who was the co-founder) asked if I had any questions, I turned this around on him: "where do you see [company x] in five years?" He laughed and talked about finding product-market fit and g…

I always respond with "half-way through my 10 year plan".

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#127

Post by _carbyau_ »

Psychlist wrote: post #79
jemmyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do mechanics and doctors actually get asked those questions? I don't think doctors do, they have credentials and references. I'm pretty sure mechanics around here wouldn't get asked that, just references and maybe credentials and "how soon can you start?" Software is a weird industry where you have to quiz every applicant to make sure they know how to program even though they've been the industry for years, and we se…

Nah, software is weird because they so rarely ask people to do anything related to the task at hand. "solve a toy problem without using libraries. Please don't paste off SE/AI". I prefer to actually think about what I want and devise a problem set to work through with the last candidates. You know, "here's a simple TCP server with a minor bug in the handler for one packet. Let's fix it". Real job: here's a 100k LoC s…

I'd even be happy to simply talk out concepts, issues, troubleshooting and possible things to check.

Generally, if a person can talk in detail about a topic, they know the topic.

But it requires you also know the topic.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#128

Post by mylons »

how about a tree traversal algorithm when you're about to become a developer on a CRUD app?

edit: someone downvoted this -- i'd love to know why you think an inorder, preorder, and/or postorder implementation would help in an application that uses SQL to query a db for primary keys in a couple tables?

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#129

Post by rzzzt »

necovek wrote: post #95
Falkon1313 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that still presupposes a whole lot of knowledge about pianos that most people just wouldn't be expected to have. From what percentage of households have them to how often they need tuning to how long it takes to tune one. Unless you're a serious piano nut, you're at best throwing out random numbers, and likely not only don't know the answers, but don't even know what questions to ask. What about peak demand? Do l…

That's exactly what this tests for. I have no idea what those values are! I am still able to make guesses to show that I can figure out a bunch of variables that affect the final value. And since I am multiplying data that's off maybe even by few orders of magnitude, errors multiply as well: I am aware of how erroneous input data affects the results too. Is it relevant to software development as a whole? It definitel…

I have no problem with the question being abstract; my main gripe lies in the first part of your explanation, compounded noise is still noise. Why go through all the mental gymnastics if you yourself are aware that it can be way off? Your next-in-chain-of-command will treat it as hard fact and make a decision or commit to something based on it- then you have all these piano tuners loitering around and nothing to do.

It's similar to estimating novel work.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#130

Post by ownagefool »

neilv wrote: post #107

> 4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? If an engineering candidate's last few positions have all been about a 1-year vest, that's definitely going to be on my mind. I'd prefer to build a coherent, highly-effective development team who can see us through the whole lifecycles of this and successive projects -- not what might as well be fly-by-night gig contractors, tossing less-aligned check-off sprint deliv…

I mean most people will just tell you what you want to hear, but the reality it's usually about the following things:

  Pay - Almost always, wages don't keep up with your progression, and never with the market.
  Progression - Not just promotions, but being given the interesting work to run with.  Once someone sees you as junior, it's easier to go somewhere else to be treated with a bit more gravitas.
  Morale - Quite a lot of tech leadership is terrible.  Various problems make people sad.
  Skill - They might actually be terrible / or skilled but terrible at actually finishing anything.
It makes a lot of sense to hop about until you find a company that constantly rewards you, but the reality is they barely exist and even in the top companies there's hopping about for the same reasons.

I'm in the UK and spent many years as a contractor. It was never a case of not caring, or not wanting a long term home, and since most of the work and platforms were similar org to org, not understanding longer term consequences of decisions doesn't entirly apply.

Mostly, the negativity just writes off ambitious people. Though it might make sense given your org, like others, might just have the same reward problems.

Post reply on HN