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What would a recession mean for developers?

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Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#131

Post by iLoveOncall »

happymellon wrote: post #124
EduardoBautista wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a basic data structure. I have been able to pass these questions without a formal University education just on logic alone. It’s just basic usage of objects in the case of a JavaScript implementation.

20 years of software development, I don't remember the last time that I actually encountered a linked list in the wild. > It’s just basic usage of objects in the case of a JavaScript implementation. Just because you would make a linked list via objects doesn't mean that anyone would actually do it.

> I don't remember the last time that I actually encountered a linked list in the wild

Probably many times a day actually, whenever you use an ArrayList or the equivalent in the language of your choice.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#132

Post by iLoveOncall »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #85
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

I haven't worked with a linked list since first or second year university, more than 10 years ago, nor have I had much of a reason to do character by character string analysis. I could probably work these problems out, but I might not seem too confident about it.

I'm fine with providing a basic Node class for the linked-list if they struggle to start, but that's it. With that anybody should be able to figure it out, no matter how long ago were their classes on that (or if they had any).

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#133

Post by iLoveOncall »

egfx wrote: post #103
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

> My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, I don’t know how to do it. I would need dictionary.com to find out what a palindrome means and stackoverflow for the rest, but I’ve used and evaluated five different JavaScript frameworks in building full scale web app…

I would explain you and give you an example of what a palindrome is.

And if you need stackoverflow to reverse a linked list, no, I would not hire you.

Many people have used many technologies. I started programming when I was 12, and I had no idea of what I was doing beyond copy-pasting code from tutorials and putting them together, but if "how many technologies did this dude work with" is your criteria, you would have hired 12 years old me.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#134

Post by iLoveOncall »

pragmatic wrote: post #111
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

FAANG recruiters usually prep you for the interview so that’s kind of crazy so many fail. On the other hand, usage of linked lists in the wild can be rather limited outside c/c++. Only languages I’ve used them a lot and then only when I was teaching algorithms and data structures. I think I used a linked list for a MRU list in a menu someplace ages ago in c# winforms app.

> On the other hand, usage of linked lists in the wild can be rather limited

You use linked lists in pretty much all languages, they're just hidden behind the flavor that you prefer, List in C#, LinkedList or ArrayList in Java, etc.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#135

Post by iLoveOncall »

kcartlidge wrote: post #110
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

> My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome" I've written sites, apps, ORMs, enterprise tools, code generators, FAAS platforms from scratch, exporters for DOCX and EPUB, etc etc for decades. I've been junior, mid, senior, lead of two teams. I've transitioned companies to cloud, created data warehouses, built BI universes. All sorts of stuff ov…

> those whiteboard exercises would have me saying no thanks and ending the interview

Then I saved 45 minutes of my life, great. The point is, if you want to join the company I work for (and many people want to), you have to jump through the hoops of this company.

You should re-read the start of my comment, because I don't think those whiteboard questions are a great way to hire people. I just don't think there's a way that's more respectful of the candidate while being time efficient and providing good data points.

The truth is that the achievements that you claim can have been done by others. I'm in a top 1% company, and yet I see many people that are just utterly shit at being software engineers. There are parasites like this everywhere and they can just coast and claim the achievements of others for themselves (especially when applying to another company that has no way to verify their claims), so whiteboarding exercises and others crap is 100% necessary, no matter your level.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#136

Post by iLoveOncall »

newbye3 wrote: post #72
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

Don't hire me, this version cons a lot )): (defun palindrome(str) (string= str (coerce (reverse (coerce str 'list)) 'string))

I would ask you to implement reverse and coerce yourself.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#137

Post by egfx »

Doxin wrote: post #130
egfx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, I don’t know how to do it. I would need dictionary.com to find out what a palindrome means and stackoverflow for the rest, but I’ve used and evaluated five different JavaScript frameworks in building full scale web app…

An interview is not a quiz. You're allowed to ask clarifying questions. I'm sure most interviewers won't discount you for being unfamiliar with a fairly obscure word. Needing stackoverflow to check for palindrome-ness would probably be a bigger problem though. Of course during your day-to-day you'll be allowed to google all sorts of things, but checking if something is a palindrome is so basic that all google could p…

That's exactly the point and in response to the sibling comment as well - using StackOverFlow to find solutions to simple problems is the smart thing to do. Developers on SO compete for the best solutions. You're job as a developer is to curate and pick up new modern day conventions in doing so. The reason I don't waste time on reversing a palindrome is because frankly I'd rather spend time doing more important things for my products, and because its such a fundamental knowledge then how to reverse a palindrome is an answer that is available as fast as my brain could think about it. There are more important and more interesting problems to solve.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#138

Post by Clubber »

Comevius wrote: post #16
Clubber wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if that's what you gotta to do get your foot in the door, that's what you gotta do. My first job out of college in the late 90s took 3 months to find. I already had an internship where I did development for money and networking and workstation support. For the first job, I built the applications, designed the database, setup all the servers and all the workstations. I even crimped network cables and managed a…

"if you bust your ass like you're trying to impress the hell out of someone, people will notice and eventually, good things will happen" In most industries, most of the time hard work no longer pays off. It is not rewarded, it is exploited. The people who would notice are increasingly sociopathic and short-highted, because that's how you make it these days. Hard work can still open doors, but you have to be smart abo…

>Hard work can still open doors, but you have to be smart about who you work for.

Agree. Notice in my little story, the good thing didn't happen until I got a job offer at another company, leaving the shit-hole I was working for. Also had I not busted my ass at the shit-hole, I never would have been noticed/recommended as a good performer for a better company. Point is, people notice when you work hard and notice when you don't. Just because you work in a dump, slacking off might actually hurt you, or at least exclude you from further opportunities, internal or external. My baseline is if you aren't seeing improvement in your prospects after a couple of years at a company, consider leaving.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#139

Post by exdsq »

DeathArrow wrote: post #84
exdsq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some startups are still requiring weird whiteboard questions sadly. Interviewed for a role recently and was asked to navigate a maze of obstacles and teleports with possible infinite loops, saying the minimum number of steps to leave the maze if it’s possible. That was for a test engineering role so… WTF.

They wanted to know if you can traverse a graph, which is something pretty simple. I don't see a need for outrage here.

I'm sure it's simple if you know it! But having not taking an algorithm class before, and having completed three other Algorithm questions within the 90 min total allotted time, I crashed pretty hard. I solved it afterwards when I had time to really think, but didn't know it off the top of my head.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#140

Post by exdsq »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #122
414techie wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but does that kind of problem really exist on a regular basis for a test engineer on that team? I doubt it.

It's probably not that relevant to the job, but as far as weird questions go it's not too bad. It's presumably not leetcode hard, basically.

Actually it was literally a hard leetcode question! The other 3 were 2 medium and 1 easy. I can work out easy and medium leetcode answers from first principles in an interview setting, usually. I can't with hard ones tbh.

But ultimately it seems very divorced from reality of what I do, which is TestOps (building out CI pipelines, reporting, test infra, etc...).

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