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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

#191

Post by xstartup »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #178
Blazespinnaker wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true if you have very junior level responsibility, but as soon as you need to take any kind of leadership role others will be looking to you to contribute in a manner that is not ad hoc. Also, you mention research. Research and preparation are synonymous.

> Research and preparation are synonymous. This is wrong. If I want to handle a problem by researching it, I have a goal in mind ("solve problem X"), and I'll look for things that will help with it. Interview preparation specifically avoids that approach. Instead, you're supposed to become familiar with every possible problem, in case it comes up during the interview. Most of them, obviously, won't, and from a "resea…

One more thing is that, research takes time. Companies want ability to cut short this time which is required from inception to delivery of a product. They prefer a candidate who already has prepared linear algebra, if you are going to work on deep learning at the company.

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

#192

Post by pjmlp »

barry-cotter wrote: post #182
pjmlp wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most European countries require a 4 year degree for nurses, where the first two years are kind of shared with medical degree.

Kind of shared? Nursing https://www.ucc.ie/en/ck710/ Medicine https://www.ucc.ie/en/ck701/ There is not one single shared course between the two degrees. If you can find a course shared between medical and nursing students in all of Europe I'd be surprised.

Portugal, Spain and Greece as the examples I know.

Nursing is taught at many universities with medical degree, first and second year students tend to share some of the lectures.

Also, because of that, people with nursing degree are able to acquire a medical degree by taking the extra lectures and exams afterwards.

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

#193

Post by paulus_magnus2 »

Question from European side.

We hear there's a shortage of good people in SV / USA. What if you plainly ignored all companies that whiteboard? There should be plenty well paying jobs left.

disclaimer. a major tech company whiteboarded me twice (codility + live coding via google docs). They were really selective, none of my friends passed. In the end the job was lousy so ultimately the test selected more for willingness to jump through irrational hoops than productivity.

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

#194

Post by mamon »

flor1s wrote: post #101
qwerty456127 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 integrato…

FizzBuzz test is actually pretty great interview question, but most interviewers miss one crucial ingredient: time pressure. Original idea was that any competent programmer should be able to solve it in under 1 minute (only limiting factor being your own writing/typing speed). It is a good indicator of familiarity with the basic programming constructs (loops, conditionals, print statements). It's like writing down the alphabet - you should be able to do that without thinking. I have seen many developers who fail to do that.

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

#195

Post by walshemj »

jasonlotito wrote: post #83
sjg007 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can argue that this is the same thing.

Sure, you could argue that, but you'd lose the argument every single time. Interviewers don't share the questions they are expecting you to prepare for.

its not going to help you when something out of left field comes at you.

For example a couple of years into my first job I got to work to be told we have just brought an a0 digitizer ( cost about 2x my then salary) id like you to hook it up to the PDP 11 and get it working. I should point out there where no drivers or software.

I even had to make the serial cable up then write the drivers using some of the more advanced bits of RT11 to run two processes with the driver interrupting the main program when data came in on the rs232 port.

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

#196

Post by walshemj »

sjg007 wrote: post #96
jasonlotito wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you could argue that, but you'd lose the argument every single time. Interviewers don't share the questions they are expecting you to prepare for.

? In the act of preparation you learn (hopefully) how to abstractly solve problems. So I’m confused as to your point?

so test for abstract problems not regurgitate rote learned algorithms

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

#197

Post by walshemj »

35bge57dtjku wrote: post #175
bshimmin wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, how you might "prepare" for interviews in other industries is...learning about your potential employer. It has always shocked me that people don't instinctively think that doing this is an absolute necessity for every single job interview. I have very often been met with a totally blank look when I've asked candidates what they think it is the company I'm interviewing them for does, even when phrased as ni…

> surely not a hard question, you would think! Not so much hard, more that it sounds like a complete waste of time and could be signaling to people that this is one more non-technical/HR interview they have to get through before getting to talk to people they'd be working with and who can fill them in on details specific to their prospective job or team. Whatever you're trying to figure out with that question, there'…

I wouldn't want some one on my team who had know idea of what the company did.

I normally for public companies read the annual report and accounts.

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

#198

Post by knicholes »

Apocryphon wrote: post #157
sidlls wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industry wouldn't look the same, either: it wouldn't be nearly as profitable or widespread as it has become, and nobody but CS academics would care about it.

On the other hand, perhaps the quality of code would go up?

After personally seeing two large, recent acquisitions, I can attest that code quality != business value.

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

#199

Post by walshemj »

pjmlp wrote: post #164
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just because in countries like US, one can call himself/herself engineer, without any actual meaning. At least in Europe things are a bit more strict.

And which countries invented the computer pray? ok I know about Zuze but he was effectively ignored.

In terms of PE / CENG status its more who you know that what you know :-)

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

#200

Post by expertentipp »

closeparen wrote: post #98
Blazespinnaker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Software engineering does not consist of preparing for and then giving short/intense performances. Plenty of fields do - performing arts, film, trading, etc. all involve some form of short, intense, expensive activity to which you show up prepared and work in a burst of superhuman activity. But software isn’t like that at all - you get a problem and you dig into it, mull it over, research, etc. at your leisure until…

Very few are novelists, most are ghostwriters.
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