Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

Post by kerng » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #20

sxp wrote: post #3

https://blog.usejournal.com/rethinking-how-we-interview-in-m... is the original post by a PM at Microsoft. It doesn't have any useful information about a pure technical interview for software engineering. >(Note: I started at Microsoft when we were still asking questions about why manhole covers were round, how many ping pong balls would fill a 747, and how to reverse a linked list. In 20 years here, I’ve yet to have…

Manhole question is bad, because around half manholes im real world are squared. So the correct answer is that they are not in fact round and square works perfectly fine. Of course I know right answer, but it has zero to do with me being smart and a lot to do with me being in right culture and thus having heard about it before. Which is exactly what it test along with other brain teasers - have you encountered this s…

Post by BurningFrog » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

coralreef wrote: post #12

sxp wrote: post #3

https://blog.usejournal.com/rethinking-how-we-interview-in-m... is the original post by a PM at Microsoft. It doesn't have any useful information about a pure technical interview for software engineering. >(Note: I started at Microsoft when we were still asking questions about why manhole covers were round, how many ping pong balls would fill a 747, and how to reverse a linked list. In 20 years here, I’ve yet to have…

Google stopped asking brainteaser questions like that because they found no correlation in its hiring usefulness.

Post by BurningFrog » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #15

antaviana wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Wikipedia [1] Reasons for the shape might include: * A round manhole cover cannot fall through its circular opening, whereas a square manhole cover might fall in if it were inserted diagonally in the hole. The existence of a "lip" holding up the lid means that the underlying hole is smaller than the cover, so that other shapes might suffice. (A Reuleaux triangle or other curve of constant width would…

Don't forget also: round manhole covers are a Schelling point. Making a manhole cover round is one of the first intuitive shapes you'd think to make them (along with squares and rectangles); and so you'd guess, as a construction company gearing up to sell the concept of concrete manholes with removable iron-plate covers to a municipality (back in the 1800s or whenever we first got them) that what the municipality wil…

Post by 13of40 » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

sxp wrote: post #3

https://blog.usejournal.com/rethinking-how-we-interview-in-m... is the original post by a PM at Microsoft. It doesn't have any useful information about a pure technical interview for software engineering. >(Note: I started at Microsoft when we were still asking questions about why manhole covers were round, how many ping pong balls would fill a 747, and how to reverse a linked list. In 20 years here, I’ve yet to have…

Post by commandlinefan » Sun, Dec 30, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

FigBug wrote: post #17

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the round manhole covers just to make sure they can't fall in?

The covers are round because the holes are round. :P