Live data from Hacker News

Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

darrenkopp.com

211–220 of 679 posts

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#211

This was an interesting observation: > What I do know, however, is that for every 1-hour interview where I evaluated if someone knew their data structures, I could have just taught them. I don't really hear much about training. I doubt it's because we don't do it, but maybe it's not an interesting topic for discussion.

Training and teaching is hard. "One hour of interviewing could be avoided with one hour of training" is wildly optimistic.

It also ignores the breadth of knowledge you likely want a candidate to have (and are just trying to sample at through a short few interviews). How many hours of training are you willing to sign up for? How confident are you that the knowledge will "stick" for any given candidate? Are you going to fall back to GPA and school prestige to measure how well they've retained knowledge in the past? That seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#212
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. In the interviews I give I care about whether the candidate can write code, yes, but also talk and think about code. The conversation is the most important part of the interview, and the thinking (and communication) is the most important thing I'm trying to judge after basic skills. Like you said, you can get a good sense within the first few lines of pseudocode if someone's at least competent at writin…

Coding tests are an awful place to test someone’s conversational skills. I don’t talk while I code. You don’t either. Honestly I can’t even remember the last time I talked to anyone about the code itself outside of a PR. People talk about architecture and database migrations and why their containers aren’t behaving locally. Nobody ever tests for that stuff.

If you're anything like me then you think a lot while you code, like inner monologue thinking, and that's what the interviewer is testing for.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#213

This was an interesting observation: > What I do know, however, is that for every 1-hour interview where I evaluated if someone knew their data structures, I could have just taught them. I don't really hear much about training. I doubt it's because we don't do it, but maybe it's not an interesting topic for discussion.

Sounds a bit delusional to me that you can just "teach someone data structures in 1 hour". Also the role specifics matter here. It might be ok to bring in a junior who needs lots of mentoring onboard. For a tech lead who is going to be driving the direction of a team, I'd expect them to be up to speed and autonomous very quickly.

I don't think "I can teach someone data structures in 1 hour" is a good faith interpretation of what OP meant. I would expect it's more like "I could teach someone about a data structure that could be used to solve this problem efficiently and simply in 1 hour" is closer to the mark.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#214
post #197

We used four basic exercises during the first remote interview. Simple things like, "there is a number on each line of this text file. Find the sum of them." This was an effective method to screen out applicants who didn't have the basic coding skills to align with their stated resume experience. And there were a decent number of these. We did further development project exercises later in the process that took about…

15 hours! You're hiring contractors not interviewing.

this seems completely reasonable compared to endless whiteboarding?

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#215

We used four basic exercises during the first remote interview. Simple things like, "there is a number on each line of this text file. Find the sum of them." This was an effective method to screen out applicants who didn't have the basic coding skills to align with their stated resume experience. And there were a decent number of these. We did further development project exercises later in the process that took about…

Paid how much? 15 hours is over a thousand dollars - probably closer to 2 or more

is that really a lot of money for a company? don't you often spend that much in having your developers interview candidates and white board them?

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#216
post #64

I find a simple realignment would solve a lot of this interview angst: Interviewers seem to interview on the premise that they need to find out what the candidate can't do. But this is not useful. I can tell you what they can't do. To a first approximation, the answer is "everything". I am an experienced and skillful developer, yadda yadda yadda, and I've never touched React, have no game development experience, have…

> Who sits down and designs a system for all twelve adjectives ("reliable", "concurrent", "redundant", "runs on a Z80") we want anyhow? Wait, is Z80 seriously something that you want/design for?

Sounds more like a case of "arson, murder, and jaywalking," applied for its rhetorical effect, to me. :-)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJa...

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming the stock price doesn't go down in the time it takes to hit your first (or any meaningful) vesting cliff.

To be fair I think most top tier companies vest quarterly so...

They do, but they don't do refreshers quarterly.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#218
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding tests are an awful place to test someone’s conversational skills. I don’t talk while I code. You don’t either. Honestly I can’t even remember the last time I talked to anyone about the code itself outside of a PR. People talk about architecture and database migrations and why their containers aren’t behaving locally. Nobody ever tests for that stuff.

If you're anything like me then you think a lot while you code, like inner monologue thinking, and that's what the interviewer is testing for.

And vocalizing this inner dialogue comes naturally to you I suppose.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Difficult to apply a lot of that, when in reality there are nearly infinite combinations of domain knowledge, software knowledge, architecture knowledge with languages and platforms. Some requiring more or less depth than others. Software is a craft discipline... it would be better organized as a guild with reputation at stake in concert with endorsements. But then you risk what is effectively nepotism and politics.

you don't think other engineering disciplines have countless sub-areas of expertise?

I don't think other areas of engineering see the tooling options double every other year.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#220

I have never heard of the negative base question (I would have never passed that without help): https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/216800/how-i-conver... My worst interview questions that were silly: • number theory for django dev: how many prime numbers are there. • random brain teaser for django dev: infinite lasers pointed in space that turn at each other at the rotational speed of light- does the intersecti…

There's a rotational speed of light? Does it mean anything for light to rotate?

See, I can't even explain it back correctly. Kinda like this https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3vnyty/if_i_swi...
Post reply on HN