This is a standard second semester Freshman year intro to programming curriculum. Most Universities have a class that looks exactly like this. I guess the only thing unique here is that when you're ready to graduate, you can take a class you already took 3 years earlier.
Caltech's CS interview prep course
241–250 of 336 posts
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#242My career path in tech so far has been junior engineer -> mid level -> senior -> tech lead. As I've progressed through that path, I have had literally no opportunities of applying the stuff I've learnt on HackerRank, save for a couple of interviews. At this point I'm convinced that the focus of those interviews was entirely wrong. Once you pass those tests and get hired, you will be dealing with tons of legacy code r…
The reason this complaint never changes anything, despite being very popular, is that these interviews serve two purposes that it doesn’t address: 1) they’re an intelligence test; 2) they’re a perseverance/conscientiousness test. Will you take the time and put in the work to pass one of these interviews? That measures perseverance and conscientiousness. Having put in the time, can you recall and adapt what you learne…
If we define willingness to cram, cram, cram as "conscientiousness" - then sure.
The idea that this is a meaningful proxy for "ability to get things done" -- about that I'm not so sure.
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#243I think the thing going on with interviews is that (most) of software engineering is actually pretty easy. Anyone can do the job outside of an interview session with the right experience. Note how I stressed the word (most). The interviews mostly serve to keep salaries high.
> The interviews mostly serve to keep salaries high.
What incentive do tech companies have in keeping salaries high?
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#244Idea: Professional CS interviewers! I'm a good programmer, but not a good interviewer. That makes me pretty typical. I could spend a lot of time getting better at it, but I would only marginally improve, and it would take time out of the work I'm actually good at. This feels like a typical problem for division of labor to solve. Maybe it's already done in done form?
Not sure what you mean. If your idea is some kind of technical interview training, a million services for that already exist.
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are a memory test not an intelligence test. If you truly wanted to measure intelligence it would have to be based on a priori knowledge and not on the ability to memorize algorithms and their implementation.
The notion that somebody could simply "memorize algorithms" and then apply that information on-the-fly to questions they won't know in advance -- demonstrating adaptiveness, creativity, and the application of general problem-solving knowledge to novel problems -- and that this doesn't measure intelligence is not credible. I'd bet my net worth that the ability to perform well on these interviews positively correlates…
I don't think it is as you describe it though, the leetcode questions in interviews are usually just slightly rehashed. What would be interesting is giving someone a puzzle they hadn't seen before. My wife can't remember formulas or algorithms for anything - she defends that by saying she can just look it up if she needs it. Saying that, we did Advent of Code last December and she came up with quite a few optimal solutions by first principle (albeit slowly). She'd suck getting through a leetcode interview. I'm quite lucky in that I remember these things really really easily but really struggle with truly novel problems. I just reach for my toolbox. I don't believe these interviews correlate with genuine intelligence, just a particular type of memory and question recognition.
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is that supposed to be telling? There are a quite a few industries where there are profitable neighbor industries around breaking in to it. Even ones with licensing and blah blah blah instead of whiteboards. Hell, the cynics would call the entire current university system one! And if not that, than it least the massive industries around getting into better schools...
Why don’t other STEM fields have those neighbor/parasite industries?
Science typically requires advanced degrees, publications, etc. You're not doing much of anything a lay person would consider you a "scientist" for with just a Bachelor's. Getting these degrees serves as the hurdle/filter.
Math is the same as science. You're probably not getting hired as a mathematician if you just graduated with your Bachelor's.
[Non-software] engineering has all the professional certification, shadowing, etc. that is required to get very far in the field.
Software is the only STEM career you can get into right out of high school, being completely self taught. Yes obviously a degree helps and it's much easier with one, but not having advanced degrees is a non-starter for most STEM careers, let alone not having one at all.
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bingo. It should be telling that there are a number of, usually for-profit, resources for prepping for just the interview process: * leetcode * Cracking the Coding Interview * Elements of Programing Interviews * Interview Kickstart, which costs like $5500, is a bootcamp just for passing interviews * educative.io * algoexpert.io That being said, I might just play along with the DS / Algo interview game. Having an inte…
I know you think you’re making a “cynical but rational” kind of argument here, but man, this comment is a huge fucking bummer. You’re acknowledging that you have the both the ability and the knowledge to change (your small part of) a shitty system, and instead you’re pulling up the ladder behind you. That sucks. You should not let yourself feel good about that, even if it’s “economically rational” or whatever. You’re…
What do you suggest instead?
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#248My career path in tech so far has been junior engineer -> mid level -> senior -> tech lead. As I've progressed through that path, I have had literally no opportunities of applying the stuff I've learnt on HackerRank, save for a couple of interviews. At this point I'm convinced that the focus of those interviews was entirely wrong. Once you pass those tests and get hired, you will be dealing with tons of legacy code r…
Seems like the consensus is that engineering interview is broken, but no one has come up with a better method? You’d think with the war to get talent these days if there was a better way to screen for candidates companies would use it.
Self-plug but I think I have an answer
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I interview senior SWEs at a big tech company (I've done in the order of a few hundred interviews, which were a mix of coding and system design sessions). I'm always open to hearing about ideas to improve my interviewing, but I find that threads like this are repetitive and not really actionable. One common misconception I keep seeing is the idea that the interview result revolves around solving the question. IMHO, t…
"One common misconception I keep seeing is the idea that the interview result revolves around solving the question." Candidates know this. The issue is: Interviewers who do their job, and build a broad based picture of a developer's skills and give fair ratings, are rare. The perception is 75% interviewers don't even bother. They're tired, they're unmotivated. Their annual bonus doesn't reflect "conducts fair and bal…
I had an interview a few weeks ago that ended in an offer and was basically a verbatim Spiral Matrix problem from LeetCode (they had changed the starting direction of the spiral but that's it). Didn't run it once because we ran out of time, and when I pasted it into LC after the interview, noticed several errors to the point where it's honestly probably better we didn't run it. The interviewer was super engaged the whole time.
When I'm conducting interviews, I'll do LC easies or mediums depending on the role we're hiring for - basically a couple easies for a new grad or someone with just a couple years of experience. One medium for a mid-level. If you're a senior we're not doing a coding exercise, we're having you teach us a system you've designed in the past, then we're going to change some of the core assumptions/requirements and see how your design changes. This has worked super well for us in the past, especially at the senior level. I would say most of the mid-levels we've hired since I've started doing this did not have a working solution at the end of the interview.
Re: Caltech's CS interview prep course
#250My career path in tech so far has been junior engineer -> mid level -> senior -> tech lead. As I've progressed through that path, I have had literally no opportunities of applying the stuff I've learnt on HackerRank, save for a couple of interviews. At this point I'm convinced that the focus of those interviews was entirely wrong. Once you pass those tests and get hired, you will be dealing with tons of legacy code r…
What’s your suggested alternative? Please remember that while some of us would do well and prefer some live pair programming or debugging sessions, it stresses the hell out of some folks and penalizes them unfairly. Take home tests penalizes people with families and other responsibilities and probably has a racial bias as well in countries where different races have different societal loads. In the end, even if these…
The system works "alright" if the end goal of the system is to whittle down candidates in a 100:1 ratio. As someone who has been through both the JEE nonsense and passed FAANG interviews, I really question if this is at all necessary.
In the case of JEE, kids spend pretty much anywhere from 2-6 of their teen years preparing for the exam. Leetcoding on an average, takes a few weeks to a few months depending on the person. And you're going to have to repeat the prep every time you interview (maybe spending less time than you did in the beginning but the ramp up takes time).
I see only one "scalable" solution to this problem: Something like a bar exam that people can take at regular intervals. This could have different levels that could unlock different jobs. Companies require that you pass the exam at a certain level and if there are too many applicants, a lottery picks the lucky numbers.