Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

Post by bragr » Tue, May 07, 2024, 8:11 PM UTC

spyspy wrote: post #203

spankalee wrote: post #189

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.

Post by nox101 » Tue, May 07, 2024, 8:14 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #189

dilyevsky wrote: post #139

Classic mistake of overthinking it and failing to realize what interviewer really wants - which is to make sure the candidate can actually write code, like at all. The question itself doesn't really matter as much as it's just a pretext. I actually asked a variation of this question for many years at Google and it was clear within first 5 mins who has been writing code day-to-day and who's been mostly "brining key st…

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…

Post by darrenkopp » Tue, May 07, 2024, 8:16 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #189

dilyevsky wrote: post #139

Classic mistake of overthinking it and failing to realize what interviewer really wants - which is to make sure the candidate can actually write code, like at all. The question itself doesn't really matter as much as it's just a pretext. I actually asked a variation of this question for many years at Google and it was clear within first 5 mins who has been writing code day-to-day and who's been mostly "brining key st…

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…

Post by xandrius » Tue, May 07, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #239

Assuming that a company does not look for candidates who are naturally good at ICPC-type of questions or geniuses who can come up with amazing algorithms in a matter of minutes, there is actually a different way to do coding interview: just give a high-level description of a sophisticated enough algorithm to a candidate and ask the candidate to turn that into code. I think it strikes a good balance between depth in C…

Post by xandrius » Tue, May 07, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

spankalee wrote: post #189

dilyevsky wrote: post #139

Classic mistake of overthinking it and failing to realize what interviewer really wants - which is to make sure the candidate can actually write code, like at all. The question itself doesn't really matter as much as it's just a pretext. I actually asked a variation of this question for many years at Google and it was clear within first 5 mins who has been writing code day-to-day and who's been mostly "brining key st…

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…