The reason why most coders (who came to an interview) cannot code is simple: a decent coder gets a job after a few tries. A pretender (in my experience, a degree from IITs or some other degree mills from the same part of the world strongly correlates with that) would go to hundreds of interviews only to be rejected util he hits an equally incompetent interviewers. The pretenders are way over-represented in the pool, and simple programming tasks do an admirable job of filtering them out without much loss of time.
Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
361–370 of 384 posts
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol. At my job, I code in several different languages. Sometimes, a new project requires me to to learn to write in a new language. It's not a big deal... Programming is pretty general, so new syntax doesn't slow me down too much. But I can't tell you what the sleep command is any of these languages. I look it up every single time :P
I don't think there's a sleep command in Javascript. It is against the "entire browser runs in a single thread" model, and it would make no sense up to very recently before promises were created (what it would do? start a call-back?). If the question is from somebody with extensive experience in JS, that's a clear red flag (I don't have any extensive experience in JS). If it's from somebody with passing experience, i…
They wanted the sleep command...so they could wait for an XHR to complete. So in context, it was a pretty massive red flag.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#363I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
Memorizing the method for sleep in javascript is the least of a staff engineer's concerns at Google. Besides, with something as easy to google and aided by the IDE, do you REALLY care? What matters is that the guy is able to design and structure a solution, google whatever he needs and build it. At his level, he'd guide a team working on such projects and be concerned with high level design, working with management a…
There is no sleep command in JavaScript. He fundamentally didn't understand that JavaScript used callbacks and wanted to poll for an XHR's completion.
The job was to write JavaScript, not to do any architecting. There was nothing unclear about the job role. And they had claimed to have built [a very important dashboard that I won't mention to keep them anonymous] mostly themselves, which was quickly disproved.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#364I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
I've written in so many languages that I wouldn't be able to answer how to sleep in language X off the top of my head. Is it time.Sleep()? delay()? wait_for()? nsleep()? timer().delayUntil()? something else? No clue, but I know how to find out. You're not hiring me for my encyclopedic knowledge; you're hiring me because I get the job done quickly and effectively, using a proper design and clean, tested code.
There is no sleep command. They didn't understand how callbacks worked at all. In JavaScript, that's fundamental. He wanted to poll with sleeps.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#365I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
You're missing the forest for the trees here. In these larger companies, senior engineers tend not to work directly with code that much anymore, they're usually working on higher level problems like system design or management. These require different skill sets such as leadership and social skills that take years to develop; the ability to google quickly for a function name isn't really valued as much. If you're wor…
> you shouldn't discount these engineers over minor details like this.
Then they should apply for a job where their skills are relevant. If you're applying for a job where you're writing code (like all of the ones I described), you'd better be able to code.
Edit: and we let you Google whatever you need in the interview. If you can't figure out how to clone an array (an implementation detail of the interview question) on your own, I don't know what role you think you're applying for.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#366I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
I call shenanigans on this comment. Weeding out folks for not knowing how to sleep in a particular language or array syntax in another is not warranted. I think the response that Scala doesn't have arrays is totally legitimate. You should have asked them what was the project/problem they were most proud of and suss out the details of that. Moreover, keep in mind that for some orgs a Senior dev is actually someone tha…
In all of the above cases, the candidate had no fundamental knowledge of their chosen language. All of the jobs I was hiring for were for positions that involved writing code. None of these were roles that involved more thought leadership than coding.
I should have been more clear about the JavaScript issue: there is no sleep command. The candidate didn't know how callbacks worked. In JavaScript. Callbacks in JavaScript are how _everything_ works.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#367I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
Someone who's been writing code professionally at a software company (especially google or twitter), definitely has at least a moderate if not high level of proficiency in software engineering. if these highly competent people can't answer your questions, you really need to take a second look at your Questions.
I'm suggesting that they weren't highly competent.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#368I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
I wouldn't want to work somewhere that was interviewing me based on programming language trivia
None of the examples were trivia. These were examples of what the candidates got stuck on in a larger interview question, with the ability to use Google to look things up.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#369I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
What exactly is the "sleep" command in javascript?
There isn't one. The candidate didn't know how callbacks worked.
Re: Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs
#370I reject senior software engineers all the time. I give interviews on whatever language you're most comfortable in, I'm not interested in time or space complexity, I just care about how well you can use your tools and debug. I'm continually astounded at the number of people who can't sort a list (with their language's standard library), clone an array, or do basic string manipulation. I've had a staff engineer at Goo…
Wow. So you base your hire decisions on pop quiz answers? Have you worked in the industry for longer than 2 years? > ask what the sleep command is in JavaScript. > We don't really use arrays in Scala These all seem like genuine things. In more complex companies, people may use more exotic data structures and/or have abstractions around data access. Silly comment overall.
None of the examples were trivia. These were examples of what the candidates got stuck on in a larger interview question, with the ability to use Google to look things up.
I don't care what kind of abstractions you have at your current company. We don't (/didn't) have those abstractions. If you can't show me that you can do CS101 basics (appending to an array?) in the language that you claim to write day to day, how can I trust you to be able to write the code that we describe in the job description?