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Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

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Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#361

Post by ninkendo »

jeffbee wrote: post #258
ninkendo wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how you can increment `9999` in O(1) if the string length is considered the size of the input. You have to rewrite the string with zeroes, which is O(n) of the size of the string.

For that case, which is the worst case, yes. And the amortized average complexity is O(1) because that case is unlikely. Are you starting to see why this is a good icebreaker? It has all kinds of discussion potential.

No, not when the goal is to actually implement it. You implied in your comment that if I wasn’t someone who could implement this in 15 seconds, I’m not a good candidate in your mind. It would take me longer to explain why it’s not trivial.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#362

Post by MichaelZuo »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #145
MichaelZuo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems fairly straightforward to just ask verbal questions? For example, if the position is mostly coding C then just get them to explain how some X interacts with some Y and how that interacts with some Z. Maybe with a copy of of K&R and get them to point to page so and so. Do that a few times, maybe use a whiteboard, and I think any experienced C developer will be able to tell who's faking it and who really under…

Not the point you’re making but in a C shop, if I interview and somebody pulls out K&R in 2023, they’re not getting hired. I get the wider point you’re making, and yes, a chat can help. Elsewhere in a reply to this I talk about how I personally like to do that, but the problem is, a significant number of people can talk about coding but can’t actually code. I once interviewed somebody who had passed 3 previous calls.…

Asking people face-to-face is a lot different then asking over a phone, it's easily 1/10th the info, or less, so of course the percentage of fakers is much higher.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#363

Post by didibus »

foobiekr wrote: post #331
didibus wrote: post #242

> Some teams might ask you to do LeetCode, but in my case, I didn’t even have a technical interview I'm a bit surprised and in denial about this. Maybe this was exceptional hiring practice during the COVID craze which has also resulted in most of the recent layoffs? I say that simply because I've personally and of everyone I know, have never encountered an interview that didn't involve that.

Pretty much anyone who interviewed before the 2012 never did stupid code tricks like leetcode interviews. Instead, we asked how things actually worked.

That's not true. Cracking the coding interview first came out in 2011 for example. I interviewed prior to 2012 and was asked to do leetcode style questions.

So at least in big tech, it's been this way since prior to 2012.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#364

Post by seanmcdirmid »

didibus wrote: post #363
foobiekr wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much anyone who interviewed before the 2012 never did stupid code tricks like leetcode interviews. Instead, we asked how things actually worked.

That's not true. Cracking the coding interview first came out in 2011 for example. I interviewed prior to 2012 and was asked to do leetcode style questions. So at least in big tech, it's been this way since prior to 2012.

“Cracking the coding interview” was first published in 2008. One guesses that those techniques arose between 1999 (when google started) and then, but I’m sure it was in place in 2005.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#365

Post by pb7 »

slt2021 wrote: post #340
pb7 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Nebraska when you have the means to live in civilization is a punishment. Why would someone choose to live in a place where the nearest restaurant is a Denny’s 45 mins away?

do you seriously think that tenderloin, Oakland, richmond, hunter's point, bay view is civilization?

Do you really think your extreme examples are the average experience outside of Nebraska?

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#366

Post by pb7 »

opan wrote: post #306
pb7 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Nebraska when you have the means to live in civilization is a punishment. Why would someone choose to live in a place where the nearest restaurant is a Denny’s 45 mins away?

Quiet and peaceful, cleaner air, you can play loud music and stomp around without upsetting neighbors, and for many people most of their time is spent on a computer anyway.

The quality of my life is not defined by stomping around or playing loud music. It’s having access to and making use of amenities. What the hell good is money to me if I have no goods and services to spend it on?

Maybe most of your time is spent on a computer.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#367

Post by antijava »

r00fus wrote: post #327
ryandrake wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "badging" culture at Apple is pretty extreme. It is routine and totally expected for a low-level worker bee to watch and call out a VP behind him who fails to badge through any external or internally locked door. One of the highlights of my time there was once having to remind Craig Federighi that he forgot to badge into a secured area.

Also related to the "secret projects" culture there. Being high on the hierarchy doesn't matter to secret project roster. Security is that key to how Apple operates.

Reminds me of a privacy training I had to do at Apple. They made a point in the invite to be on time because they had a lot to cover and lateness would not be tolerated. A VP rolled in 2 minutes late and tried the “do you know who I am” thing. The instructor basically said “I don’t care. You are late. Go away and reschedule for another time”. I loved that he could just shut down a VP like that.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#368

Post by iwsk »

slt2021 wrote: post #201
pavlov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which raises the question of why do the other kind of interview at all. I mean the leetcode nonsense whose end state is often a theatrical performance: “I’m pretending to invent this clever algorithm on the fly although I’ve practiced it for weeks”. Is there any evidence that candidates who do well on design interviews but fumble on leetcode would be any worse at the actual job?

Leetcode is simply testing whether you studied Computer Science, took Data Structures & Algorithms course, and read the CLR book on algos and practices it. Nothing else. This is really freshman level cs work. very simple. people who cannot leetcode - a simple data structures & algorithms inteview - cannot understand runtime nuances of what they write. This is how you end up with N+1 algorithms and exponential runtime…

what do you mean by N+1 algorithms?

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#369

Post by didibus »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #364
didibus wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Cracking the coding interview first came out in 2011 for example. I interviewed prior to 2012 and was asked to do leetcode style questions. So at least in big tech, it's been this way since prior to 2012.

“Cracking the coding interview” was first published in 2008. One guesses that those techniques arose between 1999 (when google started) and then, but I’m sure it was in place in 2005.

Even earlier than I thought.

It be interesting to know when the practice started, by what company and all the history behind it.

But it does seem like it's been around a long time at this point.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#370

Post by varjag »

remich wrote: post #338
varjag wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication, empathy and navigating people is easy: there's a deluge of people capable of doing that. Writing code is hard. Not many people can code at all; even fewer are any good at it. This is why you can easily be unemployed after BA in Communications but have little problem getting a job after high school if you can code.

In my experience, it's relatively rare among software engineers. So, even if it's over-represented in the general population (which I'm skeptical of), having actual skill at that makes you leaps and bounds more effective than others, once you get up to senior+ level.

I agree good people skills along with technical skills is a huge bonus. But it's still a less common combination among overall candidate pool than good people skills and lacking technical skills.
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