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How to Pass a Programming Interview
461–470 of 570 posts
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there's very little left to discourage interviewers from issuing ridiculously time-consuming projects There's also no disincentive for interviewees to spend an unreasonable amount of time on the project. So the test is biased against employed people and/or people with kids. This can be easily countered though. Send out the assignment at a predetermined, convenient time and require it be returned an hour or two late…
Send out the assignment at a predetermined, convenient time and require it be returned an hour or two later. Except that these places very frequently tend to either (1) misstate the problem in some major or minor way, or (2) wildly underestimate the time required to produce a professional quality, bug-free, bulletproof-tested solution. Which can be easily countered by having one of their own team members sit down and…
Yes, I got one recently:
Pull down this data from Instagram API and create a tagcloud. Should only take a couple of hours.
Except working out how to register and authenticate Instagram's API took me over two hours, than after faffing about with it I realized I only had some sandboxed version that returned metadata and not the actual data I was looking for.
The task would probably only take a couple of hours if the whole environment was set up, but the set up was the problem.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#463Being a good programmer has a surprisingly small role in passing programming interviews. And that just says it all, doesn't it? I agree that interviews should test candidates on certain basic skills, including (time/space) complexity analysis. But do you really learn anything by asking the candidate if they can recite the time complexity of a moving window average algorithm (as I was asked to do by an interviewer yes…
Ah. I just provide all my answers in an obscure language they won't know, but has lots of "nerd-cred", so they feel uncomfortable questioning it. Like OCaml, Erlang, or Haskell. Then in the rare case they question it, which usually goes something like, "Can you do it in Java? We don't use whatever language it is you're using there." I respond with, "Oh, will I be spending a lot of time at this job coming up on-the-fl…
> Which finally ends the conversation with me saying, "Well then you asked me to solve an irrelevant problem, so I'm happily providing you an irrelevant answer."
So how many of those companies made an offer?
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
It took a few hours and "it really was an easy piece of work?" How considerate of you. Who was it an an easy piece of work for, someone with unlimited free time. An unemployed person. What a joke. Any problem is easy when you yourself contrive it. Here's an idea, how about you pay someone for the 3 hours or work you are giving them. Say a lot about you.
I would prefer that we pay people to do this, but unfortunately that's not my call. That said, no one seems to complain so bitterly about the all day interviews that places like Google do (and insist you fly out for in person). Isn't asking people to fly out for 6-8 hours of interviews (which effectively takes 3 days minimum out of your life) a much greater burden than spending 2-3 hours on some coding which you can…
Are you paying as much as Google? Is your job going to give the same prestige as having "worked for Google" on your CV?
I am not saying that you are wrong, but applying to Google does sound like it will have many benefits above your average company.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had people interview claiming to know X and then not code in X correctly. So... that's a red flag. We allow interviewees to pick their strongest language. But if you end up picking something that doesn't exist, well, you aren't earning yourself any points.
I wouldn't pass then since I live in post 2000 and am used to let the IDE handle the nitty gritty details while I focus on the actual meat of creating software
I don't think it matters. No one want's to see import/includes on blackboard and they don care much if you remember if method on some object was called len(), size(), count() or length.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is, that there just isn't enough time to evaluate everyone who applies. In my last job, I was a Director of Engineering at Box. Every job post we put up, had hundreds of applicants (thanks to job-boards which let candidates apply to jobs like putting in a shopping cart). What do you think we, as hiring managers, are going to do at that point? We'll have to start forming biases. And if we have to start forming…
By forming biases where applicants from "good" schools/companies, wouldn't you wind up losing out on plenty of potential hires that could actually be better? I don't go to a top school, but I've spoken with students in similar degree programs who don't do nearly as much as me outside of class to learn. In some cases, my breadth (and depth in some cases) of skills and knowledge surpass what those students have and kno…
Yes, you do. But do you have a choice? The key part in soham's comment is "at scale." Obviously the most optimal strategy from the perspective of finding the single greatest candidate is to interview everyone and throw out no resumes. But there is an additional time constraint. So you start throwing out resumes.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what other industry you have experience in, but this is fantastic compared to the rest of the world. In 'soft skill' jobs, I'd bet the house that credentials, prestige, and 'reputation' end up doing a lot more than a 30% higher acceptance rate. Should we improve it further? Absolutely, but to pretend that this isn't better than other industries is silly.
I've worked for LA and NY companies (among others) and never seen anything like the elitism that exists in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is mostly funded by a few elite institutions, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they fund elite VCs, which then fund elite founders (and hire elite employees). The funding sources in LA and NY are much larger and more diverse, so the elitism is far more diluted. It's a market oppo…
You've clearly never worked in finance...
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is different than other fields how? it's the same old since the beginning :\
It's different because other fields haven't built up an entire mythos about how it's way more meritocratic than everyone else. Tech prides itself in being more objective, more rational than other fields but in reality is no different. In other fields the effects of class and network are openly acknowledged, in tech you to even address the issue you first have to punch through the mythos. In other fields the open ackn…
No, in reality it is substantially more meritocratic. In most professional/white-collar industries, not having a college degree would wreck your career. The fact that it only merely disadvantages your career in Silicon Valley is not evidence SV is not meritocratic.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is, that there just isn't enough time to evaluate everyone who applies. In my last job, I was a Director of Engineering at Box. Every job post we put up, had hundreds of applicants (thanks to job-boards which let candidates apply to jobs like putting in a shopping cart). What do you think we, as hiring managers, are going to do at that point? We'll have to start forming biases. And if we have to start forming…
By forming biases where applicants from "good" schools/companies, wouldn't you wind up losing out on plenty of potential hires that could actually be better? I don't go to a top school, but I've spoken with students in similar degree programs who don't do nearly as much as me outside of class to learn. In some cases, my breadth (and depth in some cases) of skills and knowledge surpass what those students have and kno…
Of course you will miss some good candidates and it's unfair to them.
But as soham explained, it's a trade off. You might miss the best candidate, but you will probably find the second or third best candidate spending significantly less time.
It's totally unfair, yes, but it's obvious why it's happening and there's not much that could be done to change it. So while the candidate is losing on this one, the company is (probably) winning.
Re: How to Pass a Programming Interview
#470> This situation is not ideal. Preparing for interviews is work, and forcing programmers to learn skills other than building great software wastes everyone’s time. Companies should improve their interview processes to be less biased by academic CS, memorized facts, and rehearsed interview processes. This is what we’re doing at Triplebyte. Thank you! This is a good write up and just like it concludes it's far from ide…
I totally agree with this. Companies should give (constructive) feedback when they say no. They do not partially out of a fear of being sued, but also because they often don't know really why the reject people. The default state at most companies is rejection. If no one really liked you during the interviews, at most companies this will result in a rejection. We're doing this differently at Triplebyte. We give everyo…
I think another reason is a fear of starting an endless argument with the candidate, when candidate believes he was actually right and the company made the decision already so it's rather pointless. Not sure how likely is it happen though.