61–70 of 105 posts
or hell just ask them if they can do a whiteboard problem for you. See how the recruiter likes it. See if they do as good as you. Flip the script so to speak!
A persons ability to think through a problem and communicate it clearly will get them 75% through the hiring process in my books. (Another ~10% is curiosity).
Yet another article showcasing how the tech interview process is fundamentally flawed. Personal anecdote: I recently underwent an interview process for a position in my field of expertise (computer vision) consisting of multiple in-person stages, whiteboard coding, product design and a take-home assignment that required developing a foundational (bubble-sort like) algorithm from scratch. After successfully completing…
Is cultural? I always discuss price AT THE START, when was hunting jobs, and now as contractor, and even when I sub-contract. In the other side, I always pitch "We do this or that, this is what we need help for, and this is how much we can pay (or: how much is your rate?)". Is an amazing filter. Specially when you don't have much cash to give. Because: If I can't pay... why lost more time? And if I can pay and the ot…
After that, they offered me something like $10k less than what I had asked for and minimum vacation, saying that when you add in the value of all additional benefits (health insurance, rrsp benefits), you end up at the salary I had originally requested. Did not exactly win me over.
> Programmers can’t write algorithms without help And that might be a good thing. How often does a normal software engineer have to write bubble sort from scratch in his daily life? If someone from my team came to me telling me he had to sort an array and wrote bubble sort from scratch, then I'd probably not be very happy with that unless there is a really good reason to spend that time on it rather than using an exi…
> And that might be a good thing. - Graphics - Machine learning - Gaming Imagine yourself working in these fields and not being able to implement algorithms, you wouldn't be a super useful teammate.
The point is that as an interviewer/employer you risk not getting the information you've asked for. Someone who is able to memorize interview algorithms isn't necessarily a good fit for the role you are trying to fill. Forcing people to memorize the details of these concepts just to comply in an interview is often a waste of time for both parties.
Even as a gamedev/ML guy you don't have to reinvent the wheel everyday. You have to understand what is available, judge about the pros and cons of different solutions, pick the right one and build a good system. Preferably on time.
> Programmers can’t write algorithms without help And that might be a good thing. How often does a normal software engineer have to write bubble sort from scratch in his daily life? If someone from my team came to me telling me he had to sort an array and wrote bubble sort from scratch, then I'd probably not be very happy with that unless there is a really good reason to spend that time on it rather than using an exi…
I've been a developer for almost 2 years (I know not that long) but I have never even heard of bubble sort. Looking it up, it is O(n^2). Is there a reason this is a common interview question? It doesn't seem like a sort one would ever really use, or at least it has very obscure uses. I always thought merge/quick sorts accounted for 99.9% of use cases and only ever really learned about those.
I only remember it because a machine language book for the Motorola 6809 used it as an introductory program.
I wish I got asked questions like this. Usually it's just 'How many years of experience do you have in XYZ?' and it's almost never enough. Doesn't matter if your experience is in something similar ('Oh you used Spring boot! We are looking for Spring MVC!') and of course they just care about decades of 'experience'--doesn't matter if you actually know it well. Then the job ends up not having any relation to what was p…
> Programmers can’t write algorithms without help And that might be a good thing. How often does a normal software engineer have to write bubble sort from scratch in his daily life? If someone from my team came to me telling me he had to sort an array and wrote bubble sort from scratch, then I'd probably not be very happy with that unless there is a really good reason to spend that time on it rather than using an exi…
I've been a developer for almost 2 years (I know not that long) but I have never even heard of bubble sort. Looking it up, it is O(n^2). Is there a reason this is a common interview question? It doesn't seem like a sort one would ever really use, or at least it has very obscure uses. I always thought merge/quick sorts accounted for 99.9% of use cases and only ever really learned about those.
If you have an application that only has to sort small lists, but has to sort a lot of them, it is quite possible that an O(n^2) sort like bubble, insertion, or selection sort will be better than merge/quick sort.
Among the O(n^2) sorts, insertion almost always will be faster than bubble, so you probably wouldn't actually choose bubble sort.
Yet another article showcasing how the tech interview process is fundamentally flawed. Personal anecdote: I recently underwent an interview process for a position in my field of expertise (computer vision) consisting of multiple in-person stages, whiteboard coding, product design and a take-home assignment that required developing a foundational (bubble-sort like) algorithm from scratch. After successfully completing…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is cultural? I always discuss price AT THE START, when was hunting jobs, and now as contractor, and even when I sub-contract. In the other side, I always pitch "We do this or that, this is what we need help for, and this is how much we can pay (or: how much is your rate?)". Is an amazing filter. Specially when you don't have much cash to give. Because: If I can't pay... why lost more time? And if I can pay and the ot…
A few years ago I had a case where I had told the company what salary I'm expecting. Then I had two in-person interviews and one phone conversation with an additional department in the company that I would be working with. After that, they offered me something like $10k less than what I had asked for and minimum vacation, saying that when you add in the value of all additional benefits (health insurance, rrsp benefit…
When the counter-offer is TOO BAD you can say, 100% sure, the experience moving forward will be VERY BAD. I'm not in a market where programming is well paid, and this is the most certain sign the customer will not pay on time, or even at all..
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is cultural? I always discuss price AT THE START, when was hunting jobs, and now as contractor, and even when I sub-contract. In the other side, I always pitch "We do this or that, this is what we need help for, and this is how much we can pay (or: how much is your rate?)". Is an amazing filter. Specially when you don't have much cash to give. Because: If I can't pay... why lost more time? And if I can pay and the ot…
A few years ago I had a case where I had told the company what salary I'm expecting. Then I had two in-person interviews and one phone conversation with an additional department in the company that I would be working with. After that, they offered me something like $10k less than what I had asked for and minimum vacation, saying that when you add in the value of all additional benefits (health insurance, rrsp benefit…