Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, May 08, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

kyle_grove wrote: post #446

godelski wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I buy this theory. The problem I have with it is that for this to be a reasonably effective strategy you should change the arbitrary metric every few years because otherwise it is likely to be hacked and has the potential to turn into a negative signal rather than positive. Essentially your false positives can dominate by "studying to the test" rather than "studying". I'd say the same is true for college admissi…

I think (but cannot prove) that along the way, it was decided to explicitly measure ability to 'study to the test'. My theory goes that certain trendsetting companies decided that ability to 'grind at arbitrary technical thing' measures on-job adaptability. And then many other companies followed suit as a cargo cult thing. If it were otherwise, and those trendsetting companies actually believed LeetCode tested progra…

Post by Terr_ » Wed, May 08, 2024, 6:00 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #516

Terr_ wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jobs at software companies in the US. A few very rare jobs at software companies in the US. The BLS median for 2024 is way lower, at $110k. (Yet at the same time, still much higher than parent-poster's $40k figure.)

I assume the BLS median accounts for all software jobs. That would include software jobs at GM (the US equivalent of BMW), banks, insurance companies, and the rest of the economy. Does it control for industry?

Post by spacebanana7 » Wed, May 08, 2024, 6:16 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #612

spacebanana7 wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive action in various countries' laws and policies)…” It calls them the same thing

No. Positive discrimination is a form of affirmative action in various countries' laws and policies. Positive action is another. Positive action is not positive discrimination. Paragraph 2 mentioned merely targeting encouragement for increased participation even if you did not know what positive action meant.

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, May 08, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

spacebanana7 wrote: post #615

pseudalopex wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Positive discrimination is a form of affirmative action in various countries' laws and policies. Positive action is another. Positive action is not positive discrimination. Paragraph 2 mentioned merely targeting encouragement for increased participation even if you did not know what positive action meant.

The text attests to both our interpretations. 1) By saying x is sometimes called y under some circumstances, the text implies x (Affirmative action) is equal to or a subset of y (Positive discrimination) 2) The second paragraph also suggests examples of affirmative action that wouldn’t constitute positive discrimination

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, May 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

devbent wrote: post #431

pseudalopex wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've had to work on tree traversal stuff multiple times in my life, anything low level GUI related will work with trees a ton. How many times did you have to write tree balancing code with no reference materials?

The exact same number of times I've been asked that during an interview: 0! I do ask tree traversal questions when interviewing because I've had to traverse a lot of trees so I think being able to do an in order traversal of an already sorted binary tree (which is only a handful of lines of code) is fair game.