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Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

businessinsider.fr

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Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#81

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #46
mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

I interviewed at Facebook and the tech part was completely sane and appropriate, the technical task was a bit fizzbuzzy but not something you'd need to spend nights digging into obscure algorithms book, but rather simple task which required some thinking, but not too much of it. No experience with Google or Netflix. As of looking at CV, I've seen people with great CVs that proved utterly useless and of course the opp…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#82

Post by hermitdev »

lilott8 wrote: post #43
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #14

> But the aha moment for me was that not everyone does well in those fast-paced brainstorming sessions. A lot of people (including me) prefer to sit with a cup of coffee and some data and try to think things through. This is me. Hard to get that across in an interview, but once people work with me, they're cool with me coming back an hour later in an email with some thoughts on the last meeting topic. They know and r…

My life's motto is: "Let me think about it, I'll get back to you."

My goal when interviewing candidates is to ellicite this response at least once. I want someone who is honest that they don't know the answer and won't bullshit me about it. Also like to hear how the candidate would go about figuring it out, e.g. what resources they would use. I'm also fine with speculative answers as long as they're clearly stated as such, "I dont know, but I think it'd be something along these lines..."

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#83

Post by lazyasciiart »

jasonkester wrote: post #51
Swizec wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like you're having the wrong conversations. With all your experience, why are you still going into companies through the front door? Where's your network? Fundamentally: Why are you having the "Can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" conversation instead of the "How much value can you add to this company" conversation? Perhaps my experience as a consultant/freelancer is breaking my perspective. It's…

Well said. It occurs to me that my last job interview that involved convincing the other party that I was a good developer was back in 1999 when I had just a few years of experience. Since then every gig has come via an introduction by a former boss or co-worker, or by introducing myself to somebody with hiring authority and using a pile of impressive artifacts to skip the "can this guy do the work" questions. The fi…

Congratulations, you've never wanted to work for a large company. Perhaps your advice isn't relevant to those who do.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#84

Post by lazyasciiart »

whack wrote: post #65

Here's what they are doing, from the linked blog post: > Our dev teams had taken to working with candidates to solve a bug or feature as part of the interview process. It was a collaborative effort with the candidate and the team working together to solve a real problem. Sounds like a great idea. Except it's so variable. What if you get lucky and you get a easy bug, whereas someone else gets something much harder. Le…

Even just having the interviewer pair with the candidate on random leetcode problems would be pretty revolutionary.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#85

Post by scarface74 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #14

> But the aha moment for me was that not everyone does well in those fast-paced brainstorming sessions. A lot of people (including me) prefer to sit with a cup of coffee and some data and try to think things through. This is me. Hard to get that across in an interview, but once people work with me, they're cool with me coming back an hour later in an email with some thoughts on the last meeting topic. They know and r…

I’ve never done any leetCode style interviewing or studying, but from what I have heard, it’s all about “pattern matching” and knowing how to solve similar problems.

I have done plenty of architecting. A large percentage of architectural problems that you are asked to solve have already been solved. After enough years at enough different companies and reading enough architectural books, it’s just pattern matching and figuring out the correct tools.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#86

Post by b3b0p »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #79
smsm42 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed at Facebook and the tech part was completely sane and appropriate, the technical task was a bit fizzbuzzy but not something you'd need to spend nights digging into obscure algorithms book, but rather simple task which required some thinking, but not too much of it. No experience with Google or Netflix. As of looking at CV, I've seen people with great CVs that proved utterly useless and of course the opp…

I tech screened at Facebook and the whiteboard question was to partially implement a regex parser.

I got this same question from 2 other companies.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#87

Post by sys_64738 »

When I interviewed at Redmond 15 years ago, it was the recruiter who asked me a bunch of techie questions then decided to bring me out for a whole day of onsite interviews. During that I recall it was only a director of SW who asked me some mentally crushing questions about subtleties in how the Windows kernel fiddles with files. As I said, I was a UNIX developer who didn't know those bottlenecks in the Windows kernel. Still he persisted. He did take me for a spin in his awesome BMW sports car after though!

My thoughts on Redmond were that it rains all the time and the inside of the Microsoft buildings is pretty depressing.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#89

Post by cblum »

cheschire wrote: post #68
b_tterc_p wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting algorithms, sure.

You could just ask the candidate to explain how to use modulus correctly, and not even need to break out the markers.

That sets the bar too low for screening IMO. My wife has interviewed people who literally can't write a for loop correctly.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#90

Post by robocat »

cheschire wrote: post #68
b_tterc_p wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fizzbuzz is a trivial test to detect people who are basically fraudulent in their claims of programming ability. You shouldn’t need to study for it. Sorting algorithms, sure.

You could just ask the candidate to explain how to use modulus correctly, and not even need to break out the markers.

Modulus is a rabbit hole - the mod operator has different behaviour for negative parameters depending on the language (and presumably other language specific quirks?)

Here's another one: when does the abs operator return a negative number?

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