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Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

darrenkopp.com

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Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#91

Post by rednerrus »

siva7 wrote: post #28
teeray wrote: post #10

The coding interview looks different when you view it for what it would be called in other industries: a licensure examination. It looks particularly insane to relicense for every single job you apply to. It also looks supremely unfair to have proctors for this exam with varying expectations and training to actually correctly administer it.

It would be nice. There are already too many devs and if we can lower that number by controlling the licensing our wages would also stay very high.

We need our own AMA.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#92

Post by rednerrus »

ok123456 wrote: post #52

I've found that asking them to review some obviously bad code with glaring errors and problems is more informative than asking them to solve some random DSA problem. Candidates who can code well can point out code that has obvious problems. Just ask if this is good or bad, and if it is bad, how they could improve it. This demonstrates competency and doesn't make the interview seem like a grind but instead more like a…

I'm in ops and we've found that simple exercises are better at weeding people out than complex ones.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#93

Post by OnionBlender »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #68
jerf wrote: post #64

I find a simple realignment would solve a lot of this interview angst: Interviewers seem to interview on the premise that they need to find out what the candidate can't do. But this is not useful. I can tell you what they can't do. To a first approximation, the answer is "everything". I am an experienced and skillful developer, yadda yadda yadda, and I've never touched React, have no game development experience, have…

Yes this, and to further this, the "can't do" thing that you measured is in fact extremely partial and incomplete: you've measured that the developer can't write an algorithm on a whiteboard with a felt tip marker in front of a stranger they just met. You don't even know if they can't write the algorithm. Just that they can't do it there. Is that important to you? Maybe it is for some people. As a person who has been…

I'm glad whiteboard interviews are dead now that everyone does "virtual" on-site interviews. When I interviewed at Google, I requested a laptop because writing on a whiteboard all day hurts my hand. Every interviewer complained about me using a laptop.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#94

Post by gedy »

citizen_friend wrote: post #49
gedy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for the devs, but "solves fun puzzles" is not a measure of quality either. The number of people who "aced the interview" but are borderline worthless for real product development is not trivial in my experience.

I still haven’t met the guy who is an algorithms genius who can’t program, but I can guarantee a license isn’t going to solve that problem.

"Programming" is only half the battle. E.g. doesn't overcomplicate the codebase with weird one-off solutions, can actually work on features, some of which (God forbid) involve a UI or existing code.

In 20 years, most leetcode style genius types I've worked with really aren't great at this type of SaaS work.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#95

Post by Paul-Craft »

ok123456 wrote: post #52

I've found that asking them to review some obviously bad code with glaring errors and problems is more informative than asking them to solve some random DSA problem. Candidates who can code well can point out code that has obvious problems. Just ask if this is good or bad, and if it is bad, how they could improve it. This demonstrates competency and doesn't make the interview seem like a grind but instead more like a…

I agree.

Last time I got hit with an interview question like that, my answer ultimately had to be "block the merge and counsel the person who wrote this about performance." I'm still not sure if that's the answer they were looking for (this was for a staff engineer position), but I'd stand by it 100% of the time.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#96

Post by VirusNewbie »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #60
benreesman wrote: post #19

The modern FAANG Frankenstein interview is a mess. It was so/so at Google 15-20 years ago, it was so/so when initially FB but most everyone cargo-culted it 10-15 years ago. It’s become “grind leetcode” which is clearly a failure mode. The trouble is it’s a hard problem, and it usually gives - some signal, so it’s sort of better than nothing? I guess? In cases where contract-to-hire make sense for both the company and…

Google did the "how many gas stations in the us" interviews for years before finally realizing that doing well on questions like this had no correlation to success on the job. Now, in reaction to that failure, everyone is doing the LeetCode thing instead, and presumably will eventually realize that this doesn't correlate either (especially irrelevant in this CoPilot era when ability to memorize and code up an algorit…

Why do you think they haven't adjusted again? Is it possible it is actually (loosely) correlated to job performance?

I interviewed at Google and all the questions were practical, challenging, and not found on leetcode.

I've seen all kinds of interviews in my twenty years of experience, and while all types can be done poorly, (including DS&A ones), having some live coding is one of the best signals you can get in a short amount of time.

I've been blown away by a candidate while they're talking about their experience, but then asking them to code something small, they utterly bomb.

Conversely, I've seen shy, humble candidates struggle to articulate their skills, and then crush harder and harder coding challenges.

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#97

Post by parpfish »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #23
dgfitz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to know the company name so I don't accidently ever apply there.

No kidding. I'd be happy to walk through the stuff I have on github but I also don't want my coworkers measured by whether they do the same. If anything, personal projects can end up being distractions from focusing singularly on work. Even though I'm entirely in favour of them, I also remember when I had a newborn at home and a family member in hospital, and such projects were not at all feasible.

there's also the issue where the stuff i put on github is for hacky throwaway stuff and not representative of my professional standards for a "real" job. it'd be like interviewing a chef and judging their abilities based off of what they made themselves for dinner last night rather than what they cook in a restaurant

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#98

Post by Paul-Craft »

OnionBlender wrote: post #93
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this, and to further this, the "can't do" thing that you measured is in fact extremely partial and incomplete: you've measured that the developer can't write an algorithm on a whiteboard with a felt tip marker in front of a stranger they just met. You don't even know if they can't write the algorithm. Just that they can't do it there. Is that important to you? Maybe it is for some people. As a person who has been…

I'm glad whiteboard interviews are dead now that everyone does "virtual" on-site interviews. When I interviewed at Google, I requested a laptop because writing on a whiteboard all day hurts my hand. Every interviewer complained about me using a laptop.

What, exactly, was the substance of their complaint(s), if any? Was it just that you made them do their job in a way different from how they are used to?

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#99

Post by xeromal »

kuu wrote: post #36
arcbyte wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Others prefer to have hobbies outside of coding, and that's fine.

Yup, I used to do side stuff but now I mostly tinker with servos, 3d printing, and mechanic work on my car. I can only ingest so much of the same shit

Re: Coding interviews are stupid (ish)

#100

Post by fnfjfk »

michaelt wrote: post #62
speeder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of job pay 400k? Even when I worked as C++ guru at BMW and was hired as very senior my before taxes compensation was 40k (year).

Perhaps they meant to say "studying for a few weeks to solve fun puzzles, after getting a CS degree from Stanford, moving to a city where a basic apartment costs $1 million, and getting 8-10 years FAANG experience, also like half that $400k is stock not cash" But no licensing!

Stock in public companies is effectively equivalent to cash, so what’s the difference? Sell on vest and buy index funds or anything you want.
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