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> And secondly I refuse to waste my time, on half arsed throw-away code, with zero results. That's a very wierd thing to say. Does that mean that each and ever

> And secondly I refuse to waste my time, on half arsed throw-away code, with zero results. That's a very wierd thing to say. Does that mean that each and every side-project that you do ends up being substantive? If writing few lines of code gets you a job at a good company where you can spend your time working on exciting problems how is that wasteful? I do program a lot too, and I typically don't mind writing code in an interview. The only thing that sets me off are stupid level-order binary-tree traversal questions which test nothing but rote-memorization skills.

jkot 11y ago
Most of my code is thrown away. But I like to finish stuff, so there is a chance I spend next weekend finishing/polishing the interview questions. It is great for career, but has to be managed. Also my job is to design database structures, and there is no such thing as simple problem. Even binary tree needs thousands LOC for tests, concurrent access, writes...
sjg007 11y ago
I mean you should know how the basic data structures work. Not necessarily for a web dev job but for a software engineering job. Data structure interview questions are a good small concrete problem to reason about. But they completely ignore the other 80% of the job which is design, soft skills, estimates, timelines, code reviews etc...
- krat0sprakhar 11y ago
  > I mean you should know how the basic data structures work Oh I'm not discounting that. I'm just saying that off the bat binary-tree traversal don't really test my understanding of the data structure. Recently in an interview I was asked a problem which eventually required using a binary-search-tree to improve the running time. This, I believe, is the right way to test but it requires the employer to spend more time designing interview questions rather than relying on a problem bank[0]. (which is a strong filter for good companies in itself) > But they completely ignore the other 80% of the job which is design, soft skills, estimates, timelines, code reviews etc... This is true but this is really really hard to test. In the interviews that I've been giving, I've indeed been asked design questions. I assume soft skills are implicitly tested while speaking to the interviewer (to some extent, at least). But other factors, AFAIK are very hard to test. Also, I would argue that a candidate doesn't need to know everything coming in. Estimates, timelines etc can be learnt on the job. IMO, if somehow employers could find a way to reasonably trust that the code I have on my Github is indeed written by me then I think that should be strong indicator of my competence. Evaluating candidates who don't have any code in the open is a different matter altogether to which I have no solution. [0] - http://leetcode.com http://leetcode.com

jkot 11y ago

Most of my code is thrown away. But I like to finish stuff, so there is a chance I spend next weekend finishing/polishing the interview questions. It is great for career, but has to be managed. Also my job is to design database structures, and there is no such thing as simple problem. Even binary tree needs thousands LOC for tests, concurrent access, writes...

sjg007 11y ago

I mean you should know how the basic data structures work. Not necessarily for a web dev job but for a software engineering job. Data structure interview questions are a good small concrete problem to reason about. But they completely ignore the other 80% of the job which is design, soft skills, estimates, timelines, code reviews etc...

krat0sprakhar 11y ago
> I mean you should know how the basic data structures work Oh I'm not discounting that. I'm just saying that off the bat binary-tree traversal don't really test my understanding of the data structure. Recently in an interview I was asked a problem which eventually required using a binary-search-tree to improve the running time. This, I believe, is the right way to test but it requires the employer to spend more time designing interview questions rather than relying on a problem bank[0]. (which is a strong filter for good companies in itself) > But they completely ignore the other 80% of the job which is design, soft skills, estimates, timelines, code reviews etc... This is true but this is really really hard to test. In the interviews that I've been giving, I've indeed been asked design questions. I assume soft skills are implicitly tested while speaking to the interviewer (to some extent, at least). But other factors, AFAIK are very hard to test. Also, I would argue that a candidate doesn't need to know everything coming in. Estimates, timelines etc can be learnt on the job. IMO, if somehow employers could find a way to reasonably trust that the code I have on my Github is indeed written by me then I think that should be strong indicator of my competence. Evaluating candidates who don't have any code in the open is a different matter altogether to which I have no solution. [0] - http://leetcode.com http://leetcode.com