5 ms·

> "You must be able to mad-libs complete the paraphrase of recent CS textbooks" This kind of thing is the worst in interviews. Like getting asked some fill-in-

> "You must be able to mad-libs complete the paraphrase of recent CS textbooks" This kind of thing is the worst in interviews. Like getting asked some fill-in-the-blanks question on the pillars of OOP or to define some random bit of jargon or what-have-you. That coupled with the "have you seen this question before" interviewing is just infuriating.

vonmoltke 10y ago
I just took the TripleByte assessment for Mixpanel and over half of it was this kind of shit. Worse, they threw in multiple-choice design questions. No, I would not use any of the complicated sets of things you presented me in this case, and do not think any of them is the right answer.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  I love this one: Once I was asked a design question. I presented three answers. Then the interviewer says, "Well, here's how I would do it!" (unspoken: you idiot) He then proceeds to write out my second option. (The takeaway: If you don't understand someone's jargon, you need to be curious and ask, don't just gloss over it.)
  - vikiomega9 10y ago
    > If you don't understand someone's jargon, you need to be curious and ask, don't just gloss over it. Quite frankly understated.
ori_b 10y ago
> That coupled with the "have you seen this question before" interviewing is just infuriating. When I interview someone, I will usually ask if they've seen the question before, so that I can skip it -- is there something wrong with that?
- heartsucker 10y ago
  Yes, because this gives them the chance to say no and pretend to walk through it slowly showing how "smart" they are.
  - djrogers 10y ago
    How is that any different from the potential behavior if one didn't ask?
- mundo 10y ago
  > "have you seen this question before" interviewing I suspect that this was meant to refer to interview questions with an "Aha!" answer, that are unlikely to be answered correctly by people who don't already know the answer. For example, I think, "How would you detect a cycle in a linked list?" is a bad question because, if the candidate implements Floyd's algorithm on the whiteboard, the likely assumption is that they remembered it, not that they came up with it on the spot.
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    Exactly. Questions that have a super optimized answer that's probably non-intuitive and unlikely to be arrived at if you've only spent a few minutes exposed to the problem. These are basically puzzle questions in disguise. In general I think there are two kinds of coding questions that are worth asking. Straightforward implementation based questions that should be solved basically as fast as the candidate can write, assuming they're familiar with the basic techniques. These are in the same vein as fizzbuzz and generally just give you a sense of the techniques the candidate has mastered (basic programming, bit-wise operations, recursion, etc.) The other kind are open ended questions that help show problem solving skills, knowledge of different algorithms and data structures, etc. These sorts of questions don't have the same variance as the secret puzzle questions. The amount of time to throw up a fizzbuzz implementation if you've seen the problem before should be about the same as if you haven't. And the same goes for open ended questions that are more about design, thinking, etc. And of course you always want to factor in the problem of dealing with candidates who are nervous, in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation, and not operating at peak performance. You shouldn't expect production quality code for complex problems in those situations, you should be looking for code that gives you data.
int_handler 10y ago
Is this really a phenomenon that is exclusive to Bay Area companies though?
- sidlls 10y ago
  I don't about "exclusive" but the very first time a "data structures and algorithms" question ever appeared in an interview I had was in the Bay Area, after having spent 10+ years on the east coast. Prior to that interviews focused almost exclusively on design patterns (not just OO, but general architecture), project experience, and language specific questions where appropriate. I've been here a while now so I have no idea what the interview culture outside the Bay Area is like anymore. This area has a high density of people who conflate academic computer science with software engineering, or who think the latter is some easily learned demi-skill to be looked down on, etc.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    > conflate academic computer science with software engineering Which is mind boggling. I took an introductory "software engineering" class in (a reasonably prestigious) university ~15 yrs ago which was ostensibly about learning how to use the right tool for the right job, and one of the assignments was to build a web application in C++! Perhaps the intent of that assignment was to show that it wasn't the right tool, but that was certainly never communicated by the professor. I didn't really learn any software engineering until I got my first job and had to build software, with a team, that people actually used.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Would modern c++ with a decent framework be that bad for web development? I imagine you'd have to do a bit more wiring due to the lack of reflection etc, but that isn't an insurmountable problem. Edit - There a quite a few frameworks out there. This one seemed quite nice: https://github.com/ipkn/crow https://github.com/ipkn/crow
      - zubat 10y ago

vonmoltke 10y ago

I just took the TripleByte assessment for Mixpanel and over half of it was this kind of shit. Worse, they threw in multiple-choice design questions. No, I would not use any of the complicated sets of things you presented me in this case, and do not think any of them is the right answer.

stcredzero 10y ago
I love this one: Once I was asked a design question. I presented three answers. Then the interviewer says, "Well, here's how I would do it!" (unspoken: you idiot) He then proceeds to write out my second option. (The takeaway: If you don't understand someone's jargon, you need to be curious and ask, don't just gloss over it.)
- vikiomega9 10y ago
  > If you don't understand someone's jargon, you need to be curious and ask, don't just gloss over it. Quite frankly understated.

ori_b 10y ago

> That coupled with the "have you seen this question before" interviewing is just infuriating. When I interview someone, I will usually ask if they've seen the question before, so that I can skip it -- is there something wrong with that?

heartsucker 10y ago
Yes, because this gives them the chance to say no and pretend to walk through it slowly showing how "smart" they are.
- djrogers 10y ago
  How is that any different from the potential behavior if one didn't ask?
mundo 10y ago
> "have you seen this question before" interviewing I suspect that this was meant to refer to interview questions with an "Aha!" answer, that are unlikely to be answered correctly by people who don't already know the answer. For example, I think, "How would you detect a cycle in a linked list?" is a bad question because, if the candidate implements Floyd's algorithm on the whiteboard, the likely assumption is that they remembered it, not that they came up with it on the spot.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Exactly. Questions that have a super optimized answer that's probably non-intuitive and unlikely to be arrived at if you've only spent a few minutes exposed to the problem. These are basically puzzle questions in disguise. In general I think there are two kinds of coding questions that are worth asking. Straightforward implementation based questions that should be solved basically as fast as the candidate can write, assuming they're familiar with the basic techniques. These are in the same vein as fizzbuzz and generally just give you a sense of the techniques the candidate has mastered (basic programming, bit-wise operations, recursion, etc.) The other kind are open ended questions that help show problem solving skills, knowledge of different algorithms and data structures, etc. These sorts of questions don't have the same variance as the secret puzzle questions. The amount of time to throw up a fizzbuzz implementation if you've seen the problem before should be about the same as if you haven't. And the same goes for open ended questions that are more about design, thinking, etc. And of course you always want to factor in the problem of dealing with candidates who are nervous, in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation, and not operating at peak performance. You shouldn't expect production quality code for complex problems in those situations, you should be looking for code that gives you data.

int_handler 10y ago

Is this really a phenomenon that is exclusive to Bay Area companies though?

sidlls 10y ago
I don't about "exclusive" but the very first time a "data structures and algorithms" question ever appeared in an interview I had was in the Bay Area, after having spent 10+ years on the east coast. Prior to that interviews focused almost exclusively on design patterns (not just OO, but general architecture), project experience, and language specific questions where appropriate. I've been here a while now so I have no idea what the interview culture outside the Bay Area is like anymore. This area has a high density of people who conflate academic computer science with software engineering, or who think the latter is some easily learned demi-skill to be looked down on, etc.
- eric_h 10y ago
  > conflate academic computer science with software engineering Which is mind boggling. I took an introductory "software engineering" class in (a reasonably prestigious) university ~15 yrs ago which was ostensibly about learning how to use the right tool for the right job, and one of the assignments was to build a web application in C++! Perhaps the intent of that assignment was to show that it wasn't the right tool, but that was certainly never communicated by the professor. I didn't really learn any software engineering until I got my first job and had to build software, with a team, that people actually used.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Would modern c++ with a decent framework be that bad for web development? I imagine you'd have to do a bit more wiring due to the lack of reflection etc, but that isn't an insurmountable problem. Edit - There a quite a few frameworks out there. This one seemed quite nice: https://github.com/ipkn/crow https://github.com/ipkn/crow
    - zubat 10y ago