3 ms·

All other things being equal, someone who understands these algorithms/data structures and how/when to use them would be preferred over someone who hasn't put t

All other things being equal, someone who understands these algorithms/data structures and how/when to use them would be preferred over someone who hasn't put time in to get familiarized with them. I think in many positions it probably isn't necessary to have knowledge of how to implement from scratch -- yet again, if the company could find someone that gets it, they may produce overall more efficient solutions. Whether that matters to the company or not is another story -- but things like finishing some scheduled task in 10secs instead of 2hrs can be really useful. I used to have a mindset like "these algorithm quizzes are BS!" Yet when I have learned more about them, it is amazing to see how inefficient things can be produced, without the foundational knowledge to process/store things efficiently EDIT: All that being said, I think the usual software engineer interview format is terrible. It's like an intellectual hazing gauntlet or something..

ubernostrum 10y ago
All other things being equal, someone who understands these algorithms/data structures and how/when to use them would be preferred over someone who hasn't put time in to get familiarized with them. Correction: all other things being equal, the person who does better on an algorithms/data structures pop quiz is more likely to be a recent college graduate who you can pay less and treat worse than an established developer who's forgotten most of this stuff and just looks it up when/as needed.
- jupiter90000 10y ago
  In terms of simply getting hired/passed the interview, yes, either a recent grad or someone having studied the algorithms prior to the interviews will probably do best. I won't argue it's annoying to study for an interview. I still think someone who understands these and has studied them will be in better shape to understand when/how to use such things in situations on the job (even if they can't be reproduced in a pop quiz scenario by the person). Maybe those situations will matter to the company, and maybe they won't.
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    Except you know this isn't how algorithm/data structure questions are used in interviews. What you're talking about is primarily a function of experience: seeing various situations over time and learning what works well and what doesn't. But these questions are used, quiz-style, as a barrier to even entry-level positions. So even if I grant you the possibility of some effective criterion being developed from algorithm and data-structure questions, the fact would remain that hardly anyone (and more likely no-one) uses them as you advocate. Getting these questions out of interviews and replacing them with metrics tailored to the desired job skills and responsibilities (rather than proxies for them, or even proxies for proxies for them, as is unfortunately usual in the industry), would be far more effective. Or perhaps more bluntly: I know of no other field which A) drills students on low-level fundamental techniques in school/training, and B) largely replaces them with higher-level techniques on the job which discourage use and thus continued top-of-mind retention of the low-level techniques, and C) nonetheless requires instantaneous unassisted perfect recall of all details of any arbitrarily-chosen low-level technique as a mandatory qualification for employment even into late stages of the career. Lawyers learn a lot about the law and its history and important cases, but they don't sit through pop quizzes of 15th-century English common-law rulings on every job interview for the rest of their lives, even though there probably are some such cases that would on occasion be useful to know. Doctors learn a lot of biology and chemistry, but if passing a closed-book organic-chem exam was a prerequisite for every job they'd take after med school we'd have a lot fewer employed doctors. Only programmers do this to themselves. Only programmers relentlessly demand that it be preserved as a gatekeeping ritual. Only programmers insist that "well, it's fundamental so it must be useful sooner or later" is a sufficient justification for doing this. It's time to stop doing this. It's time to stop supporting this. It's time to stop perpetuating this. (and getting back to my initial comment: there's a reason why bootcamps now have a "how to pass code interviews" unit, and a reason why Cracking the Coding Interview sells so well, and it's because these things have stopped having any useful purpose -- if indeed they ever had useful purpose -- and now serve as artificial barriers and ways to perpetuate biases about background while claiming objective grounds to disqualify people the interviewer doesn't want to hire, thus making life miserable for both the hired, who are likely to be inexperienced and easy to take advantage of, and the unhired, who have to try again or give up and find another way to make a living)

ubernostrum 10y ago

All other things being equal, someone who understands these algorithms/data structures and how/when to use them would be preferred over someone who hasn't put time in to get familiarized with them. Correction: all other things being equal, the person who does better on an algorithms/data structures pop quiz is more likely to be a recent college graduate who you can pay less and treat worse than an established developer who's forgotten most of this stuff and just looks it up when/as needed.

jupiter90000 10y ago
In terms of simply getting hired/passed the interview, yes, either a recent grad or someone having studied the algorithms prior to the interviews will probably do best. I won't argue it's annoying to study for an interview. I still think someone who understands these and has studied them will be in better shape to understand when/how to use such things in situations on the job (even if they can't be reproduced in a pop quiz scenario by the person). Maybe those situations will matter to the company, and maybe they won't.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Except you know this isn't how algorithm/data structure questions are used in interviews. What you're talking about is primarily a function of experience: seeing various situations over time and learning what works well and what doesn't. But these questions are used, quiz-style, as a barrier to even entry-level positions. So even if I grant you the possibility of some effective criterion being developed from algorithm and data-structure questions, the fact would remain that hardly anyone (and more likely no-one) uses them as you advocate. Getting these questions out of interviews and replacing them with metrics tailored to the desired job skills and responsibilities (rather than proxies for them, or even proxies for proxies for them, as is unfortunately usual in the industry), would be far more effective. Or perhaps more bluntly: I know of no other field which A) drills students on low-level fundamental techniques in school/training, and B) largely replaces them with higher-level techniques on the job which discourage use and thus continued top-of-mind retention of the low-level techniques, and C) nonetheless requires instantaneous unassisted perfect recall of all details of any arbitrarily-chosen low-level technique as a mandatory qualification for employment even into late stages of the career. Lawyers learn a lot about the law and its history and important cases, but they don't sit through pop quizzes of 15th-century English common-law rulings on every job interview for the rest of their lives, even though there probably are some such cases that would on occasion be useful to know. Doctors learn a lot of biology and chemistry, but if passing a closed-book organic-chem exam was a prerequisite for every job they'd take after med school we'd have a lot fewer employed doctors. Only programmers do this to themselves. Only programmers relentlessly demand that it be preserved as a gatekeeping ritual. Only programmers insist that "well, it's fundamental so it must be useful sooner or later" is a sufficient justification for doing this. It's time to stop doing this. It's time to stop supporting this. It's time to stop perpetuating this. (and getting back to my initial comment: there's a reason why bootcamps now have a "how to pass code interviews" unit, and a reason why Cracking the Coding Interview sells so well, and it's because these things have stopped having any useful purpose -- if indeed they ever had useful purpose -- and now serve as artificial barriers and ways to perpetuate biases about background while claiming objective grounds to disqualify people the interviewer doesn't want to hire, thus making life miserable for both the hired, who are likely to be inexperienced and easy to take advantage of, and the unhired, who have to try again or give up and find another way to make a living)