10 ms·

This is beautiful. It captures the spirit of wizardry and wonder that brought me to programming in the first place, juxtaposed against the reality of interview

This is beautiful. It captures the spirit of wizardry and wonder that brought me to programming in the first place, juxtaposed against the reality of interviewing at "top" tech companies where the interviewers more often than not have only a fraction of my experience, and seem to have followed the type of curated success-seeking golden path that used to be reserved for finance.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bogomipz 10y ago
>"and seem to have followed the type of curated success-seeking golden path that used to be reserved for finance." I am curious what you meant by this. Would you mind elaborating?
- cheez 10y ago
  Breeding from good stock
- dominotw 10y ago
  I met a young guy at the hotel diner where I was staying for google interview( there were like 50 of us in that hotel). He told me he has been practising algorithm questions on a whiteboard every day for past 4 months for tech interviews. He had a degree from a top school ( don't remember which one ), did an internship at some other top tech company in the valley. needless to say, that didn't help my confidence in the interview that morning :D.
  - JCDenton2052 10y ago
    Was he hired?
    - kornish 10y ago
      Probably.
  - Cofike 10y ago
    It's really at the point where you need to prepare/review for the technical interviews at most companies. If people are going to review coding interview questions/books/strategy then to compete we'll have to do the same. I myself have been working through cracking the coding interview in an attempt to migrate from upstate new york to the bay area. Maybe I wouldn't bother with positions that demanded white boarding if I already had a position over there and could be selective but maybe not. It kind of feels like it's all part of the game at this point.
    - unoti 10y ago
      Good for you. If you want to work at the circus, you've gotta jump through some hoops. It's true that for most jobs, most day-to-day work doesn't involve knowing standard algorithms and data structures. But being willing to crack open a book and learn something new shows you're willing to prepare when it counts, and that you're capable of learning. Plus you get to learn some cool things along the way, some of which may even be useful some day!
      - collyw 10y ago
        Or it shows a lack of critical thinking.
        Cofike 10y ago
        Accepted criticism. At times I wonder if it's worth it or not but I think the preparation is warranted considering how I have to just kind of commit to this whole thing if I play on moving cross country with my fiancee.
  - caconym_ 10y ago
    I don't understand people who don't do prep for interviews. I'm a self-taught software engineer with a mostly irrelevant degree but I for sure work through practice problems before interviews and I've had success with some of the "big 5" or whatever they're called. If I hadn't done the practice, I doubt I would have had any success at all. It's a bit of a slog but it's not that hard if you're motivated to get a new job. My girlfriend has gone back to school for nursing and she works a shit load harder than me all the time, while I just do a month or so of ~ten hours a week of prep for every round of interviews I do.
    - shados 10y ago
      unless you're interviewing at one of the big companies with a known interview process, you'd basically be wasting your time. I've done hundreds of tech interviews over my career, and especially in recent years (now that companies are trying new things), it's completely random. Some will do "Cracking the coding interview" type shit, some will do code reviews, some will give you a take home thing you have to present, some will do pair coding. Some do algorithms only, some do design discussions only, and so on and so forth. So any prep I do will be a shot in the dark and 99% of the time I'll have to do something I did not prep for. So I don't bother trying. Notable exception is my current job, which is a big tech co with a semi well known interview process (not as infamous as google or facebook, but still), and they gave me a fair amount of info up front. I also -really really really- wanted to work there because the team I wanted to work for did things no one else does. So i bit the bullet and studied/practice. That was literally the first time (and probably last) time I did.
      - caconym_ 10y ago
        I guess I just think of it as limbering up the brain, even if what I "studied" isn't directly useful. I'm going to be a lot more effective at basically all the things you mentioned if I've been solving tricky problems in my spare time for a few weeks. I totally agree that it's a shot in the dark, though.
        lj3 10y ago
- majormajor 10y ago
  For getting a job at Google/Facebook/Amazon/X cool startup, it's a lot more important to do some narrow-minded rote-memorization of algorithms and data structures and hone the skills talked about in a small set of books like Cracking the Coding Interview than to learn something really interesting, or become good at a certain thing, or build some cool shit. Most interviewers aren't really interested in figuring out "is it worthwhile that you built this thing / did you do it right / why do you think this was something worth learning?" when it's so much easier to evaluate your whiteboard code on a narrow problem against some ideal standard solution. You can tell them about how you were able to learn enough about a particular database in a couple weeks to be able to cut 90% of the runtime out of a hot query in your first few months at a job, since that was an area that wasn't scaling well and it was something your boss asked if you could take a look at, and they'll be like "ok that's nice, now implement a trie." What's the point of even having experience building and running real systems if that's the process? If you'd rather be building than practicing whiteboard questions, your best path to success is probably going to be a less predictable one where you need to come across one of the right companies willing to work harder at interviewing because they have to find the best candidates who fall through the cracks at the places with the name recognition.
  - FT_intern 10y ago
    That kind of evaluation can't be standardized and is very prone to personal biases and opinions though
    - majormajor 10y ago
      "Can't be standardized" is something of a red-herring, as I've encountered a huge variety in how even algorithmic questions are presented and judged. [More] prone to biases and opinions? Let's assume this is true (I'm not convinced that it's such a slam dunk - someone who wants to say no to a candidate can find a way, especially if they aren't being shadowed or recorded (which would feel pretty draconian for the interviewee too)). Isn't it still just a way of making a lazy complaint, "but that's harder!" You as hiring manager are responsible for knowing yourself, knowing your interviewers, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and knowing your own. That makes it hard to assembly-line interview fresh graduates, but maybe you should have a separate process there anyway because they won't have much in the way of useful experience yet anyway.
abc_lisper 10y ago
"curated success-seeking golden path" This. You elegantly captured my thoughts.
user5994461 10y ago
> and seem to have followed the type of curated success-seeking golden path that used to be reserved for finance. Finance cares that you have past proven experiences in finance and they'll hire you for it. Breaking into finance is the hardest thing to do, once you're in, you're good and you can have a great career. Tech companies don't care what you've done and they rarely, if ever, ask about it. Breaking into tech companies is only about rehearsing Cracking the code interviews, and once you're in, you have no guarantee to make any sort of career. You'll probably be out soon because things move too fast and the turnover is insane. Your next job is gonna be difficult to find because the next tech company won't care about experience and will try to pay you with free food.
- seldo 10y ago
  I'm not sure where you've interviewed but everywhere I've worked we always ask what you've done, and at my current company we have no whiteboard interviews. Tech is learning, slowly, how to give proper interviews.
  - zachrose 10y ago
    I suppose asking about the applicant's past experience isn't the kind of thing that "scales" in some organizations, because then you've gone from a double blind experimental procedure to a freewheeling conversation between individual humans.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - user5994461 10y ago
    True. Half the time there is 1 guy (out of the 3-6) who will ask about what you've actually done. 10 minutes out of 4 hours, that's like less than 5% devoted to real world experience.
    - Jagerbizzle 10y ago
      As someone at a major tech company that is routinely involved in interview loops, I spend at a minimum 25-30 of the 55 minutes I have asking about specific items on the candidate's CV. When white-boarding, I'm interested in two things: a) can they actually write code, and b) how well do they ask questions and collaborate with me when working through the problem. That said, having gone through loops from the other side, I know this isn't always the case and that your mileage may vary.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bogomipz 10y ago

>"and seem to have followed the type of curated success-seeking golden path that used to be reserved for finance." I am curious what you meant by this. Would you mind elaborating?

cheez 10y ago
Breeding from good stock
dominotw 10y ago
I met a young guy at the hotel diner where I was staying for google interview( there were like 50 of us in that hotel). He told me he has been practising algorithm questions on a whiteboard every day for past 4 months for tech interviews. He had a degree from a top school ( don't remember which one ), did an internship at some other top tech company in the valley. needless to say, that didn't help my confidence in the interview that morning :D.
- JCDenton2052 10y ago
  Was he hired?
  - kornish 10y ago
    Probably.
- Cofike 10y ago
  It's really at the point where you need to prepare/review for the technical interviews at most companies. If people are going to review coding interview questions/books/strategy then to compete we'll have to do the same. I myself have been working through cracking the coding interview in an attempt to migrate from upstate new york to the bay area. Maybe I wouldn't bother with positions that demanded white boarding if I already had a position over there and could be selective but maybe not. It kind of feels like it's all part of the game at this point.
  - unoti 10y ago
    Good for you. If you want to work at the circus, you've gotta jump through some hoops. It's true that for most jobs, most day-to-day work doesn't involve knowing standard algorithms and data structures. But being willing to crack open a book and learn something new shows you're willing to prepare when it counts, and that you're capable of learning. Plus you get to learn some cool things along the way, some of which may even be useful some day!
    - collyw 10y ago
      Or it shows a lack of critical thinking.
      - Cofike 10y ago
        Accepted criticism. At times I wonder if it's worth it or not but I think the preparation is warranted considering how I have to just kind of commit to this whole thing if I play on moving cross country with my fiancee.
- caconym_ 10y ago
  I don't understand people who don't do prep for interviews. I'm a self-taught software engineer with a mostly irrelevant degree but I for sure work through practice problems before interviews and I've had success with some of the "big 5" or whatever they're called. If I hadn't done the practice, I doubt I would have had any success at all. It's a bit of a slog but it's not that hard if you're motivated to get a new job. My girlfriend has gone back to school for nursing and she works a shit load harder than me all the time, while I just do a month or so of ~ten hours a week of prep for every round of interviews I do.
  - shados 10y ago
    unless you're interviewing at one of the big companies with a known interview process, you'd basically be wasting your time. I've done hundreds of tech interviews over my career, and especially in recent years (now that companies are trying new things), it's completely random. Some will do "Cracking the coding interview" type shit, some will do code reviews, some will give you a take home thing you have to present, some will do pair coding. Some do algorithms only, some do design discussions only, and so on and so forth. So any prep I do will be a shot in the dark and 99% of the time I'll have to do something I did not prep for. So I don't bother trying. Notable exception is my current job, which is a big tech co with a semi well known interview process (not as infamous as google or facebook, but still), and they gave me a fair amount of info up front. I also -really really really- wanted to work there because the team I wanted to work for did things no one else does. So i bit the bullet and studied/practice. That was literally the first time (and probably last) time I did.
    - caconym_ 10y ago
      I guess I just think of it as limbering up the brain, even if what I "studied" isn't directly useful. I'm going to be a lot more effective at basically all the things you mentioned if I've been solving tricky problems in my spare time for a few weeks. I totally agree that it's a shot in the dark, though.
      - lj3 10y ago
majormajor 10y ago
For getting a job at Google/Facebook/Amazon/X cool startup, it's a lot more important to do some narrow-minded rote-memorization of algorithms and data structures and hone the skills talked about in a small set of books like Cracking the Coding Interview than to learn something really interesting, or become good at a certain thing, or build some cool shit. Most interviewers aren't really interested in figuring out "is it worthwhile that you built this thing / did you do it right / why do you think this was something worth learning?" when it's so much easier to evaluate your whiteboard code on a narrow problem against some ideal standard solution. You can tell them about how you were able to learn enough about a particular database in a couple weeks to be able to cut 90% of the runtime out of a hot query in your first few months at a job, since that was an area that wasn't scaling well and it was something your boss asked if you could take a look at, and they'll be like "ok that's nice, now implement a trie." What's the point of even having experience building and running real systems if that's the process? If you'd rather be building than practicing whiteboard questions, your best path to success is probably going to be a less predictable one where you need to come across one of the right companies willing to work harder at interviewing because they have to find the best candidates who fall through the cracks at the places with the name recognition.
- FT_intern 10y ago
  That kind of evaluation can't be standardized and is very prone to personal biases and opinions though
  - majormajor 10y ago
    "Can't be standardized" is something of a red-herring, as I've encountered a huge variety in how even algorithmic questions are presented and judged. [More] prone to biases and opinions? Let's assume this is true (I'm not convinced that it's such a slam dunk - someone who wants to say no to a candidate can find a way, especially if they aren't being shadowed or recorded (which would feel pretty draconian for the interviewee too)). Isn't it still just a way of making a lazy complaint, "but that's harder!" You as hiring manager are responsible for knowing yourself, knowing your interviewers, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and knowing your own. That makes it hard to assembly-line interview fresh graduates, but maybe you should have a separate process there anyway because they won't have much in the way of useful experience yet anyway.

abc_lisper 10y ago

"curated success-seeking golden path" This. You elegantly captured my thoughts.

user5994461 10y ago

> and seem to have followed the type of curated success-seeking golden path that used to be reserved for finance. Finance cares that you have past proven experiences in finance and they'll hire you for it. Breaking into finance is the hardest thing to do, once you're in, you're good and you can have a great career. Tech companies don't care what you've done and they rarely, if ever, ask about it. Breaking into tech companies is only about rehearsing Cracking the code interviews, and once you're in, you have no guarantee to make any sort of career. You'll probably be out soon because things move too fast and the turnover is insane. Your next job is gonna be difficult to find because the next tech company won't care about experience and will try to pay you with free food.

seldo 10y ago
I'm not sure where you've interviewed but everywhere I've worked we always ask what you've done, and at my current company we have no whiteboard interviews. Tech is learning, slowly, how to give proper interviews.
- zachrose 10y ago
  I suppose asking about the applicant's past experience isn't the kind of thing that "scales" in some organizations, because then you've gone from a double blind experimental procedure to a freewheeling conversation between individual humans.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- user5994461 10y ago
  True. Half the time there is 1 guy (out of the 3-6) who will ask about what you've actually done. 10 minutes out of 4 hours, that's like less than 5% devoted to real world experience.
  - Jagerbizzle 10y ago
    As someone at a major tech company that is routinely involved in interview loops, I spend at a minimum 25-30 of the 55 minutes I have asking about specific items on the candidate's CV. When white-boarding, I'm interested in two things: a) can they actually write code, and b) how well do they ask questions and collaborate with me when working through the problem. That said, having gone through loops from the other side, I know this isn't always the case and that your mileage may vary.