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I'm a C+/B- developer. I've been doing this stuff for touching two decades, and these questions gave me a prickly sweat down my back. There is a part of me th
by digitalsushi 10y ago
I'm a C+/B- developer. I've been doing this stuff for touching two decades, and these questions gave me a prickly sweat down my back. There is a part of me that feels very lucky to have plopped onto the Earth right when I did, before there was an organized process to weed me out. I'm entrenched enough that interviews are generally just culture fit interviews. I think I'd need ulcer medicine to get a job with no reputation.
- JamesMcMinn 10y agoHow often have you had to code up solutions to any of these challenges in the last two decades? These sort of challenges are great for learning some of the theory behind computer science and getting you thinking, but they're not a useful part of the interview process imo.
- collyw 10y agoExactly. I am pretty sure there is a (well tested) library out there to do those things.
- canttestthis 10y agoAt some jobs we make the libraries you use to solve those problems. These interview questions test very basic CS concepts and many of them are essentially just extremely watered down versions of real life problems. I can teach a dev how to Google for libraries, I can't teach him basic CS concepts. I would much rather hire for the latter. In fact this whole thread makes me uncomfortable. I wouldn't want to work with anyone who gets nervous when told to reverse a linked list.
- collyw 10y agoSure, but those jobs are few and far between. If you are indeed writing that sort of code, then it makes complete sense to test people on that, but the vast majority of jobs using this style of testing are not.
- canttestthis 10y agoEven for other jobs, using this style of interviews reduces your false-positive rate, because any style of interviewing thats good enough for the sort of software that this tests for is going to be good enough for them.
- tedmiston 10y agoConsider trying Codewars. Their kata problems are a mix of algorithms but also things like standard library mastery or functional techniques. Personally I find it a lot more enjoyable than "interview style" algorithms questions.
- rb808 10y agoIf you can get jobs based on a good resume, reputation and culture fit interviews, you're much better than a C+/B- developer.