6 ms·

I'd love to serve some bay area companies, but I'd really prefer to not live there. None of the companies I've spoken to so far have any interest in remote help

by MrLeap 10y ago

I'd love to serve some bay area companies, but I'd really prefer to not live there. None of the companies I've spoken to so far have any interest in remote help. One west coast company has interviewed me. The company recruiter sent me like 14 "how to prep for tech screens" links and recommended I check them out days before the actual tech screen. I'm on a job right now so I don't have time to be doing that sort of thing so I didn't prep. It made me expect I was going to have to implement a BSP decompiler with a hand tied behind my back. The guy who called me allotted 50 minutes to solve 1 problem "two if I finished the first early" on collabedit. I finished both in 6 minutes. I'm a good, experienced developer but I'm no genius. Their tech screen was so ludicrously easy it made me wonder what the current standard is for developers. After I finished the guy said "huh I normally don't have to end these early. Great I guess." I pressed him a little and he went on to say his questions had done a great job invalidating candidates. Most people couldn't do it. It's pretty beguiling since my midwest salary demands would be peanuts compared to my west coast equivalent. There'd have to be >60% remote-related productivity penalty for it not to be a no brainer to hire people like me. The last few years has taught me that job seekers and dev seekers both have a hard time connecting.

adviceadam 10y ago
Were these fizz-buzz level questions or were they more difficult?
- MrLeap 10y ago
  A little tougher than fizz-buzz. I'd hope that people who take 6 minutes on fizz-buzz aren't calling themselves good and experienced. Am I taking crazy pills? Here's basically what they asked me to do: #1) Write a function that accepts one parameter. An array of numbers. Convert those numbers to pseudo-binary strings. Instead of "0" use "Y" and instead of "1" use "X" #2) Do the reverse, Write a function that accepts an array of pseudo binary and convert it to an array of numbers.
  - fictioncircle 10y ago
    > Their tech screen was so ludicrously easy it made me wonder what the current standard is for developers. Just fyi, its probably because many developers don't touch binary. I work with numbers all day but they are currency transactions and accounting data. I haven't cared about transforming something to/from binary in 10+ years and couldn't do it without googling. However, the number of devs (and accountants) who can't figure out a 4-4-5 calendar reliably is quite impressive.
    - MrLeap 10y ago
      I haven't messed with binary since college. (Well, some bitmask stuff happens every half decade I guess.) If you remember binary is just base2 I bet you could do it. Since you do accounting stuff, could you split a number into each base 10 component? 462 = (400,60,2). A bit of thinking leads me to 10^i, a for loop and some conditional subtraction / modulo. Binary is just 2^i.
      - fictioncircle 10y ago
        My point was, it wasn't from memory and because any mistakes I make are very painful and tedious to repair my first instinct is to Google things to double check everything before taking action. So, no, I'm going to refuse a screen that prevents me from solving it the way I'd solve other problems I don't do regularly.
        MrLeap 10y ago
        Fair enough!
  - Balgair 10y ago
    wat Wait, WAT?! I am flabbergasted that this could possibly take a 'serious' computer-y person with ANY knowledge of just about ANY programming language an hour to do. I mean, 6 minutes is very good, it would take me longer to type it all out and run through the bugs in my code. But an hour!? What are the other applicants doing in that time for Christ's sake? Playing hop-scotch? Jeeze, maybe the big 4 really aren't kidding when they say that they can't find anyone good...

by MrLeap 10y ago

adviceadam 10y ago

Were these fizz-buzz level questions or were they more difficult?

MrLeap 10y ago
A little tougher than fizz-buzz. I'd hope that people who take 6 minutes on fizz-buzz aren't calling themselves good and experienced. Am I taking crazy pills? Here's basically what they asked me to do: #1) Write a function that accepts one parameter. An array of numbers. Convert those numbers to pseudo-binary strings. Instead of "0" use "Y" and instead of "1" use "X" #2) Do the reverse, Write a function that accepts an array of pseudo binary and convert it to an array of numbers.
- fictioncircle 10y ago
  > Their tech screen was so ludicrously easy it made me wonder what the current standard is for developers. Just fyi, its probably because many developers don't touch binary. I work with numbers all day but they are currency transactions and accounting data. I haven't cared about transforming something to/from binary in 10+ years and couldn't do it without googling. However, the number of devs (and accountants) who can't figure out a 4-4-5 calendar reliably is quite impressive.
  - MrLeap 10y ago
    I haven't messed with binary since college. (Well, some bitmask stuff happens every half decade I guess.) If you remember binary is just base2 I bet you could do it. Since you do accounting stuff, could you split a number into each base 10 component? 462 = (400,60,2). A bit of thinking leads me to 10^i, a for loop and some conditional subtraction / modulo. Binary is just 2^i.
    - fictioncircle 10y ago
      My point was, it wasn't from memory and because any mistakes I make are very painful and tedious to repair my first instinct is to Google things to double check everything before taking action. So, no, I'm going to refuse a screen that prevents me from solving it the way I'd solve other problems I don't do regularly.
      - MrLeap 10y ago
        Fair enough!
- Balgair 10y ago
  wat Wait, WAT?! I am flabbergasted that this could possibly take a 'serious' computer-y person with ANY knowledge of just about ANY programming language an hour to do. I mean, 6 minutes is very good, it would take me longer to type it all out and run through the bugs in my code. But an hour!? What are the other applicants doing in that time for Christ's sake? Playing hop-scotch? Jeeze, maybe the big 4 really aren't kidding when they say that they can't find anyone good...