3 ms·
It's a basic programming and communication skill. If someone doesn't know what it's called or what the syntax is that's fine. What's more important is the intui
by bcherny 9y ago
It's a basic programming and communication skill. If someone doesn't know what it's called or what the syntax is that's fine. What's more important is the intuition:
If I have program A:
for (let i = 0; i < m; i++) {...}
And program B:
for (let i = 0; i < m; i++) {
for (let j = 0; j < m; j++) {...}
}
Then A is more optimal than B, because A runs the loop m times, but B runs the loop m*m times. That's it - if an engineer can reason through that, it's enough to explain to an interviewer tradeoffs between a few possible algorithms that solve some question.
- flanbiscuit 9y agoHave you found that these questions have definitely helped you build a strong team? Has anyone ever passed your interview questions but failed as an actual employee? Just curious
- bcherny 9y agoThe "Concepts" and "Debugging" sections are very strong signals in my experience. "Coding" is much less useful IMO, but this blog post is to help you practice the sorts of questions that are asked in practice, rather than what I ask specifically.
- flanbiscuit 9y agoyeah i figured it was a pick and choose what fits best. Thanks for sharing your list! These kind of interview questions get posted on HN a lot and there's always the same reaction.