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I think many technical interviews are simply trying to assess whether the candidate has his head screwed on straight and the ability to do basic engineering. As

by ptero 9y ago

I think many technical interviews are simply trying to assess whether the candidate has his head screwed on straight and the ability to do basic engineering. As such, the specific topics are practically irrelevant. At least that's what I try to do when I end up interviewing someone. For example, can he suggest what sensors would be good for a Lego robot that would knock a tennis ball off the ping pong table without itself falling off? Can he describe the logic? How would he test this? How long, on average, would it take? What position of robot and ball would give the worst case performance (success or time)? His job will not involve Lego robots, but IME the person who can give sane answers on those would do a lot better than a coder who knows one toolkit well and nothing else.

majormajor 9y ago
FWIW, though I'm just one datapoint, if I'm going to have a "this isn't the day to day job" question thrown at me, I'd rather it be something more off the wall like this than most of the "do you remember this from your textbook/reference materials" style of trivia. Then I feel like approaching it from first principles is what's desired, and free to bounce ideas around, rather than being expected to remember the optimal log(n) "right" answer.
gumby 9y ago
I agree these kinds of open ended questions are good since they can go in lots of different useful directions (specs, performance, algorithms, generality) and give you some idea what it's like to work with this person (and for them to get an idea if you're jerks or not).
brian-armstrong 9y ago
He?
kafkaesq 9y ago
For example, can he suggest what sensors would be good for a Lego robot that would knock a tennis ball off the ping pong table without itself falling off? Right off the bat, this is very muddled question to ask. For one, "sensors"? I think you meant to say "actuators". Because a sensor by itself can't knock anything off a table. More fundamentally, "Legos", for those of a certain age, were entirely non-mechanical components in their day. So (even though yes, we've also vaguely seen and heard about, and rolled our eyes at, the newer kind), this just sounds like asking them to (seriously) consider the question of how to build a logical circuit out of tinker toys. Yes, it can be done - but on the face of it, that kind of a question comes off as an invitation to join a mental masturbation session. Not the kind of question you'd ask of someone you respect, and whose time you know to be as invaluably precious as you own. The person who can give sane answers on those would do a lot better than a coder who knows one toolkit well and nothing else. This is of course a false dichotomy. Especially given that it was -- not sure how else to put this -- a silly question to ask in the first place.
- chrismcb 9y ago
  Doesn't seem like a very middle question to enjoy. The question basically sats you have "Lego robot that can knock A tennis ball off the long long table." So you already have a robot that can knock this off the table, it really isn't important that if it's made of Legos or not. Now what sort of sensor would you add so it won't fall off the table as well. It specifically asks about the sensors. Don't make questions harder than they are
  - watwut 9y ago
    I have no ideal what the question asks for. What kind of sensor are there? And I did lego robot a while back for optional credit in college (mine worked well).
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    Don't make questions harder than they are. There's no need to make it any "harder" - the point is that just wasn't well-articulated to begin with. (Noting again that "well-articulated" is very different from fuzzy / ambiguous, in the engineering sense). And given that the people you want to hire, by definition, are generally very busy (and have many, many important things to do with their time) -- even when they aren't currently working (despite the urban legend that "they always have jobs") -- as such, it just isn't a good use of their time.
- ptero 9y ago
  I think you nailed the disconnect between our views. What I personally am looking for is an engineer -- someone who can look at problems formulated in a fuzzy fashion (this is critical), figure out what technical solutions exist, probing the customer/user to flesh out the initially vague requirements and come up with a few different ways to implement this. You are looking for coders: someone who can take well posed, unambiguous problem and algorithm descriptions and turn those into a working code. That is probably a better fit for a "coding interview" referred to in the title. It is just my experience that I get much better code and value for $ by hiring engineers even though I have to pay them higher salaries. That's just me though, YMMV.
watwut 9y ago
The lego question has as much to do with programming as biology question. You literally test whether the person played with lego or othrr robot kit somewhere. Why would you expect programmer to do so? The database question seems better, because any programmer should have slight experience with it.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  Exactly - and not just whether they've played with Legos, but whether you've played with (or at least been curious about) the new modern (and incredibly expensive) robotic kind (or robot kits generally). Which inevitably leads to outcomes like: "Oh I see you're from Kazakhstan, and got top grades at one of the top schools there. And your GitHub account just blew our team away, the minute we saw it. And we can tell, from talking to you for 5 minutes, that you obviously know FP and SQL/NoSQL and database internals and caching and consensus protocols inside and out." "But wait -- what's that look in your face when we ask you about solving this little Lego problem? Do you not like puzzles? Or wait - you mean you've never heard of Legos, for chrissake? We'll, what can I say. Sorry to break this to you, but we're looking for engineers here, not mere 'coders'. And how do you tell if someone has the soul of an engineer? It's because they dig shit like Legos and robot kits and stuff. They totally geek out and go to town on problems like this, in fact!" "But then again, that kind of person obviously isn't you. Feel free to apply again in 6 months (after you've passed another 3-hour HackerRank test and our mandatory Skype session on culture fit, of course)."

by ptero 9y ago

majormajor 9y ago

FWIW, though I'm just one datapoint, if I'm going to have a "this isn't the day to day job" question thrown at me, I'd rather it be something more off the wall like this than most of the "do you remember this from your textbook/reference materials" style of trivia. Then I feel like approaching it from first principles is what's desired, and free to bounce ideas around, rather than being expected to remember the optimal log(n) "right" answer.

gumby 9y ago

I agree these kinds of open ended questions are good since they can go in lots of different useful directions (specs, performance, algorithms, generality) and give you some idea what it's like to work with this person (and for them to get an idea if you're jerks or not).

brian-armstrong 9y ago

He?

kafkaesq 9y ago

For example, can he suggest what sensors would be good for a Lego robot that would knock a tennis ball off the ping pong table without itself falling off? Right off the bat, this is very muddled question to ask. For one, "sensors"? I think you meant to say "actuators". Because a sensor by itself can't knock anything off a table. More fundamentally, "Legos", for those of a certain age, were entirely non-mechanical components in their day. So (even though yes, we've also vaguely seen and heard about, and rolled our eyes at, the newer kind), this just sounds like asking them to (seriously) consider the question of how to build a logical circuit out of tinker toys. Yes, it can be done - but on the face of it, that kind of a question comes off as an invitation to join a mental masturbation session. Not the kind of question you'd ask of someone you respect, and whose time you know to be as invaluably precious as you own. The person who can give sane answers on those would do a lot better than a coder who knows one toolkit well and nothing else. This is of course a false dichotomy. Especially given that it was -- not sure how else to put this -- a silly question to ask in the first place.

chrismcb 9y ago
Doesn't seem like a very middle question to enjoy. The question basically sats you have "Lego robot that can knock A tennis ball off the long long table." So you already have a robot that can knock this off the table, it really isn't important that if it's made of Legos or not. Now what sort of sensor would you add so it won't fall off the table as well. It specifically asks about the sensors. Don't make questions harder than they are
- watwut 9y ago
  I have no ideal what the question asks for. What kind of sensor are there? And I did lego robot a while back for optional credit in college (mine worked well).
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  Don't make questions harder than they are. There's no need to make it any "harder" - the point is that just wasn't well-articulated to begin with. (Noting again that "well-articulated" is very different from fuzzy / ambiguous, in the engineering sense). And given that the people you want to hire, by definition, are generally very busy (and have many, many important things to do with their time) -- even when they aren't currently working (despite the urban legend that "they always have jobs") -- as such, it just isn't a good use of their time.
ptero 9y ago
I think you nailed the disconnect between our views. What I personally am looking for is an engineer -- someone who can look at problems formulated in a fuzzy fashion (this is critical), figure out what technical solutions exist, probing the customer/user to flesh out the initially vague requirements and come up with a few different ways to implement this. You are looking for coders: someone who can take well posed, unambiguous problem and algorithm descriptions and turn those into a working code. That is probably a better fit for a "coding interview" referred to in the title. It is just my experience that I get much better code and value for $ by hiring engineers even though I have to pay them higher salaries. That's just me though, YMMV.

watwut 9y ago

The lego question has as much to do with programming as biology question. You literally test whether the person played with lego or othrr robot kit somewhere. Why would you expect programmer to do so? The database question seems better, because any programmer should have slight experience with it.

kafkaesq 9y ago
Exactly - and not just whether they've played with Legos, but whether you've played with (or at least been curious about) the new modern (and incredibly expensive) robotic kind (or robot kits generally). Which inevitably leads to outcomes like: "Oh I see you're from Kazakhstan, and got top grades at one of the top schools there. And your GitHub account just blew our team away, the minute we saw it. And we can tell, from talking to you for 5 minutes, that you obviously know FP and SQL/NoSQL and database internals and caching and consensus protocols inside and out." "But wait -- what's that look in your face when we ask you about solving this little Lego problem? Do you not like puzzles? Or wait - you mean you've never heard of Legos, for chrissake? We'll, what can I say. Sorry to break this to you, but we're looking for engineers here, not mere 'coders'. And how do you tell if someone has the soul of an engineer? It's because they dig shit like Legos and robot kits and stuff. They totally geek out and go to town on problems like this, in fact!" "But then again, that kind of person obviously isn't you. Feel free to apply again in 6 months (after you've passed another 3-hour HackerRank test and our mandatory Skype session on culture fit, of course)."