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As I see it, the difficult algorithm interviews screen for people who are motivated enough to spend 100s of hours studying for an interview, or know this stuff

As I see it, the difficult algorithm interviews screen for people who are motivated enough to spend 100s of hours studying for an interview, or know this stuff for some other uncommon reason. Both types are acceptable hires.

jammygit 8y ago
Wouldn't it be better to hire somebody who thought that was lame and who spent 100s of hours learning performance testing, new libraries, design patterns, or just working on projects? Personally, I'd rather not work somewhere that hired based on drilling fringe information - what will the job be like? Maybe I'll feel differently in 10 or 20 years
- brabel 8y ago
  > Wouldn't it be better to hire somebody who thought that was lame and who spent 100s of hours learning performance testing, new libraries, design patterns, or just working on projects? I would hope so, because I do all those things and, after over a decade writing software, find the ability to solve puzzles almost completely useless for most coding I've ever done. But reality doesn't need to make sense. So, if you want to work for Google or Facebook, learn puzzles anyway :)
  - BossingAround 8y ago
    I really think it depends on the quality of the project. If I'm looking at a candidate, and see 3 projects, each pushed in one commit, each project has 3 classes in one package, and I see pushed compiled classes as well as source classes, that's a clear sign that this person doesn't know what he or she's doing. That may not be necessarily a bad thing, depending on the position of course. But projects are not the be all end all, at least not in my company, and where I interviewed.
- BossingAround 8y ago
  It's interesting to me how many people value personal projects. From my personal experience, a confusing Github account with a number of small, questionable projects pushed in one commit half a year ago hurts you more than helps you. Personal projects are fine, but I think many people have the mentality of "getting a TODO app in Angular will help me waay more than implementing algorithms in C, that's useless!" which may not necessarily be true.
  - jammygit 8y ago
    Fair enough, the quality of the projects matters for sure
pishpash 8y ago
Yes you get drones and autistic savants. Great!
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  black pill: that's what they want

jammygit 8y ago

Wouldn't it be better to hire somebody who thought that was lame and who spent 100s of hours learning performance testing, new libraries, design patterns, or just working on projects? Personally, I'd rather not work somewhere that hired based on drilling fringe information - what will the job be like? Maybe I'll feel differently in 10 or 20 years

brabel 8y ago
> Wouldn't it be better to hire somebody who thought that was lame and who spent 100s of hours learning performance testing, new libraries, design patterns, or just working on projects? I would hope so, because I do all those things and, after over a decade writing software, find the ability to solve puzzles almost completely useless for most coding I've ever done. But reality doesn't need to make sense. So, if you want to work for Google or Facebook, learn puzzles anyway :)
- BossingAround 8y ago
  I really think it depends on the quality of the project. If I'm looking at a candidate, and see 3 projects, each pushed in one commit, each project has 3 classes in one package, and I see pushed compiled classes as well as source classes, that's a clear sign that this person doesn't know what he or she's doing. That may not be necessarily a bad thing, depending on the position of course. But projects are not the be all end all, at least not in my company, and where I interviewed.
BossingAround 8y ago
It's interesting to me how many people value personal projects. From my personal experience, a confusing Github account with a number of small, questionable projects pushed in one commit half a year ago hurts you more than helps you. Personal projects are fine, but I think many people have the mentality of "getting a TODO app in Angular will help me waay more than implementing algorithms in C, that's useless!" which may not necessarily be true.
- jammygit 8y ago
  Fair enough, the quality of the projects matters for sure

pishpash 8y ago

Yes you get drones and autistic savants. Great!

scottlocklin 8y ago
black pill: that's what they want