5 ms·

Data point: A friend of mine with 20+ years of experience in programming and security (she's been a code-level security analyst for the past decade plus) was as

by beat 7y ago

Data point: A friend of mine with 20+ years of experience in programming and security (she's been a code-level security analyst for the past decade plus) was asked in an interview the other day to implement a binary tree. Why the fuck is someone asking a lead-level expert with over two decades of experience a first-year CS question? Because that's the process? It's a total failure. Asking senior people to do basic things like that is insulting. Don't you have anything better to ask?

atemerev 7y ago
Why don’t learn this thing for once? It is not difficult, and everybody will benefit from doing that at least once, even the most senior and accoladed engineers.
- beat 7y ago
  She learned it, in college. Her job isn't to write code. And I can't even remember the last time I implemented a damn binary tree. It's not that it's difficult. It's that it's stupid. edit: Let me put it this way... if you're hiring a senior/lead level code security analyst, the odds that they will be implementing (or even reading for comprehension) a binary tree are effectively nil. The odds of having to show how to mark false positives in a Fortify scan are very, very high. Can they explain buffer overflows, html encoding, etc? Can they write a description of unsafe practices in plain English, for both developers and managers? Do they have experience in conducting training classes for developers to reduce security problems? Do they have a working knowledge of HIPAA, SOX, or other relevant industry regulations? Can they do good Powerpoint presentations on this stuff? Being a security analyst isn't about writing homework assignments from freshman year of college. It's about regulations, about training others, about using high end tools that aren't taught in college, and a bunch of other stuff. Ask questions about the actual job.
- anarazel 7y ago
  Well, sure, inverting a binary tree isn't hard to learn. But there's countless interview questions, not just that one. A lot are more tricky - and not everyone is good at coming up with such solutions from first principles under interview pressure. While I'm reasonably good at these style of questions, I'd be very unsurprised if there were a few that'd just catch me cold, even today. And I'm probably working in a field that's a lot more day-to-day data structure heavy than most (RDBMS internals).
commandlinefan 7y ago
Well, did she actually not know, or was she offended by the simplicity of the question? I graduated in ’95, and I still remember how to implement a binary tree, so it’s not like it’s something that’s so irrelevant you’ll forget a few years after graduation like, say, polynomial long division.
- beat 7y ago
  She was offended by it, as were a lot of her friends (all industry people with similar experience levels). Imagine if someone asked you to conjugate verbs or graph sentences to demonstrate your English skills. Would you do well at it, even if you're a native speaker? After all, you learned that stuff in elementary school.

by beat 7y ago

atemerev 7y ago

Why don’t learn this thing for once? It is not difficult, and everybody will benefit from doing that at least once, even the most senior and accoladed engineers.

beat 7y ago
She learned it, in college. Her job isn't to write code. And I can't even remember the last time I implemented a damn binary tree. It's not that it's difficult. It's that it's stupid. edit: Let me put it this way... if you're hiring a senior/lead level code security analyst, the odds that they will be implementing (or even reading for comprehension) a binary tree are effectively nil. The odds of having to show how to mark false positives in a Fortify scan are very, very high. Can they explain buffer overflows, html encoding, etc? Can they write a description of unsafe practices in plain English, for both developers and managers? Do they have experience in conducting training classes for developers to reduce security problems? Do they have a working knowledge of HIPAA, SOX, or other relevant industry regulations? Can they do good Powerpoint presentations on this stuff? Being a security analyst isn't about writing homework assignments from freshman year of college. It's about regulations, about training others, about using high end tools that aren't taught in college, and a bunch of other stuff. Ask questions about the actual job.
anarazel 7y ago
Well, sure, inverting a binary tree isn't hard to learn. But there's countless interview questions, not just that one. A lot are more tricky - and not everyone is good at coming up with such solutions from first principles under interview pressure. While I'm reasonably good at these style of questions, I'd be very unsurprised if there were a few that'd just catch me cold, even today. And I'm probably working in a field that's a lot more day-to-day data structure heavy than most (RDBMS internals).

commandlinefan 7y ago

Well, did she actually not know, or was she offended by the simplicity of the question? I graduated in ’95, and I still remember how to implement a binary tree, so it’s not like it’s something that’s so irrelevant you’ll forget a few years after graduation like, say, polynomial long division.

beat 7y ago
She was offended by it, as were a lot of her friends (all industry people with similar experience levels). Imagine if someone asked you to conjugate verbs or graph sentences to demonstrate your English skills. Would you do well at it, even if you're a native speaker? After all, you learned that stuff in elementary school.