4 ms·

What were SWE interviews and interview prep like back in late 90s/early 00s?

• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  UK experience. Turn up, usually do some sort of coding or skill test - which was mostly on paper and consisted of about half an hour or so worth of questions. Starting with a few gifts like an obvious error, or "explain encapsulation", through to 2 or 3 bastards that were probably the current department's idea of funny. 30min - 1.5 hr interview, usually with a quick wander round the department or building. Not uncommon to get an offer as we wrap up. No prep - just know the company you apply to, and know your stuff. A few were still just interview with no test. Some would have a second round - mostly corporates, which were mostly a repeat of round one but with someone else. In that era I can remember just one whiteboard interview, which also required a surprise presentation. I passed, but didn't want to proceed. The interview put me right off them. :) On the interviewing side it was actually depressingly common to have one or two turn up and hard fail the easy gifts, and completely fail to explain encapsulation, or know what a constructor was etc. There were quite a few trying to wing it with a couple of years C++ or Java on the CV when they maybe sort-of knew a bit of C and fancied a bit of the absurd y2k and dot com money that TV kept on about.
• davidjnelson 7y ago
  Oh wow, you built a product in 3 months that makes 1mm/year, you know Perl, sql and JavaScript, you’ve built 30 websites, you’ve run 3 successful businesses, you’ve built a framework to build web apps quickly? When can you start?
• jghn 7y ago
  The cargo cult of the day were the Microsoft style logic puzzles, "how many telephone poles are there in Seattle" and that sort of thing.