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At one point one of them showing me how things worked asked "What do people do in Minnesota for work?" I told him "The same thing you're doing..." He found that
by vanusa 7y ago
At one point one of them showing me how things worked asked "What do people do in Minnesota for work?" I told him "The same thing you're doing..." He found that hard to believe.
I've long suspected that much of what the algorithm testing craze (and other grilling on "strong CS fundamentals") in the current default hiring process boils down to is -- they just want to have some kind of vague reassurance that the people they're hiring are somehow "better" than the folks the other companies are hiring.
Even if the standards of "better" (and they means of measuring it) are - when we think about it - pretty dubious.
(To head off some of the tangential discussion that would otherwise likely ensue from what I just said: I don't dispute the value of doing some algorithm testing -- the point is that a lot of places seem to overtest these days, and it seems also that the only reason they're doing it is because they think that's what other companies - or at least the ones they'd like to fantasize that they're emulating - are doing).
- spike021 7y agoIMO the 'testing' done these days for CS interviews is just a by-product of the "big" "OG" companies starting out with a lot of "top university" grads/students. So when those guys needed to hire new recruits, they wanted a way to screen them that resonated with what they were used to: rigorous testing and exams. So they replicated the kinds of tests they needed to pass to get into Stanford/Ivies/MIT/etc. and the ones they had during coursework and produced the basic idea of what SDE interviews are now. And since that became the standard from the beginning, it's what remains now.
- tooMuchCensor 7y agoFew real world programming problems are straight forward enough to test on. Or at least I don't expect computer science to turn into a physics/chemistry/math level of science. I think it's hovering around medicine. Where there is a seemingly art form to deal with the realities of our too complex biology.
- ben7799 7y agoThere are pretty clear differences in what a BS in Computer Science represents from different schools. 1st Tier schools a Bachelor's degree holder has most of the fundamentals of mathematics within computer science. Complexity of algorithms, complexity of operations on various data structures, models of computation, problems that can be solved with different models, etc.. 20 years on from going to school it took me a long time to figure out a lot of schools don't cover almost all of that until you're working on a Master's degree or Ph. D. It's really surprising. I think some of CS questions in interviews are because the degrees are so variable. I don't think this is a problem when you're hiring a Mechanical Engineer or a Civil Engineer who is licensed. All the schools need to teach to a uniform enough standard that their graduates can pass the licensing requirements. CS is a mess. The Top Tier schools seem like they may be so much better that a Bachelor's degree is worth more than a Master's degree from other places.
- throwthisaway2 7y agoIts a club, sv has always been a smart boys frat. They like you ir they dont, skills come second. They are important, but frontend dev can always be taught.