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This article is an excellent example of why most companies should never ask about algorithms in an interview. The author has worked for elite companies and yet

This article is an excellent example of why most companies should never ask about algorithms in an interview. The author has worked for elite companies and yet even there he rarely had to reach something advanced. I've worked on some cool and really hard stuff in my career including cryptography and a popular Facebook app where my team used a graphdb, etc, etc, etc. And I would fail at most of today's interviews. Fortunately I'm often the one doing the interviews so I rarely have to endure this nonsense. If you ask me algorithm questions on an interview and you're not the equivalent of Google or Facebook in their early years then I'll find a way to end the interview early and you just lost the opportunity to work with a talented dev. Get some training in interviewing. Do the research on best practice. Create the type of interview that gets people talking enough about past work that you learn what they are actually good at. It's not really that hard to figure out how to create an effective interviewing process for the types of problems your company is solving. It's surprising at just how many otherwise smart people fail at creating that.

heavenlyblue 6y ago
I had interviewers grill me about the time complexity of dictionary implementations in python while making assumptions about their behaviour from Java. I was impressed by the fact that nobody ever tried to argue with them before. Basically they were hiring for a Python position and I know that part of the test is the same for everyone. Yet they didn’t know about open addressing.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Thank you. I've been poking around the job market again after 10 years not searching, and it's disheartening. I have 20 years software development experience, I work at Google, I'm no spring chicken. I'm not the best engineer in the world, I'm sure, but I am a good programmer. I think I'd be an asset in many jobs. But I just turned down proceeding with interviews at a certain payment processing company because in part they wanted to give this kind of whiteboard coding interview. Our industry needs to give its head a shake.
- ashconnor 6y ago
  You would think working at a top tier tech company like you are, would allow you to bypass this requirement.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    When everyone else has gone through the pain of such an interview process, they are emotionally and ego-wise invested in believing in its efficacy. They have to apply it consistently, and they mostly have to believe it proves something about the intelligence of the successful applicant.
ipnon 6y ago
I call this distinction red flag versus green flag interviews. The typical hiring process is looking to quickly disqualify all but 1 person in the hundreds of resumes submitted to any open software engineering position. The hiring process you are proposing is looking to methodically search for all of the useful qualities in the candidate pool and determine how they can best be applied at the company. I think we can all agree someone can be a poor software engineer and not have any red flags.
- tsumnia 6y ago
  > I think we can all agree someone can be a poor software engineer and not have any red flags. This has been something I find myself musing over every now and then for a couple years now. As we begin to relax barriers of entry, how do we maintain that some people fail/lose?
  - ipnon 6y ago
    In a business, you are either don't hire them in the beginning or fire them in the end. Not everyone should be a software engineer (where would the users come from?). A large labor market organizes people into better jobs when they are passed over for or fired from a position.
    - tchaffee 6y ago
      > (where would the users come from?) I'm an engineer and I use loads of software. I bet you do too.
  - tchaffee 6y ago
    I'm curious what makes you think we are relaxing barriers to entry? The senior engineers I've hired are highly productive. And diverse. My process does not have a low barrier to entry. The goal is to use more accurate signals. Instead of hiring people who are good at talking about algorithms at a white board I want to hire good software engineers. > some people fail / lose This comes off as a condescending way of thinking about the hiring process. Even if the candidate is not qualified for the position I want to leave them feeling like I helped them a little in their career or at the very least in their interviewing skills and confidence. You can find a good fit for a role without leaving the other candidates feeling like they failed. And I think that starts to get to the crux of the problem at some companies : the process is meant to boost the ego of the interviewer. Almost every senior dev has a few stories about how the interviewer just wanted to feel superior. We can do far better than that.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

I had interviewers grill me about the time complexity of dictionary implementations in python while making assumptions about their behaviour from Java. I was impressed by the fact that nobody ever tried to argue with them before. Basically they were hiring for a Python position and I know that part of the test is the same for everyone. Yet they didn’t know about open addressing.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

Thank you. I've been poking around the job market again after 10 years not searching, and it's disheartening. I have 20 years software development experience, I work at Google, I'm no spring chicken. I'm not the best engineer in the world, I'm sure, but I am a good programmer. I think I'd be an asset in many jobs. But I just turned down proceeding with interviews at a certain payment processing company because in part they wanted to give this kind of whiteboard coding interview. Our industry needs to give its head a shake.

ashconnor 6y ago
You would think working at a top tier tech company like you are, would allow you to bypass this requirement.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  When everyone else has gone through the pain of such an interview process, they are emotionally and ego-wise invested in believing in its efficacy. They have to apply it consistently, and they mostly have to believe it proves something about the intelligence of the successful applicant.

ipnon 6y ago

I call this distinction red flag versus green flag interviews. The typical hiring process is looking to quickly disqualify all but 1 person in the hundreds of resumes submitted to any open software engineering position. The hiring process you are proposing is looking to methodically search for all of the useful qualities in the candidate pool and determine how they can best be applied at the company. I think we can all agree someone can be a poor software engineer and not have any red flags.

tsumnia 6y ago
> I think we can all agree someone can be a poor software engineer and not have any red flags. This has been something I find myself musing over every now and then for a couple years now. As we begin to relax barriers of entry, how do we maintain that some people fail/lose?
- ipnon 6y ago
  In a business, you are either don't hire them in the beginning or fire them in the end. Not everyone should be a software engineer (where would the users come from?). A large labor market organizes people into better jobs when they are passed over for or fired from a position.
  - tchaffee 6y ago
    > (where would the users come from?) I'm an engineer and I use loads of software. I bet you do too.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  I'm curious what makes you think we are relaxing barriers to entry? The senior engineers I've hired are highly productive. And diverse. My process does not have a low barrier to entry. The goal is to use more accurate signals. Instead of hiring people who are good at talking about algorithms at a white board I want to hire good software engineers. > some people fail / lose This comes off as a condescending way of thinking about the hiring process. Even if the candidate is not qualified for the position I want to leave them feeling like I helped them a little in their career or at the very least in their interviewing skills and confidence. You can find a good fit for a role without leaving the other candidates feeling like they failed. And I think that starts to get to the crux of the problem at some companies : the process is meant to boost the ego of the interviewer. Almost every senior dev has a few stories about how the interviewer just wanted to feel superior. We can do far better than that.