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I'm of the opinion that if there needs to be some objective technical challenge to determine a baseline of competency (and there are very many, very strong argu

I'm of the opinion that if there needs to be some objective technical challenge to determine a baseline of competency (and there are very many, very strong arguments for that) then there need to be standards. I've encountered so many variables (no pun intended) in technical interviews that I've virtually stopped preparing. There's hardly any way to prepare when the field is so large and you never really know what you're going to be tested on. I've had people challenge me on theoretical system-time timezone conversions (and incorrectly mark my correct answer wrong "because of physics"...), beside reimplementing native JavaScript functions, beside complex algorithmic problems, beside toy problems like building a binary calculator. [That's great if you learn I can rig a web page for adding 100 and 101, but how do you know if I know anything about databases for this back end position] And those interviews were all for working with web tech, in a couple of the cases just front end positions. There needs to be a common, limited standard and/or domain-specific standards. It's really counter-intuitive to me, and I don't understand how it benefits the hiring process, if a company is looking for a web-back-end engineer for what is essentially a complex crud app and wants to propose the candidate solves a problem from a domain they've never worked in—and marking them on the correctness of the answer, rather than the work process. I'm for objective, technical challenges. But I've seen enough that it seems apparent to me that it's broken. (addendum: I've had several good interviews as well, and good interviewers. I had a good one recently as well that was fitting for the domain. They're not all bad, but most seem to be in my experience)

frequentnapper 6y ago
the FAANG interviews are pretty standardized now - but then that only selects candidates who are well prepped for the interview itself.
- leesec 6y ago
  They're really not. It becomes a cat and mouse game where the interviewers know which pool of questions people are studying so they try to invent new ones to prevent people just memorizing the answers. The questions thus end up becoming more and more obscure.
  - frequentnapper 6y ago
    yeah but they're variations on the same stuff. it just allows gaming of the whole process where if you solve enough of those types of questions, you have a better chance of getting in.
    - leesec 6y ago
      Some are variations but some are just more obscure. They definitely get into very specific greedy algoss or things like prim's/kriskals/tarjans. which can be pretty much hit or miss based on if you've seen it or not
x87678r 6y ago
> that I've virtually stopped preparing Surely this is a good thing, no way for people to game the system and no time wasted.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Oh no. I've wasted plenty of time. And so have they by interviewing me and proposing ludicrous problems well outside of the problem domain of the role I was interviewing for. I understand some problems are meant to judge your thought process, others are meant to measure your basic literacy. I'm not talking about those, however. My experience in interviews has been that most of them are engineers pulled into the process who searched the web for "software developer interview questions technical" and cobbled together a few disparate options without a moments concern more. Then again, those kinds of interviews have certainly cemented my desire not to work there.
wry_discontent 6y ago
I interview a lot of people for frontend positions. I ask one two-sum question to see if they have some knowledge about data structures and simple algorithms. Then I ask them to build something trivial in React, which is what we use. If you can do those things, you're probably fine. The number of people who can't is truly shocking.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  I would argue there are many well-qualified frontend engineers who won't correctly solve the two sum problem on their first time encountering it.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    This one? https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/ https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/ >>> Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target. You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice. Seems trivial enough to me... except if the interviewer forgets the hard constraint that there is exactly one solution, then that's a shitstorm of edge cases. I'd criticize the problem for asking for the positions of the numbers rather than the numbers. That's just super annoying for no reason.
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      Does the problem actually have that constraint? If so then yeah it's significantly easier. I thought the reason you'd have to use a clever algorithm is because a brute-force solution to find all index pairs would require n^2 operations, where n is the size of the input array, because you can't stop after you find a single pair.
      - user5994461 6y ago
        Yes it does, you can open the leetcode and see for yourself. That also explains the "easy" difficulty rating. I guess you've been giving candidates a more hardcode version of the problem, not having that constraint? edit: nevermind, it's the other poster who was giving that problem, not you. No idea how they formulate it in their interviews.
teeray 6y ago
> ...if there needs to be some objective technical challenge to determine a baseline of competency...then there need to be standards After having been on both sides of the table, I’ve really come to appreciate the system of licensure used in the trades. I don’t have to quiz an electrician on the electrical code or ask them to wire up a dog house. I also know they have requirements to keep their license active. I’m not sure what that process could be like for software, but it would sure be nice to eliminate the enormous collective waste of time spent (poorly) establishing candidate competency (especially when they have to do it for every single company).

frequentnapper 6y ago

the FAANG interviews are pretty standardized now - but then that only selects candidates who are well prepped for the interview itself.

leesec 6y ago
They're really not. It becomes a cat and mouse game where the interviewers know which pool of questions people are studying so they try to invent new ones to prevent people just memorizing the answers. The questions thus end up becoming more and more obscure.
- frequentnapper 6y ago
  yeah but they're variations on the same stuff. it just allows gaming of the whole process where if you solve enough of those types of questions, you have a better chance of getting in.
  - leesec 6y ago
    Some are variations but some are just more obscure. They definitely get into very specific greedy algoss or things like prim's/kriskals/tarjans. which can be pretty much hit or miss based on if you've seen it or not

x87678r 6y ago

> that I've virtually stopped preparing Surely this is a good thing, no way for people to game the system and no time wasted.

52-6F-62 6y ago
Oh no. I've wasted plenty of time. And so have they by interviewing me and proposing ludicrous problems well outside of the problem domain of the role I was interviewing for. I understand some problems are meant to judge your thought process, others are meant to measure your basic literacy. I'm not talking about those, however. My experience in interviews has been that most of them are engineers pulled into the process who searched the web for "software developer interview questions technical" and cobbled together a few disparate options without a moments concern more. Then again, those kinds of interviews have certainly cemented my desire not to work there.

wry_discontent 6y ago

I interview a lot of people for frontend positions. I ask one two-sum question to see if they have some knowledge about data structures and simple algorithms. Then I ask them to build something trivial in React, which is what we use. If you can do those things, you're probably fine. The number of people who can't is truly shocking.

fractionalhare 6y ago
I would argue there are many well-qualified frontend engineers who won't correctly solve the two sum problem on their first time encountering it.
- user5994461 6y ago
  This one? https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/ https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/ >>> Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target. You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice. Seems trivial enough to me... except if the interviewer forgets the hard constraint that there is exactly one solution, then that's a shitstorm of edge cases. I'd criticize the problem for asking for the positions of the numbers rather than the numbers. That's just super annoying for no reason.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    Does the problem actually have that constraint? If so then yeah it's significantly easier. I thought the reason you'd have to use a clever algorithm is because a brute-force solution to find all index pairs would require n^2 operations, where n is the size of the input array, because you can't stop after you find a single pair.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Yes it does, you can open the leetcode and see for yourself. That also explains the "easy" difficulty rating. I guess you've been giving candidates a more hardcode version of the problem, not having that constraint? edit: nevermind, it's the other poster who was giving that problem, not you. No idea how they formulate it in their interviews.

teeray 6y ago

> ...if there needs to be some objective technical challenge to determine a baseline of competency...then there need to be standards After having been on both sides of the table, I’ve really come to appreciate the system of licensure used in the trades. I don’t have to quiz an electrician on the electrical code or ask them to wire up a dog house. I also know they have requirements to keep their license active. I’m not sure what that process could be like for software, but it would sure be nice to eliminate the enormous collective waste of time spent (poorly) establishing candidate competency (especially when they have to do it for every single company).