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Articles like this always underestimate how many bullshit artists there are out there. The technical interview is not perfect but it is still far more meritocra

by ng12 6y ago

Articles like this always underestimate how many bullshit artists there are out there. The technical interview is not perfect but it is still far more meritocratic than many fields.

syspec 6y ago
This, so much this! If it sounds crazy, it is because you're not a BS artist yourself, so it is hard to put yourself in that mindset. I have friends who fall into this category, and they would be the first to admit they bullshited their way into FANG
- 2bitencryption 6y ago
  that just sounds like imposter syndrome with a different face on it.
  - syspec 6y ago
    That's fair, it very well could be that.
mwfunk 6y ago
It is utterly shocking how many bullshitters show up for interviews. I'm sure it varies by company and industry, but a fair chunk of interviewing is weeding out bullshitters.
commandlinefan 6y ago
Not only that, but the only concrete example the author gives is that they asked him about red-black trees. Probing knowledge of data structures is very relevant to day-to-day software development work: even if you don't actually implement them (or haven't since college), having a good knowledge of how they work is the only way to make intelligent decisions about tradeoffs involving them.
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  NOT knowing the internal implementation details of everthing is what has gotten us this far in the first place. You just don't evaluate candidate data structures that often in the vast majority of programming work.
ian-g 6y ago
If you want to test somebody's ability to think a problem and not just bullshit 100%, why not ask them questions like "Given two integer variables x and y, write a function to swap their values without using a third variable"? It's a pretty small problem, but it's still one that needs some thought to get. Also doesn't weed out people who don't know technical details of a red-black binary tree (for example) without necessarily getting rid of people who could quickly pick up what a red-black binary tree is.
- paxys 6y ago
  The vast majority of interviews ask coding questions somewhere in between the difficultly level of swapping two integers and red-black trees. I have interviewed at pretty much every mid-large tech company over the years, and have never once been asked anything involving more than array manipulation, linked lists, binary trees, hash tables and BFS/DFS traversal. And this includes senior+ roles at Google, Facebook etc.
- c1ccccc1 6y ago
  Nice puzzle. Snarky python solution: x, y = y, x Legit solution (I think): x = x + y y = x - y x = x - y Actually, using bitwise xor would be even easier: x = x ^ y y = x ^ y x = x ^ y
  - a_e_k 6y ago
    Careful there with that "legit" solution! With extreme values, it can cause overflows and other weird behavior. For example, in Javascript with: x = 2 y = 9007199254740991 then: x = x + y // 9007199254740992 y = x - y // 1 (!!!) x = x - y // 9007199254740991 Or in a somewhat more sane language like C, it'll usually work but may technically invoke undefined behavior: % cat test.c #include <stdio.h> int main() { int x = 2; int y = 2147483647; x = x + y; y = x - y; x = x - y; printf( "%d %d\n", x, y ); } % gcc -fsanitize=undefined -O0 -g -o test test.c && ./test test.c:5:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: 2 + 2147483647 cannot be represented in type 'int' test.c:6:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: -2147483647 - 2147483647 cannot be represented in type 'int' test.c:7:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: -2147483647 - 2 cannot be represented in type 'int' And even in Python you can end up with it silently turning your ints into longs.
throwaway815190 6y ago
This is a common response to the criticism of technical interviews and it's crap. Bullshit artists are easy to ferret out with a 20 minute conversation. Also, there's no correlation between the ability to pass a technical interview and the ability to do the job after you're hired. This has been well tested by just about all of the big 5 plus the interviewing.io blog.
SerialOwl 6y ago
I can't believe how many people claim to have years of experience but are completely unfamiliar with terms like "binary", "library", "compiler", and "filesystem".

by ng12 6y ago

Articles like this always underestimate how many bullshit artists there are out there. The technical interview is not perfect but it is still far more meritocratic than many fields.

syspec 6y ago

This, so much this! If it sounds crazy, it is because you're not a BS artist yourself, so it is hard to put yourself in that mindset. I have friends who fall into this category, and they would be the first to admit they bullshited their way into FANG

2bitencryption 6y ago
that just sounds like imposter syndrome with a different face on it.
- syspec 6y ago
  That's fair, it very well could be that.

mwfunk 6y ago

It is utterly shocking how many bullshitters show up for interviews. I'm sure it varies by company and industry, but a fair chunk of interviewing is weeding out bullshitters.

commandlinefan 6y ago

Not only that, but the only concrete example the author gives is that they asked him about red-black trees. Probing knowledge of data structures is very relevant to day-to-day software development work: even if you don't actually implement them (or haven't since college), having a good knowledge of how they work is the only way to make intelligent decisions about tradeoffs involving them.

nogabebop23 6y ago
NOT knowing the internal implementation details of everthing is what has gotten us this far in the first place. You just don't evaluate candidate data structures that often in the vast majority of programming work.

ian-g 6y ago

If you want to test somebody's ability to think a problem and not just bullshit 100%, why not ask them questions like "Given two integer variables x and y, write a function to swap their values without using a third variable"? It's a pretty small problem, but it's still one that needs some thought to get. Also doesn't weed out people who don't know technical details of a red-black binary tree (for example) without necessarily getting rid of people who could quickly pick up what a red-black binary tree is.

paxys 6y ago
The vast majority of interviews ask coding questions somewhere in between the difficultly level of swapping two integers and red-black trees. I have interviewed at pretty much every mid-large tech company over the years, and have never once been asked anything involving more than array manipulation, linked lists, binary trees, hash tables and BFS/DFS traversal. And this includes senior+ roles at Google, Facebook etc.
c1ccccc1 6y ago
Nice puzzle. Snarky python solution: x, y = y, x Legit solution (I think): x = x + y y = x - y x = x - y Actually, using bitwise xor would be even easier: x = x ^ y y = x ^ y x = x ^ y
- a_e_k 6y ago
  Careful there with that "legit" solution! With extreme values, it can cause overflows and other weird behavior. For example, in Javascript with: x = 2 y = 9007199254740991 then: x = x + y // 9007199254740992 y = x - y // 1 (!!!) x = x - y // 9007199254740991 Or in a somewhat more sane language like C, it'll usually work but may technically invoke undefined behavior: % cat test.c #include <stdio.h> int main() { int x = 2; int y = 2147483647; x = x + y; y = x - y; x = x - y; printf( "%d %d\n", x, y ); } % gcc -fsanitize=undefined -O0 -g -o test test.c && ./test test.c:5:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: 2 + 2147483647 cannot be represented in type 'int' test.c:6:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: -2147483647 - 2147483647 cannot be represented in type 'int' test.c:7:7: runtime error: signed integer overflow: -2147483647 - 2 cannot be represented in type 'int' And even in Python you can end up with it silently turning your ints into longs.

throwaway815190 6y ago

This is a common response to the criticism of technical interviews and it's crap. Bullshit artists are easy to ferret out with a 20 minute conversation. Also, there's no correlation between the ability to pass a technical interview and the ability to do the job after you're hired. This has been well tested by just about all of the big 5 plus the interviewing.io blog.

SerialOwl 6y ago

I can't believe how many people claim to have years of experience but are completely unfamiliar with terms like "binary", "library", "compiler", and "filesystem".