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Wow, the replies to this actually saying Guido van Rossum should do an algorithm/DS leetcode interview. It's so ridiculous to see these replies. So Microsoft

Wow, the replies to this actually saying Guido van Rossum should do an algorithm/DS leetcode interview. It's so ridiculous to see these replies. So Microsoft should've sent Guido van Rossum a note saying, hey study algorithm/DS for at least a month and do 100 leetcode before you come talk to us or it's a waste of time, thanks, bye. Discussions of the industry tech interview process are now poisoned by these factors: * There is an entire industry built around tech interview prep now (books, websites, practice/mock interviews). Many would defend this practice because their paycheck directly depends on it. * Many see this as a hazing ritual that protects their high compensation and often their egos as well. These people are often young and will eventually see how harmful these interviews are when they get older and need to switch jobs. But by then there will be a new generation of young engineers defending the practice.

908B64B197 6y ago
> There is an entire industry built around tech interview prep now (books, websites, practice/mock interviews). Many would defend this practice because their paycheck directly depends on it. Or you know... an algorithm and data structures class that's part of a serious Engineering/CS curriculum.
- closeparen 6y ago
  That's enough for passing familiarity with what the algorithms are / pointers to reference material when appropriate. Not nearly enough to perform on command from memory in 20-40 minutes.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    I mean, If someone knows he's interviewing at a place where there will be a coding interview, he would be crazy not to take a look at his algorithm textbook. And maybe if the course only only gave the candidate a passing familiarity it wasn't thorough enough?
    - closeparen 6y ago
      At the end of Princeton's Algorithms I-II on Coursera you've done fewer than 20 implementations, and those were open-book assignments with week-long deadlines. A reasonable interview prep cycle would be closer to 200 practice problems, under time pressure.
    - tester756 6y ago
      >he would be crazy not to take a look at his algorithm textbook. Why? what's wrong with going "purely" into interview?
- bassman9000 6y ago
  an algorithm and data structures class that's part of a serious Engineering/CS curriculum Good luck remembering the kind of details a typical interview asks for 10 years into the business.
acqq 6y ago
Previously: Google bureaucracy expected from Ken Thompson (!) to pass a C language exam (!!). https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_o... "So Mr Thompson, you say you have some programming skills"
- mattlondon 6y ago
  I believe this is actually about checking in code, not about getting a job. From what I understand it is like a "driving license" for each language - if you haven't passed the driving test you can still drive but you need to have an instructor keep an eye on you. If you haven't passed the coding test you need someone to review your code before submitting.
  - acqq 6y ago
    > I believe this is actually about checking in code, not about getting a job. I'd say it's about doing the work for which he came there, from TFA: "Google hired Thompson to create a new language, Go. But Google also requires all of its recruits to pass a language test. According to Thompson, he hasn't quite got round to it yet - and so can't submit code." And no, I have no understanding for that utter stupidity, or any attempt to accept it.
    - B-Con 6y ago
      As a Googler, that statement is just wrong. They were looking for a fun story and somehow got just the right quote to make one. Code committed to the internal repo requires a review from someone certified familiar with that language's internal style guide. He was hired to work on Go, not C, and just didn't get around to writing enough C to bother getting that certification. He can write C whenever he wants to, just like literally every other engineer, he would just get a style guide review at review time.
      - enneff 6y ago
        Indeed... I wonder why anyone would think ken would magically be familiar with Google’s internal C++ (not C!) style. I’m sure he would admit that he isn’t, and doesn’t deserve to be granted the C++ Readability certification just because he was involved in C’s development.
jsmeaton 6y ago
It's like people forget the purposes of interviewing. "Can this candidate do the job we're asking them to do?". If the candidate has a proven, public, track record doing the things you're going to ask them to do, then you can skip the jumping through hoops part. We use shitty algorithmic questions as a proxy for answering the above question (in the vast majority of cases).
- deanCommie 6y ago
  That's assuming you want to hire the first person that can do the job. The companies that popularized this were and still are EXTREMELY lucrative, and get a TON of competition. They can afford to be choosey. So they can try to find not only the person who can do the job but also do it BEST. And that's really hard to tell from just looking at their work experience. You want to see how their brain works under pressure, dealing with an ambiguous new problem they've never seen before. A lot of people who rag on modern tech interviewing don't get this. Unfortunately, so do a lot of people DOING these modern tech interviews. "He said the algorithm was O(n log n) but the answer is actually O (k log n). Not inclined" And so, we spiral.
  - purpleidea 6y ago
    > They can afford to be choosey. So they can try to find not only the person who can do the job but also do it BEST. Selecting people based on how well they can code some linked-list traversal, in a web editor, while someone is timing them is not a good metric for overall "best". In fact you might reject candidates that think more about larger design problems, and overall your code might suffer.
    - totony 6y ago
      >in a web editor This is the part I dislike the most. They usually disable copy-pasting too because they know it's that easy to google so you can't just code in your IDE and paste.
    - therealdrag0 6y ago
      Isn’t it usually both? My compy’s on-site has multiple coding sessions and multiple design sessions.
b20000 6y ago
The solution to this is simple - any engineer applying for a job should simply say "no" and this practice will end. The real problem is that engineers in general do not know how to say "no", or they do not know how to negotiate. The role of college education is to weed out those who are not capable, so if you already have a degree of a reasonably reputable (not necessarily ivy league) college or university these type of interviews are completely unnecessary. Also, in the US the cost of firing someone is extremely low compared to europe so these type of interviews make no sense at all. In europe you would need to pay someone months of severance pay and what not, in the US you can simply tell them they are fired and that's it. The goal of these interviews is really to find something that can be used to negotiate your salary down, so don't be a sucker and don't fall for it.
- therealdrag0 6y ago
  Have you been an interviewer?
  - b20000 6y ago
    No. Why?
vanusa 6y ago
Wow, the replies to this actually saying Guido van Rossum should do an algorithm/DS leetcode interview. It'd actually be really, really cool if more than few people of Guido/Linus/etc's calibre did go in for some of the whiteboarding interviews (under an anonymous resume of course). As both of them explicitly acknowledge - they don't (or no longer) consider themselves as top notch "coders" as such. Linus has said something like "I'm not even a programmer anymore" recently. And Guido said something like "I'm not the best Python coder by far - on a scale of 1-10 I'd say I'm at most a 6". Not because they're lousy coders of course. Just that (in recent years) they've had far, far, far bigger fish to fry. So they go in, and "fail" the contrived Sudoku / Knapsack / "build me an Instagram clone, please" problem... then get strung along and gaslit for a while, before receiving an email 6 weeks later tell them that they're "not a fit". That would be lots, and lots of fun to see.

908B64B197 6y ago

> There is an entire industry built around tech interview prep now (books, websites, practice/mock interviews). Many would defend this practice because their paycheck directly depends on it. Or you know... an algorithm and data structures class that's part of a serious Engineering/CS curriculum.

closeparen 6y ago
That's enough for passing familiarity with what the algorithms are / pointers to reference material when appropriate. Not nearly enough to perform on command from memory in 20-40 minutes.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  I mean, If someone knows he's interviewing at a place where there will be a coding interview, he would be crazy not to take a look at his algorithm textbook. And maybe if the course only only gave the candidate a passing familiarity it wasn't thorough enough?
  - closeparen 6y ago
    At the end of Princeton's Algorithms I-II on Coursera you've done fewer than 20 implementations, and those were open-book assignments with week-long deadlines. A reasonable interview prep cycle would be closer to 200 practice problems, under time pressure.
  - tester756 6y ago
    >he would be crazy not to take a look at his algorithm textbook. Why? what's wrong with going "purely" into interview?
bassman9000 6y ago
an algorithm and data structures class that's part of a serious Engineering/CS curriculum Good luck remembering the kind of details a typical interview asks for 10 years into the business.

acqq 6y ago

Previously: Google bureaucracy expected from Ken Thompson (!) to pass a C language exam (!!). https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our_test/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_o... "So Mr Thompson, you say you have some programming skills"

mattlondon 6y ago
I believe this is actually about checking in code, not about getting a job. From what I understand it is like a "driving license" for each language - if you haven't passed the driving test you can still drive but you need to have an instructor keep an eye on you. If you haven't passed the coding test you need someone to review your code before submitting.
- acqq 6y ago
  > I believe this is actually about checking in code, not about getting a job. I'd say it's about doing the work for which he came there, from TFA: "Google hired Thompson to create a new language, Go. But Google also requires all of its recruits to pass a language test. According to Thompson, he hasn't quite got round to it yet - and so can't submit code." And no, I have no understanding for that utter stupidity, or any attempt to accept it.
  - B-Con 6y ago
    As a Googler, that statement is just wrong. They were looking for a fun story and somehow got just the right quote to make one. Code committed to the internal repo requires a review from someone certified familiar with that language's internal style guide. He was hired to work on Go, not C, and just didn't get around to writing enough C to bother getting that certification. He can write C whenever he wants to, just like literally every other engineer, he would just get a style guide review at review time.
    - enneff 6y ago
      Indeed... I wonder why anyone would think ken would magically be familiar with Google’s internal C++ (not C!) style. I’m sure he would admit that he isn’t, and doesn’t deserve to be granted the C++ Readability certification just because he was involved in C’s development.

jsmeaton 6y ago

It's like people forget the purposes of interviewing. "Can this candidate do the job we're asking them to do?". If the candidate has a proven, public, track record doing the things you're going to ask them to do, then you can skip the jumping through hoops part. We use shitty algorithmic questions as a proxy for answering the above question (in the vast majority of cases).

deanCommie 6y ago
That's assuming you want to hire the first person that can do the job. The companies that popularized this were and still are EXTREMELY lucrative, and get a TON of competition. They can afford to be choosey. So they can try to find not only the person who can do the job but also do it BEST. And that's really hard to tell from just looking at their work experience. You want to see how their brain works under pressure, dealing with an ambiguous new problem they've never seen before. A lot of people who rag on modern tech interviewing don't get this. Unfortunately, so do a lot of people DOING these modern tech interviews. "He said the algorithm was O(n log n) but the answer is actually O (k log n). Not inclined" And so, we spiral.
- purpleidea 6y ago
  > They can afford to be choosey. So they can try to find not only the person who can do the job but also do it BEST. Selecting people based on how well they can code some linked-list traversal, in a web editor, while someone is timing them is not a good metric for overall "best". In fact you might reject candidates that think more about larger design problems, and overall your code might suffer.
  - totony 6y ago
    >in a web editor This is the part I dislike the most. They usually disable copy-pasting too because they know it's that easy to google so you can't just code in your IDE and paste.
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    Isn’t it usually both? My compy’s on-site has multiple coding sessions and multiple design sessions.

b20000 6y ago

The solution to this is simple - any engineer applying for a job should simply say "no" and this practice will end. The real problem is that engineers in general do not know how to say "no", or they do not know how to negotiate. The role of college education is to weed out those who are not capable, so if you already have a degree of a reasonably reputable (not necessarily ivy league) college or university these type of interviews are completely unnecessary. Also, in the US the cost of firing someone is extremely low compared to europe so these type of interviews make no sense at all. In europe you would need to pay someone months of severance pay and what not, in the US you can simply tell them they are fired and that's it. The goal of these interviews is really to find something that can be used to negotiate your salary down, so don't be a sucker and don't fall for it.

therealdrag0 6y ago
Have you been an interviewer?
- b20000 6y ago
  No. Why?

vanusa 6y ago

Wow, the replies to this actually saying Guido van Rossum should do an algorithm/DS leetcode interview. It'd actually be really, really cool if more than few people of Guido/Linus/etc's calibre did go in for some of the whiteboarding interviews (under an anonymous resume of course). As both of them explicitly acknowledge - they don't (or no longer) consider themselves as top notch "coders" as such. Linus has said something like "I'm not even a programmer anymore" recently. And Guido said something like "I'm not the best Python coder by far - on a scale of 1-10 I'd say I'm at most a 6". Not because they're lousy coders of course. Just that (in recent years) they've had far, far, far bigger fish to fry. So they go in, and "fail" the contrived Sudoku / Knapsack / "build me an Instagram clone, please" problem... then get strung along and gaslit for a while, before receiving an email 6 weeks later tell them that they're "not a fit". That would be lots, and lots of fun to see.