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I can confirm this with recent interviewing experience. I interviewed at a top tech company and got asked puzzle coding questions I wasn't prepared for. Testing
by sreque 6y ago
I can confirm this with recent interviewing experience. I interviewed at a top tech company and got asked puzzle coding questions I wasn't prepared for. Testing whether I can find the longest palindrome subsequence of a string optimally via a tabular or memoized dynamic programming solution in 20 minutes has practically zero ability to measure how effective I am on the job. That said, after that interview I studied the algorithm and am now slightly prepared for the next big tech company I interview with, I guess.
In contrast, at another interview I got given a take-home assignment that I almost didn't want to do because it felt like the kind of work I would do in my day job and I didn't want to do that in the evening or my time off. That task, on the other hand, probably measures infinitely better how effective I am on the job.
- maest 6y ago> zero ability to measure how effective I am on the job I'm assuming you were hired to write code, so I suspect your ability to write code in an interview is at least somewhat relevant.
- StavrosK 6y agoSure, in the same way you ask your house painter to paint you a picture. Both are about putting paint on a surface, after all.
- maest 6y agoI don't think that's accurate - your example is closer to asking a programmer to take a typing test and hire them based on wpm. Both are hitting keys on a keyboard after all. I agree that, if you're hiring someone who will primarily be managing others or, maybe, architecting some systems, without doing the actual implementation (which, btw, I think is a suboptimal way of doing things), then you shouldn't test their coding. But if you're hiring someone to code, you need to check they understand how strings, memory, dynamic programming etc works.
- StavrosK 6y agoI don't agree, of all the jobs I had, I've never had to do anything close to a typical coding puzzle. There are much more real-world scenarios you can test people on.
- maest 6y agoWe might be arguing besides each other. The puzzles I'm arguing for are e.g. simplified toy versions of problems solved in the existing code base. That solves a real-world problem, so it fits your requirement.
- StavrosK 6y agoThat's not a puzzle, it's an exercise. A puzzle is what the OP describes: > Testing whether I can find the longest palindrome subsequence of a string optimally via a tabular or memoized dynamic programming solution in 20
- icedchai 6y agoI think it depends on where you are located, the culture, how competitive the current market is, etc. In the early 2010's, it seems the US had a shift towards these sorts of "puzzle" interviews. Before that it was more laid back, maybe a take home test as part of the filter...
- vanusa 6y agoTesting whether I can find the longest palindrome subsequence of a string optimally via a tabular or memoized dynamic programming solution in 20 minutes has practically zero ability to measure how effective I am on the job. Not just "practically zero" - but like, "for sure zero". As in, there is absolutely zero chance you would need to solve a problems like this (or Sudoku, etc) in the course of actual engineering work. It's a bullshit question, essentially.
- icedchai 6y agoGenerally, interview puzzles have almost zero applicability to real world work. It's similar to many colleges: the hardest part is getting in. One coding test involved a math formula I hadn't seen in 20+ years. It was simple, but if you "forgot" that, you were stuck. You're better off giving someone a more realistic take home test and have them walk you through it during the interview. You'd get a better feel for what their "real" code looks like when they're under less pressure, how they communicate while presenting their solution, etc.