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I hope this article takes off so that my company will have to change its initial code screen. We make no use of xor in our rather large codebase (I’ve checked)
by webel0 6y ago
I hope this article takes off so that my company will have to change its initial code screen. We make no use of xor in our rather large codebase (I’ve checked) yet pin a lot on whether an interviewee is aware of this trivia.
- whimsicalism 6y agoYou have a single question that is always present in your "initial code screen"? XOR-only questions are poor unless you're interviewing someone for a very specific kind of role.
- airstrike 6y ago> You have a single question that is your "initial code screen"? He never claimed that. It could just be part of the screen
- whimsicalism 6y agoYou're right and my question was poorly phrased. I meant: you have a single question that is asked as part of every single screen every year?
- deathanatos 6y agoI'm not sure what you mean by "every year", but when I screen candidates, yes, I'll ask multiple candidates the same question? It allows me to compare candidates directly without introducing the additional variable of wondering whether one had a harder question, it allows me to gain & retain experience at asking the question in how it is presented, and if the candidate does well, how we proceed to make it more difficult to suss out the candidate's skill. I do agree with the parent above though that this use of xor is trivia, and not a great interview question.
- webel0 6y agoOne of several. But I agree with the general sentiment.
- whimsicalism 6y agoIt just surprises me that they aren't rotated out more frequently (annually?). I can think of a number of arguments for doing so and really only one small one against.
- svorcmar 6y agoCould you share some of the arguments you have in mind?
- sgerenser 6y agoThe fact that not rotating questions makes it trivial for someone who’s been through the process to tip off future applicants. Sites like Glassdoor and leetcode already do this, but it’s tempered by the fact that most companies rotate these type of screener questions regularly. It sounds like some of these questions are bad screeners anyway, but it makes them even worse if half the people going through the process are feigning surprise at the tricky question then quickly developing a “brilliant” solution.