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What? What would you rather have? A takehome? People find a reason to complain about those as well because the ones administering them become really god damn
by drenvuk 5y ago
What? What would you rather have? A takehome? People find a reason to complain about those as well because the ones administering them become really god damned nitpicky.
What I try to give is a three parter simple string parsing manipulation question where you build on each successive part as well as providing both valid and invalid inputs for them to use as test cases. It shows organizational skills and the ability to break down problems into reusable parts as well as the super basics of string parsing. I think being able to do that much under time pressure shows the learned qualities of a programmer since most will go with what's been ingrained into them by way of habit.
I can understand brain teasers being a poor measure of ability but I'm super on board for online whiteboarding when done properly. 45 minutes, no muss, no fuss. No 6 hours on a weekend to make something. No impenetrable question that requires tricks you don't need for day to day work that you can later look up.
- shados 5y agoThere's more and more companies that don't give you coding exercises at all. They'll have code reviews, or a debugging exercise, system design, all the other stuff, but will skip the algo question. I hate algo/whiteboarding myself, especially complex ones, but I think there's some value in doing some minimal in person fizz-buzzing, especially if you work for a very popular company. The amount of people who can talk through interviews all day long but can't code is too high not to at least attempt to filter them out. What I do is give a very simple question, and make it clear that its not a "gotcha" question and that I just want to talk through with them how they'd solve it, to at least filter out the "deer in headlights" candidates. No one walked out of that to this day.
- sys_64738 5y agoWhiteboarding is a skill you would use at most large companies. I've driven many design discussions via white boarding on the job. Being able to do it in a job interview shows you possess such a skill for interactive design.
- shados 5y agoWhiteboarding in general? Absolutely. Writing a java sort function on a white board? Much less so.
- davidw 5y ago> takehome They’re all bad options in some way, but at least takehomes simulate how most people actually approach a project, rather than sitting there trying to do something while someone stares at you. Some of us really, really hate that.
- drenvuk 5y agoWell here's something that may make you feel a bit better about interviewing: When I'm asking you a technical question, I'm looking at the code you're writing, not you. The camera is only on to make sure you're not lip synching or something. The layout of your code and the logic that went into it is more important than your mannerisms. I refuse takehomes on principle because I've had enough bad experiences with poor reviewers so I'll never give one out.
- b20000 5y agowhiteboard/leetcode is not necessary. discuss a prior project and walk through code of a prior project and discuss it. if you don’t have a prior project, build one. takes only a few days and you will have a new asset you own the IP to. if your interviewers don’t do it this way, pass politely.
- WorldMaker 5y ago> What would you rather have? Ideally? Not to assume my resume/education experience is a lie and to instead assume that I've done enough technical work by this point to merit respect that I don't need to prove some "technical merit" via any sort of whiteboarding exercise that is neither anything like day-to-day technical work nor it is it much more than time wasting busy work to give interviewers plenty of room for excuses on why they don't like people. But, I'm in a minority opinion in general that I'd rather see the industry mature and if it needs to build a standardized test like the MCAT or the Bar Exam or PE certification to stop asking trivia questions in interviews it should just build a standardized test and stop wasting everyone's time.
- asimpletune 5y agoI mean we could have like a bar but that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code. It’s one of the best/worst things about our industry. Personally, I wouldn’t suffer, but I think as an industry we're unique in this way and it’s kind of overall maybe slightly better than not.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago> that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code Whether or not that's true, is it really important? I guess it depends on your perspective. Do you think the industry exists to provide job opportunities, or to solve real business problems?
- asimpletune 5y agoI think by serving an alternative way of doing things we're a nice position to imagine making that comparison. So, which industries are more innovative software/tech or those that have some kind of standards/gate-keeping? Admittedly it's not like a super fair comparison because we're still in the a very nascent phase of software as an industry, but I think as a concept the question still poses merit. Maybe when the industry matures more we'll finally establish a bar, but in the meanwhile I think most of the money people feel that there's just too much work to do for that to happen. Personally, I don't really know what's the optimal way to do things. Mainly my point is that it's interesting that we even exist. Like, we are one of the only "professionals" who don't have any standards to adhere... and this is precisely why interviews are so hard in our field. Sometimes they're asinine, as has been discussed here. (FWIW I try really hard to be a good interviewer and to give the candidate a pleasant experience and to design everything so they feel fairly judged and I get good signal)