7 ms·

Random, but I interviewed at Knight Capital for a software engineering position a few weeks before this all went down. I was in London, so the interview was don

Random, but I interviewed at Knight Capital for a software engineering position a few weeks before this all went down. I was in London, so the interview was done over the phone. Picture me in the evening, handwriting C to solve some problem (the fog of time too thick to remember what that problem was), then reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. Because of course there was no shared doc. I did very badly. But then, so did they.

nogridbag 4y ago
Same! Although I interviewed in person in their NYC office. I was very junior at the time and the team I interviewed with was awesome. I (luckily) didn't get the job. I did a few more interviews and accepted an offer from another company where I met my wife!
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Do you return the wife when you leave the job? In all seriousness, you dodged a bullet. Do you remember what problem or set of problems they asked you to solve? Also, what made the interviewing team awesome in your opinion?
  - nogridbag 4y ago
    The interview was incredibly basic compared to modern FANG style full day interviews. The coding portion was basically a fizzbuzz question. They had a one page printout of a Java method and I needed to give the output. I answered it correctly nearly immediately as it was simply testing pass by reference vs pass by value. The main interview was all verbal q&a core java questions.
- MikeDelta 4y ago
  > and accepted an offer from another company where I met my wife! That really cheered me up this morning, I met my wife at work as well.
coolhoody 4y ago
> handwriting C /…/ reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. I had to re-read it to make sure you are not joking. The fact that you were not made me laugh harder. I'm now just saying "retuuurn" in various exaggerated accents.
- munificent 4y ago
  I'm picturing them arguing vigorously over what character the word "bracket" specifies in American versus British English.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    Are brackets different in American English? I'd say the Queen should order a second burning down of Washington but, the way things are going, the locals will probably get to it soon.
    - c3534l 4y ago
      parens: () brackets: [] braces:{} Versus: brackets: () square brackets: [] curly brackets: {} Still drives me less mad than "inverted commas" though.
      - robocat 4y ago
        But don’t many (most?) US programmers call () parentheses? I assume non-programmers in the US call them brackets? 1.9M results: lisp "parentheses" -brackets 800k results: lisp "brackets" -parentheses I admit result counts are more similar if lisp is replaced with “python” or “golang”, but square brackets come up more often for those languages. Disclaimer: I am searching from google.co.nz, and I presume search result counts are not a great proxy measurement for actual usage!
        SmellTheGlove 4y ago
        No. Most US non-programmers call () parentheses, not brackets.
Aperocky 4y ago
this is hilarious, apparently someone on their end thought it was an acceptable interview format, thanks for sharing.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  If Yegge's blog is to be believed this is exactly how they used to do it at Amazon too, many moons ago. I think this just used to be common practice. Before my time though.
analog31 4y ago
I would have started them off with a couple of preprocessor macros.
usefulcat 4y ago
I may well be dense, because I am just not seeing why email would not have been a viable option for sharing code..
anusuyaceg 4y ago
Before all these code sharing sites were popular, that's how all the phone screens were done. I had to write my code on paper and dictate on phone. this was before 2011-2012
- killingtime74 4y ago
  Did they not have email in 2011? Seems really difficult to dictate code
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
I also interviewed at knight a few weeks before everything blew up, didn’t go well, interviewer was one of those guys who finally got to hire someone and figured now it’s his turn to be a jerk. Really smug and arrogant. When I heard how badly things had gone it did bring a smile to my face knowing somewhere that guy was having a Sunday dinner sized serving of humble pie.
MEMORYC_RRUPTED 4y ago
> I did very badly. But then, so did they. Thank you for sharing, this started of my day very well, had a hearty chuckle.

nogridbag 4y ago

Same! Although I interviewed in person in their NYC office. I was very junior at the time and the team I interviewed with was awesome. I (luckily) didn't get the job. I did a few more interviews and accepted an offer from another company where I met my wife!

Bilal_io 4y ago
Do you return the wife when you leave the job? In all seriousness, you dodged a bullet. Do you remember what problem or set of problems they asked you to solve? Also, what made the interviewing team awesome in your opinion?
- nogridbag 4y ago
  The interview was incredibly basic compared to modern FANG style full day interviews. The coding portion was basically a fizzbuzz question. They had a one page printout of a Java method and I needed to give the output. I answered it correctly nearly immediately as it was simply testing pass by reference vs pass by value. The main interview was all verbal q&a core java questions.
MikeDelta 4y ago
> and accepted an offer from another company where I met my wife! That really cheered me up this morning, I met my wife at work as well.

coolhoody 4y ago

> handwriting C /…/ reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. I had to re-read it to make sure you are not joking. The fact that you were not made me laugh harder. I'm now just saying "retuuurn" in various exaggerated accents.

munificent 4y ago
I'm picturing them arguing vigorously over what character the word "bracket" specifies in American versus British English.
- brigandish 4y ago
  Are brackets different in American English? I'd say the Queen should order a second burning down of Washington but, the way things are going, the locals will probably get to it soon.
  - c3534l 4y ago
    parens: () brackets: [] braces:{} Versus: brackets: () square brackets: [] curly brackets: {} Still drives me less mad than "inverted commas" though.
    - robocat 4y ago
      But don’t many (most?) US programmers call () parentheses? I assume non-programmers in the US call them brackets? 1.9M results: lisp "parentheses" -brackets 800k results: lisp "brackets" -parentheses I admit result counts are more similar if lisp is replaced with “python” or “golang”, but square brackets come up more often for those languages. Disclaimer: I am searching from google.co.nz, and I presume search result counts are not a great proxy measurement for actual usage!
      - SmellTheGlove 4y ago
        No. Most US non-programmers call () parentheses, not brackets.

Aperocky 4y ago

this is hilarious, apparently someone on their end thought it was an acceptable interview format, thanks for sharing.

emodendroket 4y ago
If Yegge's blog is to be believed this is exactly how they used to do it at Amazon too, many moons ago. I think this just used to be common practice. Before my time though.

analog31 4y ago

I would have started them off with a couple of preprocessor macros.

usefulcat 4y ago

I may well be dense, because I am just not seeing why email would not have been a viable option for sharing code..

anusuyaceg 4y ago

Before all these code sharing sites were popular, that's how all the phone screens were done. I had to write my code on paper and dictate on phone. this was before 2011-2012

killingtime74 4y ago
Did they not have email in 2011? Seems really difficult to dictate code

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

I also interviewed at knight a few weeks before everything blew up, didn’t go well, interviewer was one of those guys who finally got to hire someone and figured now it’s his turn to be a jerk. Really smug and arrogant. When I heard how badly things had gone it did bring a smile to my face knowing somewhere that guy was having a Sunday dinner sized serving of humble pie.

MEMORYC_RRUPTED 4y ago

> I did very badly. But then, so did they. Thank you for sharing, this started of my day very well, had a hearty chuckle.