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The first reply is passive-aggressive and is inappropriate in the context of an interview (assuming that's word for word what has been said). A better answer w

The first reply is passive-aggressive and is inappropriate in the context of an interview (assuming that's word for word what has been said). A better answer would be either "Yep sounds good to me" or something along the lines of "Let's step back and first define what a state machine should do". Even if GP was not getting the job it is the responsibility of a good interviewer that GP leaves the room having learned something. If GP left this interview still not knowing what a state machine is (or what the interviewer thinks a state machine is) or no closer to an implementation of a state machine then the interviewer has failed as much as the candidate.

userbinator 4y ago
it is the responsibility of a good interviewer that GP leaves the room having learned something. If GP left this interview still not knowing what a state machine is (or what the interviewer thinks a state machine is) or no closer to an implementation of a state machine then the interviewer has failed as much as the candidate. I strongly disagree. An interview is an assessment, not a tutorial.
- kstrauser 4y ago
  I’m a staff-level engineer with thousands of LoC on GitHub, and many times that inside my employers’ repos. I know how to program. I wasn’t asking them to teach me what a state machine is or how to write one. Instead, I was trying to narrow down a thousand possibilities to the ones that would meet their requirements. You know, like I’d be doing on the job if they’d hired me. When the CTO says “we need a thing”, I don’t sit down and start writing. I try to learn what we’ll need so I can build something that satisfies my stakeholders’ needs. If I were interviewing you, and said “hey userbinator, make a paragraph”, and you did that without asking WTF I was talking about, the rest of the session may not go well.

userbinator 4y ago

it is the responsibility of a good interviewer that GP leaves the room having learned something. If GP left this interview still not knowing what a state machine is (or what the interviewer thinks a state machine is) or no closer to an implementation of a state machine then the interviewer has failed as much as the candidate. I strongly disagree. An interview is an assessment, not a tutorial.

kstrauser 4y ago
I’m a staff-level engineer with thousands of LoC on GitHub, and many times that inside my employers’ repos. I know how to program. I wasn’t asking them to teach me what a state machine is or how to write one. Instead, I was trying to narrow down a thousand possibilities to the ones that would meet their requirements. You know, like I’d be doing on the job if they’d hired me. When the CTO says “we need a thing”, I don’t sit down and start writing. I try to learn what we’ll need so I can build something that satisfies my stakeholders’ needs. If I were interviewing you, and said “hey userbinator, make a paragraph”, and you did that without asking WTF I was talking about, the rest of the session may not go well.