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Hey, 20y old programmer here. I feel like I could never pass an interview with these brain teasers. Also, I've never really had an interview. And I've had some

by Void_ 15y ago

Hey, 20y old programmer here. I feel like I could never pass an interview with these brain teasers. Also, I've never really had an interview. And I've had some pretty good jobs, but I never got them for solving math problems. Seems to me it requires a person that falls in one of these categories: - having a job that includes solving math problems - I'm web/mobile - motivated enough to prepare for it (I could believe that) - I would probably do this if I wanted the job - people who are so freakishly smart they can solve it right away - This is my idea of Google engineers, but it's not me - people who have fun solving math problems - I love to see things working, so not me What do you think is the best strategy to increase my chances if I ever get to do an interview like that?

ntkachov 15y ago
I'm in the same boat as you (20,web/mobile). I've done my fair share of interview and here's what I've found: Anything that's worth doing involves a heavy amount of math. Most of my day is spend doing UI and I tend to deal with a heavy amount of math each day. So I don't know what you mean by "I'm web/mobile" but unless you are purely a designer*, your doing math. The math that they ask at interviews usually doesn't involve anything that isn't reasonably expected to be in an algorithms book. To that extent they usually avoid some of the more specialized algorithms. eg, I've had BSTs but not Red-black trees but it's not unusual to have a question on RBTs depending on the company. Other than knowing your algos really well that's about it.
mahyarm 15y ago
Most of the puzzle questions are straight out of a CS education. Actually it mostly concentrates on about 3 classes worth of CS, your algorithms course, your operating systems/multi-threading course, your networking class and maybe your discrete math course. Of those the most important is your algorithms course. Those happen be the harder classes too and are the core of a CS education. Unless it reveals a deficiency that you had in your CS education or some skill set they are hiring for (and even then), it's okay to say: I've never encountered that before and then try to work through it.
groby_b 15y ago
I agree that the puzzles are bad interview questions. But if you want a _specific_ job, it's always a good idea to find out about the interview culture (if you can, it's almost impossible for small companies) and then prep for the interview at hand. I guess that falls under "motivated enough" :) If you want to be prepared in a general sense, get "How would you move Mount Fuji", a book on those interview puzzlers. The upside of most of those puzzles is that the answer is blindingly obvious once you read it the first time. So read that book, and you're done ;)

by Void_ 15y ago

ntkachov 15y ago

I'm in the same boat as you (20,web/mobile). I've done my fair share of interview and here's what I've found: Anything that's worth doing involves a heavy amount of math. Most of my day is spend doing UI and I tend to deal with a heavy amount of math each day. So I don't know what you mean by "I'm web/mobile" but unless you are purely a designer*, your doing math. The math that they ask at interviews usually doesn't involve anything that isn't reasonably expected to be in an algorithms book. To that extent they usually avoid some of the more specialized algorithms. eg, I've had BSTs but not Red-black trees but it's not unusual to have a question on RBTs depending on the company. Other than knowing your algos really well that's about it.

mahyarm 15y ago

Most of the puzzle questions are straight out of a CS education. Actually it mostly concentrates on about 3 classes worth of CS, your algorithms course, your operating systems/multi-threading course, your networking class and maybe your discrete math course. Of those the most important is your algorithms course. Those happen be the harder classes too and are the core of a CS education. Unless it reveals a deficiency that you had in your CS education or some skill set they are hiring for (and even then), it's okay to say: I've never encountered that before and then try to work through it.

groby_b 15y ago

I agree that the puzzles are bad interview questions. But if you want a _specific_ job, it's always a good idea to find out about the interview culture (if you can, it's almost impossible for small companies) and then prep for the interview at hand. I guess that falls under "motivated enough" :) If you want to be prepared in a general sense, get "How would you move Mount Fuji", a book on those interview puzzlers. The upside of most of those puzzles is that the answer is blindingly obvious once you read it the first time. So read that book, and you're done ;)