5 ms·

As someone sitting idly in a rather crowded Sunnyvale hotel lobby awaiting my own interview, I'm prepared for a Bob, but I'm afraid I'll get a Ted. I'm not a f

As someone sitting idly in a rather crowded Sunnyvale hotel lobby awaiting my own interview, I'm prepared for a Bob, but I'm afraid I'll get a Ted. I'm not a formally schooled developer. I don't know a heap about traditional computer science. I don't know all the sorting algorithms off hand (but could throw one together with a little time and reference). I'm not even fluent in all the jargon, vernacular and glossary terms that devs bat around. I don't know if I'm the best for this job, but I know only 3 short years ago, I was doing graphic design and 3 years before that, I was trying to make good on my degree (and dream) of journalism. None of us choose how we learn, but I think the best of us just know how to.

richardlblair 15y ago
Good luck! I hope you end up with a Bob over a Ted.
- wunderland 15y ago
  This story was poorly written. I had to re-read it a few times just to understand who was speaking when.
  - moomin 15y ago
    Personally, I'd kill to be able to write this badly. Not a human you understand, but something. Maybe a bush-fly.
    - WiseWeasel 15y ago
      I'd hunt down a whole family of bush-flies, and those buggers are prolific!
qdog 15y ago
Had a random interview scheduled with Amazon a couple weeks ago when they were in town, they didn't even have regular whiteboards because of some mixup. So, they put these pieces of plastic on the windows that was adhesive on one side, worst whiteboarding experience so far. I couldn't concentrate because of all the crap going on outside, poor interviewer probably wondered how I tied my shoes in the morning. Hope you have better luck ;)
- sethg 15y ago
  I was in one interview at a local startup where there was a whiteboard in the room, but none of the engineers who interviewed me asked me to touch it; they were satisfied to ask questions of the form “what do you know about Java Foobar Technologies?” After an hour or two, I could feel the whiteboard... looming... blank... silently warning me not to take this job.
  - acheron 15y ago
    Wait, so you got an interview that dispensed with the whiteboard BS.. and you thought that was a bad thing?
    - sanderjd 15y ago
      There is no silver bullet. I see a sort of taxonomy of techniques, the relative quality of which is very dependent on the person interviewing. An assumption: it is bad for the prospective employer to see no code at all. I see two basic options: 1) see code written before the interview, and 2) see code written during the interview. Option (1) has a few sub-options: a) look at open source work, b) ask for private personal work to be made available, and c) ask for custom work of your choosing. All of these share the weakness of requiring work outside work hours. There are many qualified candidates who don't have work of the (a) and (b) sort available, and while many see option (c) as a welcome intellectual challenge, many others see it as a tedious (or even offensive) waste of their time. Option (2) also has a few sub-options: a) provide a computer and a project or set of coding questions to be solved in your absence, b) same as (a) but with pen and paper, c) ask a question and watch on a projector or over the shoulder as it is solved on a computer, d) same as (c) but with pen and paper, and e) same as (d) but on a whiteboard. Option (a) is basically the same as (1c) above, but attempts to mitigate the waste-of-time factor by using already-committed interview time to do it, and option (b) is just a much worse variant of the same. The weakness of these options is that it is impossible to get an idea of a candidate's thought process while solving the problem. Option (c) is really good for interviewers but very high-pressure, which selects against many qualified candidates. Option (d) and (e) are identical, but some people hate pen and paper, others hate whiteboards, and most hate both! It is imperative when not using a computer to avoid requiring or judging by the use of things that computers help support, like specific languages, specific APIs, or syntactic accuracy. Or is this all wrong - have you found the general solution?
blhack 15y ago
Don't worry, you'll be fine :) Can you write code? Yes? Well then you probably can fit the role of somebody who is hired to write code. Nobody on the planet is expecting you to waltz in the first day and grok their entire stack and their entire codebase; expect the first couple of months to be just you getting your head around what you'll eventually be doing. Don't sweat it, you'll be fine :)
- slurgfest 15y ago
  This isn't correct in my experience. Interviewers do typically insist on more than simply being able to write code and it is common for them to try to hire someone who groks as much of their stack and codebase as possible from day one. edit: but maybe it is not the same in Silicon Valley?
  - rhizome 15y ago
    Among CS-led technical departments, this does tend to hold in my experience. Like seeks like, and as much lip service is paid to meritocracy the language and motivations of the industry are largely driven by those who have paid their dues to the ivory tower.
seldo 15y ago
I agree with the others: you'll be fine. And if not, feel free to apply to our company :-)
horsehead 15y ago
These are the same things I worry about in learning to code on my own -- Will I know the "right" terminology to "prove" to an interviewer I'm capable of doing X task in Y time? A funny coincidence, i did journalism too -- you're not missing out on ANYTHING (I'm trying to escape the career myself, even contemplating school).
- xsmasher 15y ago
  That's part of the benefit of a CS degree - you get a common vocabulary for common problems and techniques.
TimGebhardt 15y ago
> I'm not a formally schooled developer. I don't know a <strong>heap</strong> about traditional computer science. Well you sure do talk the talk. ;) Ba-dum---Crash!
- dclowd9901 15y ago
  ;) As I wrote it, I was tempted to kick myself.
  - cannuk 15y ago
    See you do know the venacular
srdev 15y ago
I don't know how it is with most interviewers, but for interviews that I do: If you don't know a term, just ask. I'm more interested in whether you're familiar with the concept and can apply it than whether you know the appropriate term. Chances are that you're familiar with the concept already and are just not familiar with the name. If you're in the interview room, I'm not so concerned about book learning and knowing facts, but whether you have the correct amount of knowledge to do the job and the ability to apply it.
- robyn 15y ago
  The best piece of technical interview advice I've ever gotten: It's much more impressive to NOT know something, ask about it, and then be able to understand it and apply it to your answer during the course of the interview, than it is to just already know it.
  - daleharvey 15y ago
    agreed, a few weeks ago I was interviewing and the interviewer schooled me on python generators and cooperative threading (pretty much all my knowledge is around erlang and message passing / explicit threading) I got the job, and learned something along the way
- thebigshane 15y ago
  You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. - Richard Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05WS0WN7zMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05WS0WN7zMQ
RedwoodCity 15y ago
If they don't hire you because you don't know the most recent buzz words you probably don't want to work for them. A good job especially in your cases is one where you will learn and feel challenged. If you really knew everything they wanted the job would get boring.
albertsun 15y ago
Hey! If it doesn't go well or you change your mind you can always come back to journalism now. We are all desperate for people who can write good code and most of us aren't formally schooled either.
nickbauman 15y ago
The symbol of the thing is not the thing: people (should) care about the thing. You don't need a degree to get your head around algorithms. If you can write a simple binary search, for example (arguably the most fundamental algorithm), that's a plus. Therefore a good interviewer will get you to write binary search (the thing) on a whiteboard without saying "binary search" (the symbol of the thing) and see if you can reason your way through it. They will be much more interested in your thought process than whether your syntax is correct.

richardlblair 15y ago

Good luck! I hope you end up with a Bob over a Ted.

wunderland 15y ago
This story was poorly written. I had to re-read it a few times just to understand who was speaking when.
- moomin 15y ago
  Personally, I'd kill to be able to write this badly. Not a human you understand, but something. Maybe a bush-fly.
  - WiseWeasel 15y ago
    I'd hunt down a whole family of bush-flies, and those buggers are prolific!

qdog 15y ago

Had a random interview scheduled with Amazon a couple weeks ago when they were in town, they didn't even have regular whiteboards because of some mixup. So, they put these pieces of plastic on the windows that was adhesive on one side, worst whiteboarding experience so far. I couldn't concentrate because of all the crap going on outside, poor interviewer probably wondered how I tied my shoes in the morning. Hope you have better luck ;)

sethg 15y ago
I was in one interview at a local startup where there was a whiteboard in the room, but none of the engineers who interviewed me asked me to touch it; they were satisfied to ask questions of the form “what do you know about Java Foobar Technologies?” After an hour or two, I could feel the whiteboard... looming... blank... silently warning me not to take this job.
- acheron 15y ago
  Wait, so you got an interview that dispensed with the whiteboard BS.. and you thought that was a bad thing?
  - sanderjd 15y ago
    There is no silver bullet. I see a sort of taxonomy of techniques, the relative quality of which is very dependent on the person interviewing. An assumption: it is bad for the prospective employer to see no code at all. I see two basic options: 1) see code written before the interview, and 2) see code written during the interview. Option (1) has a few sub-options: a) look at open source work, b) ask for private personal work to be made available, and c) ask for custom work of your choosing. All of these share the weakness of requiring work outside work hours. There are many qualified candidates who don't have work of the (a) and (b) sort available, and while many see option (c) as a welcome intellectual challenge, many others see it as a tedious (or even offensive) waste of their time. Option (2) also has a few sub-options: a) provide a computer and a project or set of coding questions to be solved in your absence, b) same as (a) but with pen and paper, c) ask a question and watch on a projector or over the shoulder as it is solved on a computer, d) same as (c) but with pen and paper, and e) same as (d) but on a whiteboard. Option (a) is basically the same as (1c) above, but attempts to mitigate the waste-of-time factor by using already-committed interview time to do it, and option (b) is just a much worse variant of the same. The weakness of these options is that it is impossible to get an idea of a candidate's thought process while solving the problem. Option (c) is really good for interviewers but very high-pressure, which selects against many qualified candidates. Option (d) and (e) are identical, but some people hate pen and paper, others hate whiteboards, and most hate both! It is imperative when not using a computer to avoid requiring or judging by the use of things that computers help support, like specific languages, specific APIs, or syntactic accuracy. Or is this all wrong - have you found the general solution?

blhack 15y ago

Don't worry, you'll be fine :) Can you write code? Yes? Well then you probably can fit the role of somebody who is hired to write code. Nobody on the planet is expecting you to waltz in the first day and grok their entire stack and their entire codebase; expect the first couple of months to be just you getting your head around what you'll eventually be doing. Don't sweat it, you'll be fine :)

slurgfest 15y ago
This isn't correct in my experience. Interviewers do typically insist on more than simply being able to write code and it is common for them to try to hire someone who groks as much of their stack and codebase as possible from day one. edit: but maybe it is not the same in Silicon Valley?
- rhizome 15y ago
  Among CS-led technical departments, this does tend to hold in my experience. Like seeks like, and as much lip service is paid to meritocracy the language and motivations of the industry are largely driven by those who have paid their dues to the ivory tower.

seldo 15y ago

I agree with the others: you'll be fine. And if not, feel free to apply to our company :-)

horsehead 15y ago

These are the same things I worry about in learning to code on my own -- Will I know the "right" terminology to "prove" to an interviewer I'm capable of doing X task in Y time? A funny coincidence, i did journalism too -- you're not missing out on ANYTHING (I'm trying to escape the career myself, even contemplating school).

xsmasher 15y ago
That's part of the benefit of a CS degree - you get a common vocabulary for common problems and techniques.

TimGebhardt 15y ago

> I'm not a formally schooled developer. I don't know a <strong>heap</strong> about traditional computer science. Well you sure do talk the talk. ;) Ba-dum---Crash!

dclowd9901 15y ago
;) As I wrote it, I was tempted to kick myself.
- cannuk 15y ago
  See you do know the venacular

srdev 15y ago

I don't know how it is with most interviewers, but for interviews that I do: If you don't know a term, just ask. I'm more interested in whether you're familiar with the concept and can apply it than whether you know the appropriate term. Chances are that you're familiar with the concept already and are just not familiar with the name. If you're in the interview room, I'm not so concerned about book learning and knowing facts, but whether you have the correct amount of knowledge to do the job and the ability to apply it.

robyn 15y ago
The best piece of technical interview advice I've ever gotten: It's much more impressive to NOT know something, ask about it, and then be able to understand it and apply it to your answer during the course of the interview, than it is to just already know it.
- daleharvey 15y ago
  agreed, a few weeks ago I was interviewing and the interviewer schooled me on python generators and cooperative threading (pretty much all my knowledge is around erlang and message passing / explicit threading) I got the job, and learned something along the way
thebigshane 15y ago
You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. - Richard Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05WS0WN7zMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05WS0WN7zMQ

RedwoodCity 15y ago

If they don't hire you because you don't know the most recent buzz words you probably don't want to work for them. A good job especially in your cases is one where you will learn and feel challenged. If you really knew everything they wanted the job would get boring.

albertsun 15y ago

Hey! If it doesn't go well or you change your mind you can always come back to journalism now. We are all desperate for people who can write good code and most of us aren't formally schooled either.

nickbauman 15y ago

The symbol of the thing is not the thing: people (should) care about the thing. You don't need a degree to get your head around algorithms. If you can write a simple binary search, for example (arguably the most fundamental algorithm), that's a plus. Therefore a good interviewer will get you to write binary search (the thing) on a whiteboard without saying "binary search" (the symbol of the thing) and see if you can reason your way through it. They will be much more interested in your thought process than whether your syntax is correct.