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Many people fail fizzbuzz. Most interview questions at big tech are not much harder than fizzbuzz. You are not qualified to be a software engineer if you can't

Many people fail fizzbuzz. Most interview questions at big tech are not much harder than fizzbuzz. You are not qualified to be a software engineer if you can't write fizzbuzz after seeing it for the first time in your life.

paxys 2y ago
"Many people" is an understatement. In my experience 70%+ of applicants fail basic fizzbuzz or reverse a string level questions. If you think these questions are beneath you, good, you've just made my job easier as an interviewer.
- esco27 2y ago
  No, you’ve just optimized for a lazy metric. You’re filtering for people who can handle trivia under pressure, not necessarily good engineers.
  - paxys 2y ago
    If you are applying for a job in the front office of an NBA franchise, and I ask you "which team did Michael Jordan play for?", answering with "this is a useless trivia question, it is beneath me, I can easily google it, how does it matter?" will mean you are not going any further in the interview. You can then complain about it online all you want, but that's how it is. Similarly, if I ask you "write a program in your language of choice that prints all even numbers from 1 to 100", you can either cry about it or take the 3 minutes and actually do it. If you can't, it's a pretty clear signal that you don't actually write code in your day job and aren't suited for this one.
  - zeroCalories 2y ago
    It's not trivia, it's basic problem solving skills of the trade.
  - NavinF 2y ago
    Why would someone be under pressure when answering "basic fizzbuzz or reverse a string level questions"? Personally I like easy and quick warmup questions, they make me more calm
- ryandrake 2y ago
  This was one of the most eye-opening truths of the industry revealed to me when I started interviewing candidates. There are so many software developers, even with long histories of well-known companies on their resume, who just cannot write code. Even Fizzbuzz. Even "write a for loop with an if statement" type problems. Under pressure or under no pressure. On a whiteboard or on a computer. This has been shockingly true about a pretty consistent percentage of candidates for every company I've worked with as an interviewer for 25 years. This is why we have leetcode and Fizzbuzz. There are simply too many phonies applying and counting on their charm and charisma to get them the job, which sometimes works when you don't make candidates actually demonstrate their skills.
esco27 2y ago
FizzBuzz trips people up for all kinds of reasons: fear of ‘gotcha’ questions, nerves, overthinking, or even feeling insulted by how basic it is. Sure, some fail because they can’t program—but passing doesn’t mean much either. It just means they’re good at FizzBuzz, not necessarily at solving real problems.
- zeroCalories 2y ago
  Sure, some qualified people fail simple problems. More likely the applicant failed because they didn't pay attention in school and made a career of copy-pasting stuff from stackoverflow(or AI these days).

paxys 2y ago

"Many people" is an understatement. In my experience 70%+ of applicants fail basic fizzbuzz or reverse a string level questions. If you think these questions are beneath you, good, you've just made my job easier as an interviewer.

esco27 2y ago
No, you’ve just optimized for a lazy metric. You’re filtering for people who can handle trivia under pressure, not necessarily good engineers.
- paxys 2y ago
  If you are applying for a job in the front office of an NBA franchise, and I ask you "which team did Michael Jordan play for?", answering with "this is a useless trivia question, it is beneath me, I can easily google it, how does it matter?" will mean you are not going any further in the interview. You can then complain about it online all you want, but that's how it is. Similarly, if I ask you "write a program in your language of choice that prints all even numbers from 1 to 100", you can either cry about it or take the 3 minutes and actually do it. If you can't, it's a pretty clear signal that you don't actually write code in your day job and aren't suited for this one.
- zeroCalories 2y ago
  It's not trivia, it's basic problem solving skills of the trade.
- NavinF 2y ago
  Why would someone be under pressure when answering "basic fizzbuzz or reverse a string level questions"? Personally I like easy and quick warmup questions, they make me more calm
ryandrake 2y ago
This was one of the most eye-opening truths of the industry revealed to me when I started interviewing candidates. There are so many software developers, even with long histories of well-known companies on their resume, who just cannot write code. Even Fizzbuzz. Even "write a for loop with an if statement" type problems. Under pressure or under no pressure. On a whiteboard or on a computer. This has been shockingly true about a pretty consistent percentage of candidates for every company I've worked with as an interviewer for 25 years. This is why we have leetcode and Fizzbuzz. There are simply too many phonies applying and counting on their charm and charisma to get them the job, which sometimes works when you don't make candidates actually demonstrate their skills.

esco27 2y ago

FizzBuzz trips people up for all kinds of reasons: fear of ‘gotcha’ questions, nerves, overthinking, or even feeling insulted by how basic it is. Sure, some fail because they can’t program—but passing doesn’t mean much either. It just means they’re good at FizzBuzz, not necessarily at solving real problems.

zeroCalories 2y ago
Sure, some qualified people fail simple problems. More likely the applicant failed because they didn't pay attention in school and made a career of copy-pasting stuff from stackoverflow(or AI these days).