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This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good

This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding interview. IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding interviews are quite irrelevant for a programmer/developer position.

cnp 12y ago
Exactly my thinking as well. Dig in, look around, its obvious what I can do, and what I'm capable of learning. Ask me to code a sample app and comment every function with detailed explanations of my thought process. Add me as a collaborator to GitHub and request that I make some pull requests on your product. Live coding interviews are more irrelevant than irrelevant and completely ignore the fact that many people -- and especially introverted technical types -- just don't do well in front of groups.
- akanet 12y ago
  Coding interviews don't ignore any facts - they are simply often the best signal/time tool available. Many people do not have time to root around in your personal repositories or wait for you to commit pull requests. They have a pipeline of people they need to screen, and you can't wait on everyone in a pool of candidates to take their sweet time before deciding on a winner. Technical screens are synchronous and relatively well understood. If they are not the literally BEST choice of time for figuring out if someone is a good developer, they are at least a very defensible choice.
  - cnp 12y ago
    Your comment is unfortunate but true. Hopefully one day someone will think up a better way to do things.
- justinpaulson 12y ago
  Maybe doing well in front of groups is a skill that companies want in their employees.
  - cnp 12y ago
    ...which has nothing to do with high-pressure interviews with people you've never met.
CaveTech 12y ago
For me, even worse than an in person interview is a remote coding interview over the phone. Usually some sort of screen sharing + phone call. I find it incredibly nerve wracking because it gives me that feeling of someone standing over my shoulder without me being able to fully interact with them or read their body language. When you sit down to hammer out a solution you have all the additional pressure of trying to stay engaged with someone you can't see. As a result I constantly drop my focus on the problem and lose what I've worked out in my head.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  Worse, you simply have no way of knowing what their evaluation criteria are. Maybe they want you to be slow and thorough (I've been nailed for not checking the exit status of print statements). OR maybe they want it quick and dirty, in which case you'll get nailed for "overengineering", or you just wont have time to do it the imaginary time frames they set for these tasks, if you go for any of the defensive practices that the other guy would have nailed you for. Fun, fun, fun.
  - rrradical 12y ago
    Very much yes. In an interview I was prompted to write some code that ran as quickly as possible. 10 minutes in they were concerned that I hadn't started with a naive proof-of-concept solution and improved from there. I don't disagree with their idea of good programming practice, but how could I know they wouldn't penalize me for coming up with a slow naive solution, when the prompt specifically said to run as quickly as possible?
  - danielweber 12y ago
    1. Tell people what you want. 2. Actually evaluate them on that. Anything else is a psychology test, and you aren't psychologists.
  - RogerL 12y ago
    And you have the ever fun "I'm not worried about whether it compiles", followed up with endless "you forgot a semi-colon", "you didn't declare that variable", and so on.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
elq 12y ago
>I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at... I've interviewed several people with lots of code on github and what looks like lots of accepted pull requests to many projects who still can't seem to reason through a problem described as "write a function that takes two unsorted lists and returns one sorted list". I think I'll continue asking technical/coding questions...
- benhoyt 12y ago
  This satisfies your problem description: def function(unsorted1, unsorted2): return [1, 2, 3] ;-)
  - elq 12y ago
    indeed! Yet, in the interview I'm thinking of, he didn't even get this far. poorly specified questions are very important to ask IMHO :)
    - Ethan_Mick 12y ago
      I would say this is actually a very important part of interviewing. When given vague requirements, see how they respond. Building something that is technically correct isn't as good as building what you actually want.
    - zopppo 12y ago
      I'm curious what language was he using?
      - S4M 12y ago
        Probably Python.
        zopppo 12y ago
        Yikes.
  - 12y ago
10098 12y ago
Yeah, having public github repos is great, but it doesn't scale when the company has a bunch of candidates waiting AND the interviewers have some other work to get done. Also, don't forget that communication is a part of the job too. If you're so introverted that you can't reason your way through a 45-minute problem that has a clearly defined "good" answer, how are we going to discuss designs for an actual system?
- Estragon 12y ago
  > the interviewers have some other work to get done Work they'd otherwise be doing during the 3-hour coding interview?
  - 10098 12y ago
    1) wrong to assume that you'll be interviewing with the same person for 3 hours 2) if they're doing something not related to your interview during your interview, you don't want to work with them anyway
justinpaulson 12y ago
'It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required.' Public speaking is something you really should take the time to get good at. I think you are greatly underestimating the importance of communication skills in the workplace...even for developers.

cnp 12y ago

Exactly my thinking as well. Dig in, look around, its obvious what I can do, and what I'm capable of learning. Ask me to code a sample app and comment every function with detailed explanations of my thought process. Add me as a collaborator to GitHub and request that I make some pull requests on your product. Live coding interviews are more irrelevant than irrelevant and completely ignore the fact that many people -- and especially introverted technical types -- just don't do well in front of groups.

akanet 12y ago
Coding interviews don't ignore any facts - they are simply often the best signal/time tool available. Many people do not have time to root around in your personal repositories or wait for you to commit pull requests. They have a pipeline of people they need to screen, and you can't wait on everyone in a pool of candidates to take their sweet time before deciding on a winner. Technical screens are synchronous and relatively well understood. If they are not the literally BEST choice of time for figuring out if someone is a good developer, they are at least a very defensible choice.
- cnp 12y ago
  Your comment is unfortunate but true. Hopefully one day someone will think up a better way to do things.
justinpaulson 12y ago
Maybe doing well in front of groups is a skill that companies want in their employees.
- cnp 12y ago
  ...which has nothing to do with high-pressure interviews with people you've never met.

CaveTech 12y ago

For me, even worse than an in person interview is a remote coding interview over the phone. Usually some sort of screen sharing + phone call. I find it incredibly nerve wracking because it gives me that feeling of someone standing over my shoulder without me being able to fully interact with them or read their body language. When you sit down to hammer out a solution you have all the additional pressure of trying to stay engaged with someone you can't see. As a result I constantly drop my focus on the problem and lose what I've worked out in my head.

dreamweapon 12y ago
Worse, you simply have no way of knowing what their evaluation criteria are. Maybe they want you to be slow and thorough (I've been nailed for not checking the exit status of print statements). OR maybe they want it quick and dirty, in which case you'll get nailed for "overengineering", or you just wont have time to do it the imaginary time frames they set for these tasks, if you go for any of the defensive practices that the other guy would have nailed you for. Fun, fun, fun.
- rrradical 12y ago
  Very much yes. In an interview I was prompted to write some code that ran as quickly as possible. 10 minutes in they were concerned that I hadn't started with a naive proof-of-concept solution and improved from there. I don't disagree with their idea of good programming practice, but how could I know they wouldn't penalize me for coming up with a slow naive solution, when the prompt specifically said to run as quickly as possible?
- danielweber 12y ago
  1. Tell people what you want. 2. Actually evaluate them on that. Anything else is a psychology test, and you aren't psychologists.
- RogerL 12y ago
  And you have the ever fun "I'm not worried about whether it compiles", followed up with endless "you forgot a semi-colon", "you didn't declare that variable", and so on.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

elq 12y ago

>I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at... I've interviewed several people with lots of code on github and what looks like lots of accepted pull requests to many projects who still can't seem to reason through a problem described as "write a function that takes two unsorted lists and returns one sorted list". I think I'll continue asking technical/coding questions...

benhoyt 12y ago
This satisfies your problem description: def function(unsorted1, unsorted2): return [1, 2, 3] ;-)
- elq 12y ago
  indeed! Yet, in the interview I'm thinking of, he didn't even get this far. poorly specified questions are very important to ask IMHO :)
  - Ethan_Mick 12y ago
    I would say this is actually a very important part of interviewing. When given vague requirements, see how they respond. Building something that is technically correct isn't as good as building what you actually want.
  - zopppo 12y ago
    I'm curious what language was he using?
    - S4M 12y ago
      Probably Python.
      - zopppo 12y ago
        Yikes.
- 12y ago

10098 12y ago

Yeah, having public github repos is great, but it doesn't scale when the company has a bunch of candidates waiting AND the interviewers have some other work to get done. Also, don't forget that communication is a part of the job too. If you're so introverted that you can't reason your way through a 45-minute problem that has a clearly defined "good" answer, how are we going to discuss designs for an actual system?

Estragon 12y ago
> the interviewers have some other work to get done Work they'd otherwise be doing during the 3-hour coding interview?
- 10098 12y ago
  1) wrong to assume that you'll be interviewing with the same person for 3 hours 2) if they're doing something not related to your interview during your interview, you don't want to work with them anyway

justinpaulson 12y ago

'It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required.' Public speaking is something you really should take the time to get good at. I think you are greatly underestimating the importance of communication skills in the workplace...even for developers.