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from the prove-Fermat's-last-theorem-using-only-a-protractor-and-straight-edge dept.
Saw this discussion on Reddit, and thought it might be of interest here, too (as such things perennially are):
I've been a successful software engineer for 10 years at various startups and small businesses. I do a lot of contracting on the side too. I've recently had cause to start looking for work again.
What the hell is up with these interview questions? They don't really have much to do with the ins and outs of clean code, architecture or collaboration. I had hoped they'd stop with this bullshit already. There's a lot of companies that promise 'No whiteboard interviews' like Triplebyte, only for that to be a complete and total lie.
They're more like annoying riddles I'd find in an Sierra adventure game or D&D. I'm just not very good at these types of 'riddle questions'. I know they always wind up having to do with binary trees, graph algorithms or something like that, but the dress-up and time constraints are unrealistically stressful.
I honestly wasn't very good at these questions when I'd graduated and I'm still not good at them now. How screwed am I? Are companies willing to hire based on projects and seeing live code?
I'm always careful to speak with my employers and convince them to write a 'portfolio' clause in my contract that allows me to keep code for the purpose of seeking further employment.
I really don't want to spend 3 months of my life learning how to solve riddles just to get another job.
I also suck at these kinds of questions, despite having designed and written a lot of software and systems. What say you, Soylentils, are these kinds of interview questions necessary to find good software engineers?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Tuesday March 07 2017, @10:43PM (9 children)
I've also been writing software for about 10 years. I've found the further I've gotten from my graduation date, the less these questions are meaningful. Some of my favourites from the last round of serious interviews, then from my latest random "Hey Google called, I might as well talk to them".:
Those are the two real stand outs, but the stuff mostly seems to be trying to determine who has mastered the CS category of Trivial Pursuit or who *just* graduated at the top of their class and the realworld experience matters less. The fact that I've optimized and refactored entire code bases from "no one will touch it" into something maintainable, or have cut page load times in certain situations by a factor of 10 are completely meaningless because I can't pull a classic CS101 algorithm out of my ass at a moment's notice. I can no longer remember the details of my Google programming "test", but it was equally BS.
My secret to success is to stay away from the big boys. Find good smaller shops with managers who know how to read people and understand what experience brings to the table -- so far this has actually been quite a sound career plan for me. I do get a little worried as I move through the years, because smaller shops do try to mimic the big boys in some of these practices. The big problem to my mind is that school trivia shit is inherently ageist. I have a friend who is an older female engineer, who can't even get interviews at this point even though she'd be able to come up with 5 algorithms to solve a given problem off the top of her head -- probably stuff the interviewer had never even heard of. Just one reason why I'd love to find an exit from this industry before the exit finds me.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 07 2017, @10:56PM (2 children)
an exit from this industry
An exit from employment, to be specific. Thank God this toxic poison hasn't reached contracting. I've never seen a contract with a clause discussing the computational complexity of bubble sorts.
People who think they know what they're doing, but toxically do not, tend to want to hire employees, whereas people who have little idea of tech tend to hire contractors much as they hire doctors or plumbers, off past history and recommendations and soft skills.
This programmer hiring BS would be the equivalent of selecting a primary care physician by asking trivia questions about the enzyme kinetics in the Krebs Cycle, when what you want is a guy to set your broken leg or stitch up a laceration.
My long term plan is if you want me to be your employee, you're buying my entire corporation, which is a whole nother topic.
My dad basically retired contracting, he never really quit he just took fewer contracts over time. I suspect that is my end game. I'll knock out a lot of year 2038 related contracting and then settle down gradually.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @01:54AM (1 child)
they are not trying to hire you. they are marking the box to get a H1-B tell they to stick it. or better have them white board your question fisrt, so you tell if they are worth working for.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 08 2017, @01:31PM
they are marking the box to get a H1-B
This is a serious problem in the industry, if the ad or interview is as ridiculous as the low pay, its because they're working the H1B train and no one is supposed to pass. It would be a process fail if anyone passed. Whats not mentioned is the young kids who still remember doing red-black tree algos in java from school last week will also be crossed off the list because they have too little real world experience.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday March 07 2017, @11:28PM (2 children)
The same is true in machining. No, I will not calculate feeds and speeds in my head for you. There are far too many variables to determine the optimal cutting parameters, which is why there are software packages expressly for that purpose. The numbers you'd get by doing it the old-fashioned way are guaranteed to be sub-optimal. Also, no, I don't have a four year degree, but I have over twenty years experience.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:33AM (1 child)
To some extent I can see the value in being able to calculate stuff like that in my head. I remember a story about a doctor who accidentally administered 100x the correct dose because of a fat finger calculator mistake. Being able to estimate approximately the right parameters in your head is a good way to quickly spot when the program is spitting out nonsense.
Maybe not calculate the exact values, but at least give a ballpark estimate.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday March 08 2017, @05:22PM
For a given material and cutter combination, the optimal feed and speed can change an order of magnitude or more depending on axial and radial engagement, toolholder type, tool stickout, and workholding security. Since almost all CNC programming is done on a computer, it's far better to use the software. If you need a double check, use two different ones and compare the results.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday March 08 2017, @02:07PM (2 children)
BINGO!
This is exactly what they are looking for. They want the best talent who is young, enthusiastic, and naive. Then run them through the meat grinder for a few years until they are burnt out.
Last year both Google and Amazon flew my brother out to interviews. He is by no means a fresh graduate but he is experienced. His biggest complaint was the interview process which is full of egotistic, overconfident douche bags. The google interview was his worst. Multiple person interview. One he called "Purple haired faggot" because he was this fake hipster/punk wannabe wank job who droned on about how he loved the concept of monads in functional programming but couldn't use them in c++ (This was before the interview started). He did do well and they thanked him for coming in. He was passed on for another candidate. He emailed the recruiter to ask what he can to improve his chances and what went wrong and it turns out purple haired faggot didn't like something trivial. Needless to say he was pissed off someone would nitpick over something small but it came down to personal preference rather than technical merit.
The Amazon interview was a bait and switch so he interviewed for another position which he was again passed on. They called him back a month later with the same job offer but he passed on it. He was a bit demoralized after that but shook it off and went job hunting locally in NYC. He now works for another web company making 130k. Great job. No bullshit management, no whip cracking. Just working and getting shit done. He said after his experiences with both Google and Amazon interviewing he will most likely never work for them, ever.
So in the end, these big companies that are the supposed holy grail of programming and engineering jobs, arent. Plenty of other tech/programming jobs out there which might not be as prestigious sounding but pay the same.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 08 2017, @03:01PM (1 child)
I think that's generally sound. I did have one conversation a couple years ago that makes me think working for Google still might not be bad if you're an engineer: my next door neighbor a couple years ago was a salesman at an ad technology company that was acquired by Google. At first he was chuffed because Google gives you all these amazing benefits like 5-star chefs who cook you anything you want for lunch, for free. A couple months later I talked to him again and he was depressed. I asked why. "At my old company we sales guys were the rockstars," he said, "At Google it's all about the engineers. Sales guys are at the bottom of the heap there."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday March 08 2017, @03:49PM
Where he works now they have high end catering every day for lunch. Basically a mini buffet of good food (e.g. one day they had filet mignon). But it's a trick. It keeps employees in the chair longer instead of letting them roam freely for an hour or more on lunch.