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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: 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.