And as they're all similar style questions, they should just read up on these. Hold off on interviews until you're confident, or just schedule the less-desirable firms first, so that you have enough time to read up.
Interviewees know that these questions are coming, they can control the schedule, and they're the only ones who know their own energy and state. Nobody tells them that it's up to them to do flow control. But it's a hot market and people want good programmers. Even if you don't do tree searches or inversions in your normal work day, you can show that you're good because you can understand this stuff. Most candidates can't. So please, take your time, skim the textbooks, take a few notes, maybe do a few flash cards.
So please, take your time, skim their resumes and maybe do a bit of github code reviews before inviting someone to sit down. Hell, do it while you're taking a shit in the office if you, as an employer, are overworked. There's a pun in there.
As for their code, I learn a little bit about their programming style -- and it's often unflattering and unhelpful, as these are usually personal projects where people write code below the standard they'd use at the office -- but it tells me little of what parts were hard, what parts involved real insight from the candidate, and what parts were pasted from stack overflow. Given a github URL, how much time do you think it takes to figure out where the interesting parts are? And what's the information payback of that time, given the little information you get about a person's actual capabilities from a bunch of text saved on a server?
I know that everyone's their own special snow flake, but I don't have more than the 45 minutes to give them a fair shake. And it has to be fair - a question that they should probably have enough context to know, and who's answer can't be bull-shitted. I've got 45 minutes to give as objective an interview I can, balancing the Type 1/2 errors of missing someone good, and hiring someone bad.
1 a week was an example of what I was doing when I went interviewing. I mentioned that as slow enough to read up as much as you need. Did you want more? Less?
[Edit: not speaking for my employer, whose name I don't want to mention. ]
I kind of get the impression you're bitter or projecting something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Not trying to be snarky, just saying.
Job hunting is a big deal. It's real work, and literally everyone who's doing an interview has been interviewed, almost certainly in the same process. I studied up before my interviews, and I worked to manage my energy and capability when doing them. The article's premise that they should walk into an interview room and mystically get evaluated on traits that you can't directly measure, or compare objectively, is ridiculous. I read the article thinking this is the same type of guy that probably complains about having to see homeless people in SF. Completely entitled.
I take offense to the premise that I don't have empathy for the candidates - evaluating a person for a job is a deeply emotional affair. I have to walk a fine line between the needs of the candidate and employer. I can't hug you or take you out for drinks, as that could result in a lawsuit. The best I can do is find the interview question that lets you show off the best of your talents.
Asking for empathy without giving any in return isn't going to get you very far.
Your post was unwarrantingly personal similar and reeked of projection. Like I said - you're not relevant to my original argument if you're truly good at it and actually spend the time to care. Others don't. You're not who I'm talking about. Christ, you're taking this more personally than you should be....
Also, for what it's worth. Since you used your real name here, I looked you up on linkedin (sorry). The interview process there was the absolute worst and most impersonal series of interviews I've ever experienced in my life. I absolutely refuse to work for them after this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11451431
It was the fact that I'd taken the time & effort to meet with these people and to not even get so much as an email back... it's not right. People shouldn't be treated that way, job candidate or not. It's basic manners.
It's kind of like that date that you both absolutely loved over a long weekend, but the other person refuses to respond to. You can't really be mad, except think bitterly, "...really?"
It probably isn't the "right" way for programming interviews, but once you identify the rules of the game, it behooves you to play the game accordingly, no?
Fundamentally, I agree that it is silly to ask questions that don't have a high degree of relevance to the job in question. But I am conflicted.
Why haven't we (as an industry) done better with this? Clearly there must be a reason or friction in asking relevant questions in lieu of the current batch of algorithmic type interviews. What is that reason?
Perhaps OP should try avoiding recruiters and big sexy firms.
They report having a positive interview experience but were disappointed for being passed over.
"How is this possible — I have received emails from people all over the world, who praise and give me thanks for the work I’ve done on my open-source projects and tutorials (#humblebrag)"
Perhaps there was simply another qualified candidate? OP could use a little actual humility.
I do understand OPs point that the interview process can feel disconnected from the actual work. However writing software is only part of being a software engineer. Communication / working with others is also important. This is where attitude fits in. Being a professional isn't just about wearing the right clothes/etc.
Don't mean to beat up on the OP. Perhaps they would be a great employee and are feeling a little discouraged. Still, seems like all the praise for developers (e.g. being solicited by recruiters) has gone to their head.
Did he say that this should immediately qualify him for any job? No, his point was that although he has real-world projects used by hundreds of devs, this gives him barely any credence at all in interviews. Is it so "entitled" for him to expect that his work should speak on some of his behalf?
That seems like a reasonable interpretation, emphasized by when he got through all the programming questions without a problem, and still didn't get the job.
One thing I've found when I'm interviewing, I try to be enthusiastic and act like I really want to work at the company, even when it's a boring company. Attitude makes a huge difference.
Yes, I do. I don't act genuine because when I'm my genuine self, I glare at everyone in the room with the rage of a thousand suns.
I don't know if people can tell that I'm hiding it or not, but when I try to hide and act enthusiastic, I get the job, when I don't, I don't.
Somewhere along the line, though, I learned to stop caring about pretending to be excited and just accept that a majority of companies won't hire me for what they perceive to be a lack of apathy. It's a pretty good filter for finding companies that I'd be happy working at, but I understand that it's not for everybody. I just hope for a much more genuine tech/otherwise community so that I don't have to pretend anymore. Pretending just feels like shit.
I'm not saying any of this under any financial comfort. I'm friggin' broke right now. Though, I'm much more content with myself, my quality of work has skyrocketed and I've learned to bulk cook a mean chicken thigh and lentil soup.
I gave up at that one. People told me, "find a job you enjoy" but I think it's a lie. No one pays you to enjoy yourself. I haven't found a job to make me happy. Maybe someone found that kind of job but I didn't.
So now I find a job, work for a couple years, then quit and take months off at a time. I use the money I earned to fund my travels, which I enjoy. And sometimes at work, I look back at something I built, and the feeling of having built something is a really great feeling (even if no one cares about that thing). Then I go back to glaring at my coworkers.
If you're ever in Chicago, hit me up and we can grab some drinks.
Surely your prior work is under some sort of NDA? It's all proprietary (unless it is open source).
I got an offer and accepted it.
i wouldn't want to break that anonymity. also, i already had the displeasure of having a candidate turn his laptop to me and show his great coding a skills with a competitor online app store (yes, a major brand app store source), and i had to get involved in all sorts of annoyance from HR and legal. maybe I'm just dumb for taking those things seriously... but i think that's for the better
> I do not consider myself to be an excellent programmer, maybe an average at best (who can’t even pass a single tech interview), and a GitHub commit streak has absolutely nothing to do with one’s competence, skill or ability to code...my job at Yahoo was my first and will likely be my last one. From this moment on, I would rather be unemployed and homeless rather than do another tech interview. Enough is enough. I’ve hit my limit with this broken hiring bullshit in tech. No. More. Interviews. Done.
This comes off more as a "Oooh, I have a great post idea that will pick up traction on Medium!" move than anything else, unfortunately.
vs:
> At some point during our conversation I casually mentioned Webpack 2 and tree-shaking, which was followed by a question on how would I implement a tree-shaking algorithm. How the hell would I know?
Attitude cuts both ways.
I sort-of agree that these specific tasks shouldn't be used as an indicator of programming skills, but a breadth-first-search is really quite simple. It's mode of operation is in the name, and even if you haven't implemented one in a while, you should be able to derive some valid pseudo-code after a while. Especially if you do as much coding as this person claims, and thus are confronted with problems to solve on a regular basis.
This is a normal mode of self-conscious thought for a huge number of people who are otherwise excellent at their jobs and perfectly functional (e.g. introverts).
Plus, after you've worked a job for a while and know your team, know what's expected of you, and can get in the zone with some privacy, then these thoughts no longer really affect you. So they only play a significant role during an interview specifically because the interview is not at all a realistic representation of what working will be like.
I find it incredibly disturbing that you see fit to infer anything from the author's so-called "inability" to program "under stress." When someone makes that kind of inference, I think it says a lot more about their dysfunction as a colleague than it says about the other person's programming skill. Even if this problem had been Fizz Buzz or swapping two numbers, it's so, so far from simulating what a real work social situation would be like that it renders it useless for assessing the candidate, no matter if they answer it perfectly or fail completely. It's just a useless scenario.
I spend maybe four hours per coding in a moderately complex domain where I have zero need to know how to write a bfs. To ask someone to do it, then to ding them on it is just self-masturbatory behavior.
Something like that, right?
He proved that he's a decent programmer by releasing a bunch of semi-successful open source projects. He worked at Yahoo. He has 900+ days GitHub streak. That makes him passionate about building things more than a huge chunk of programmers.
Not being able to implement a random algorithm on a whiteboard while applying for a front-end position has absolutely nothing to do with the lack of passion. Of course he gave up, and so would I if I was in his shoes.
Tbh, that could be a negative, there were a lot of lousy programmers at Yahoo. Doug Crockford worked there, so there were a lot of really good programmers too, but you can't know just based on working at Yahoo.