Re:Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering...
by edanm on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @03:57AM
(#16919399)
It's absolutely not a myth. It does depend on how you're getting your candidates, but assuming you cast a net a bit wider than "only people you know personally", then you run into these cases.
Our standard fizzbuzz question was something like: print the multiplication table. This is a loop inside a loop. I think every programmer should be able to do this given 10-20 minutes. Around 30%-40% couldn't. Like literally, didn't know how to do this in languages they supposedly work in. I'm sorry, I make lots of allowances for stress, I calm candidates, I tell them syntax doesn't matter, do it in pseoudo-code for all I care. But if after 10 minutes you can't print a multiplication table on the screen, I'm going to pass.
Our standard fizzbuzz question was something like: print the multiplication table. This is a loop inside a loop. I think every programmer should be able to do this given 10-20 minutes. Around 30%-40% couldn't. Like literally, didn't know how to do this in languages they supposedly work in. I'm sorry, I make lots of allowances for stress, I calm candidates, I tell them syntax doesn't matter, do it in pseoudo-code for all I care. But if after 10 minutes you can't print a multiplication table on the screen, I'm going to pass.