Re:Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers
by jodrellblank on Monday December 31, 2018 @02:22AM
(#18793499)
Oh come on, argue the strongest part of their argument, would you, instead of nitpicking over string reverse. They've repeatedly, laboriously, explained that reversing a string isn't the relevant part to be focusing on.
What I'm interested in from a senior engineer is how many systems they've designed, implemented, deployed to production and supported in their careers and what their specific roles were in those projects. If I can't get an idea from their resume I wouldn't contact them for an interview.
And when their resume looks good and claims they are an expert, and you call them in and talk to them and they say they are an expert, and you start by opening a warmup question on the most basic levels of their expertise and they totally flunk it on multiple levels - unable to even handle the situation with tact or diplomacy in any way, are you still going to trust what they say about the systems they've "deployed and supported"?
As for the interview itself, well I've never needed to ask someone to reverse a string to determine if they're going to be of value with the criteria mentioned above.
But to be fair I've never worked on a project where implementing StringUtils.reverse() was required. If I were interviewing someone to work on Apache Commons or the JDK then I suppose that would be a relevant question.