Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering questions

Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by begueradj on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @07:04AM (#39012352)

I believe it is simply an efficient way to discriminate applicants based on their age: a fresh school graduate in his/her twenties is the one who is more likely to solve LeetCode like algorithms than a senior developer in his 40s who has a respectable knowledge and insight on how software should be done, deployed and run.

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Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by zwnow on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @07:14AM (#39012450)

Usually the issues companies throw at their applicants aren't that difficult to solve. Every dev should know how to split data into structures you can work with.

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Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by guappa on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @08:18AM (#39012946)

Google asked me a question… I could solve it in O(n²) but not in O(n).

After, with calm, talking about it with a friend who is a professor at university and has a phd in mathematics, he reflected that since my problem only used positive numbers, I could have exploited a certain property and simplify my algorithm.

So in the end, if you're lucky and have faced that particular completely artificial problem before, you can do it.

Otherwise you need some calm to think, and you can't do that while there are two people harassing you because you named your variables with a name they don't like, and a clock is ticking.

In the end you're selecting for "has this person heard of this problem or a similar one before" and not "can this person think".

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Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by zwnow on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @09:04AM (#39013363)

These kind of tests are rarely about seeing if an applicant can actually successfully solve the issue. It is about seeing how the applicant approaches a difficult problem.

Maybe google, amazon and whatnot see that differently but I would not personally wanna work there anyway.

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Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by guappa on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @09:13AM (#39013439)

That's what they tell you… They also tell you it's pseudocode, and then proceed to interrupt you if you forgot a ";".

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Re:Why do big companies ask unrealistic software engineering... by xxs on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @07:13AM (#39012438)

I think this "senior developer in his 40s" vs " fresh school graduate in his/her twenties" is more like your personal rendition of the story.

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