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"It's the second time in a few months I'm being turned down with the pretext of a failed whiteboard interview. Things like improper syntax and not getting the d

"It's the second time in a few months I'm being turned down with the pretext of a failed whiteboard interview. Things like improper syntax and not getting the damned recursive solution fast enough." Is it a pretext, or did you actually fail the interview? I want to work for West-coast-pay company at some point, and it seems that the idea there is for me to spend 6 months learning stuff I will never use, so I can compete with the kids who spent 4 years learning mostly stuff they will never use. That is, if I fail it, it's not because I am older, it's because I don't know stuff fresh grads know. IT is full of grinding pretty meaningless stuff (especially at lower levels), as much as we romanticize it.

ziddoap 7y ago
>That is, if I fail it, it's not because I am older, it's because I don't know stuff fresh grads know. I believe this is exactly the point that the parent poster is making. You don't know the stuff fresh grads know because you're older (obviously this isn't an absolute, but likely). Therefor, structuring the interview around stuff that only fresh graduates are likely to be up-to-date with would be discriminating against older people. If you fail, it is at least related to you being older, if the focus of the interview was designed around hiring fresh graduates.
- pdpi 7y ago
  > Therefor, structuring the interview around stuff that only fresh graduates are likely to be up-to-date with would be discriminating against older people. It's only discrimination insofar as the skills being tested for are irrelevant to the job at hand. I've had jobs where algo skills were borderline irrelevant, and jobs where they were crucially important. Also, even where it is discriminatory, it's not necessarily deliberately so. It can easily be just poor interviewing skills — an interview process designed by people who genuinely think these are skills that they need to test for, without understanding the problems that creates.
  - ziddoap 7y ago
    Well... yeah. If the skills are relevant to the job, this conversation wouldn't be happening. It's when the combination of the problem being both irrelevant to the job, and designed in a way to favor the fresh generalists out of school that we (potentially) see discrimination against age. And deliberate or not, discrimination is discrimination. It might be more palatable if it isn't deliberate, but it doesn't change anything for the interviewee - and is still a problem that should probably be addressed.
- ohaideredevs 7y ago
  I get the point, but you could also argue that big companies want people who are strong on fundamentals and consider them something you shouldn't forget. As in, the army won't hire a 40 year old for SOF if they can't run just as fast as the 18 year old can, even though they PREFER >30 candidates for, say Green Berets, but ANY candidate is useless if they can't meet basic fitness standards. Same idea here, to some degree. Can you write cleaner code and foresee problems as you get older. For sure. Do a lot of older people get complacent, forget everything, or never knew anything? For sure, and I think they are testing for that. Ageism is real and scary, but you also have to be proactive in defending yourself against it. I have seen young devs try to devour an older dev, but they stay away when said older dev schools them.
- munificent 7y ago
  College dropout here. Young people sometimes don't know this stuff either. This is probably less ageist than it is education-ist, which is not too far away from classist. Personally, I do think it's worth testing candidates on these pure CS skills, even though I myself didn't have them and had to study before I interviewed at Google. What I've found since then is: 1. Surprise, surprise, I actually have used quite a few of these concepts in my work. My experience may not be typical, but my role really does benefit from my having a better grounding in algorithms than I did before. 2. When communicating with other people at the company, it is very helpful to be able to presume a baseline understanding of algorithms, data structures, and big-O. A lot of code reviews and design discussions are easier and faster when you can just say "yeah, but that's O(n^2)" or "BFS would let you early out more frequently here". As an interview technique, I also think there is some value in testing an arbitrary skill a candidate might not have, because it's a good gauge of hustle and discipline. Yeah, learning algorithms is a chore and a hassle. But... a lot of shit you have to do at work is a chore and a hassle. If the interviewer can see that you're able to make yourself do that for the interview, it's a good sign you'll have the discipline to do some of the grunge work that is inescapable in the software field.
  - srfilipek 7y ago
    I agree with your first points, but... > Yeah, learning algorithms is a chore and a hassle > If the interviewer can see that you're able to make yourself do that for the interview, it's a good sign you'll have the discipline to do some of the grunge work... This doesn't make any sense, unless very, very specific bounds are put on the interview questions beforehand... Without that, what is a candidate to do? Memorize all known data structures and algorithms?
    - munificent 7y ago
      > Memorize all known data structures and algorithms? No, but you should know the classics. That's kind of the "general contract" for how these big tech companies interview. Most also proactively tell candidates what material they should expect to be interviewed on, like: https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#onsite-interviews https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#onsite-int... A good interviewer is not aiming to ask gotcha questions where if you don't know that one specific weird algorithm for that one specific data structure, you're entirely hosed. That provides almost no useful signal to the interviewer. But they will ask questions where some well known data structure is part of the solution and then provide guidance as needed based on what you seem to know.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Isn’t a better question, why are you interviewing for the same positions in your 40s that a fresh grad could do? I’m 45 and still mostly work at jobs where I’m officially a “senior software engineer”, occasional “team lead” or “architect”. But, I am not trying to compete with fresh grads. In your 40s, you should have a trusted network of former managers, coworkers, and external recruiters that help you bypass a lot of the BS.
  - ziddoap 7y ago
    >Isn’t a better question, why are you interviewing for the same positions in your 40s that a fresh grad could do? Do you generally look down on everyone who needs a job, or just the ones who need a job and are old? If you can't find work as a senior, and your options are junior or not working, which would you choose? >In your 40s, you should have a trusted network of former managers, coworkers, and external recruiters that help you bypass a lot of the BS. Shame on those not as lucky, extroverted, or with the same opportunities as you, eh?
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Do you generally look down on everyone who needs a job, or just the ones who need a job and are old? I’m 45. I stayed at one company way too long until I was 35 and didn’t get aggressive about my career until 10 years ago. If you can't find work as a senior, and your options are junior or not working, which would you choose? In 2019, in many major cities in the US - including Atlanta where I live - an experienced developer looking for a job is such a rare breed that you have to fight off recruiters. In the last 10 years it’s never taken me more than a month to find a job at whatever level I was at at the time (I was an “expert beginner” in 2009). I’m not a special snowflake, I’m just a bog standard “Enterprise Developer” Shame on those not as lucky, extroverted, or with the same opportunities as you, eh? I graduated from a no name college in a small town in 1996. What “great opportunities”? The last thing anyone has ever called me is “extroverted”, I did what I had to do because I didn’t want to be at the age I’m at now without having the optionality of changing jobs.
      - 7y ago
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  What gets me is the entitlement around OP's post. They're older so clearly they don't have time to brush up on DS and algos. That rubs me the wrong way, as some one who transisitioned in to CS from another field and worked on learning that stuff. Yeah the signal is mostly on how many hoops you'll jump through and base analytic ability, but everyone has to do it and expecting a free pass just because you're old pisses me off. I think the previous generation is so used to the idea of "pay your dues and skip ahead" popularized by their parents that even the idea that a fresh grad might work harder and be a better fit destroys their whole world view. I've known plenty of talented engineers of all ages; they all can crush a white board interview; just because OP doesn't want to doesn't imply discrimination (or at least unlawful discrimination).
  - ziddoap 7y ago
    >they don't have time to brush up on DS and algos The problem with the whiteboard trivia questions at hand is that they are trivia. They are deliberately obscure, or presented in a trick way. Brushing up on all the data structures and algorithms in the world and how those might be twisted into some 30-minute problem doesn't seem to be an effective use of time. The fact that you somehow have an incredibly talented pool of friends that can crush any whiteboard interview thrown there way does not really represent most people - given by the fact that whiteboard CS trivia is a common topic, written about (negatively) by a number of talented professionals.
    - lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
      There's a selection bias there. Few people will write, and even fewer would read, a blog post about showing up and doing well on an interview (and most companies generally don't want you posting direct answers to the process). It is true that many positions are trying to find people with more ability than is required for the position, but are you arguing that the interview process should select most people? Further more, there's a breakdown between pure trivia (problems that either just require knowing raw data or can't easily be solved from first principles) and "all white board problems". In my experience the people that take to the internet to complain weren't asked to verify a linked list isn't cyclical or write a topographic sort for a given graph; they were asked to traverse a binary tree or print Fizz Buzz.
- zerogvt 7y ago
  It's more that this is stuff you haven't used in years (because people don't write heapshort algorithms for a living) but you have been practicing and learning a ton of others (adding value to your company) that simply get eclipsed behind damned pedantic interviews. Let me put it this way. I use 4-6 prog languages at work. On a weekly basis. But you can say that I confused the syntax for the language I wrote in the interview and fail the interview on that basis and you would be legit from your PoV. Point is -in real world- I don't need and it offers no value to remember the exact syntax between Python, Ruby, Nodejs to do this or that. The thing is I can search the syntax and have it in a sec because I know the logic behind them all. And most of actually working people I know are very busy staying sharp in what they do rather than wasting time upskiling in WB sorting algos.

ziddoap 7y ago

>That is, if I fail it, it's not because I am older, it's because I don't know stuff fresh grads know. I believe this is exactly the point that the parent poster is making. You don't know the stuff fresh grads know because you're older (obviously this isn't an absolute, but likely). Therefor, structuring the interview around stuff that only fresh graduates are likely to be up-to-date with would be discriminating against older people. If you fail, it is at least related to you being older, if the focus of the interview was designed around hiring fresh graduates.

pdpi 7y ago
> Therefor, structuring the interview around stuff that only fresh graduates are likely to be up-to-date with would be discriminating against older people. It's only discrimination insofar as the skills being tested for are irrelevant to the job at hand. I've had jobs where algo skills were borderline irrelevant, and jobs where they were crucially important. Also, even where it is discriminatory, it's not necessarily deliberately so. It can easily be just poor interviewing skills — an interview process designed by people who genuinely think these are skills that they need to test for, without understanding the problems that creates.
- ziddoap 7y ago
  Well... yeah. If the skills are relevant to the job, this conversation wouldn't be happening. It's when the combination of the problem being both irrelevant to the job, and designed in a way to favor the fresh generalists out of school that we (potentially) see discrimination against age. And deliberate or not, discrimination is discrimination. It might be more palatable if it isn't deliberate, but it doesn't change anything for the interviewee - and is still a problem that should probably be addressed.
ohaideredevs 7y ago
I get the point, but you could also argue that big companies want people who are strong on fundamentals and consider them something you shouldn't forget. As in, the army won't hire a 40 year old for SOF if they can't run just as fast as the 18 year old can, even though they PREFER >30 candidates for, say Green Berets, but ANY candidate is useless if they can't meet basic fitness standards. Same idea here, to some degree. Can you write cleaner code and foresee problems as you get older. For sure. Do a lot of older people get complacent, forget everything, or never knew anything? For sure, and I think they are testing for that. Ageism is real and scary, but you also have to be proactive in defending yourself against it. I have seen young devs try to devour an older dev, but they stay away when said older dev schools them.
munificent 7y ago
College dropout here. Young people sometimes don't know this stuff either. This is probably less ageist than it is education-ist, which is not too far away from classist. Personally, I do think it's worth testing candidates on these pure CS skills, even though I myself didn't have them and had to study before I interviewed at Google. What I've found since then is: 1. Surprise, surprise, I actually have used quite a few of these concepts in my work. My experience may not be typical, but my role really does benefit from my having a better grounding in algorithms than I did before. 2. When communicating with other people at the company, it is very helpful to be able to presume a baseline understanding of algorithms, data structures, and big-O. A lot of code reviews and design discussions are easier and faster when you can just say "yeah, but that's O(n^2)" or "BFS would let you early out more frequently here". As an interview technique, I also think there is some value in testing an arbitrary skill a candidate might not have, because it's a good gauge of hustle and discipline. Yeah, learning algorithms is a chore and a hassle. But... a lot of shit you have to do at work is a chore and a hassle. If the interviewer can see that you're able to make yourself do that for the interview, it's a good sign you'll have the discipline to do some of the grunge work that is inescapable in the software field.
- srfilipek 7y ago
  I agree with your first points, but... > Yeah, learning algorithms is a chore and a hassle > If the interviewer can see that you're able to make yourself do that for the interview, it's a good sign you'll have the discipline to do some of the grunge work... This doesn't make any sense, unless very, very specific bounds are put on the interview questions beforehand... Without that, what is a candidate to do? Memorize all known data structures and algorithms?
  - munificent 7y ago
    > Memorize all known data structures and algorithms? No, but you should know the classics. That's kind of the "general contract" for how these big tech companies interview. Most also proactively tell candidates what material they should expect to be interviewed on, like: https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#onsite-interviews https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#onsite-int... A good interviewer is not aiming to ask gotcha questions where if you don't know that one specific weird algorithm for that one specific data structure, you're entirely hosed. That provides almost no useful signal to the interviewer. But they will ask questions where some well known data structure is part of the solution and then provide guidance as needed based on what you seem to know.
scarface74 7y ago
Isn’t a better question, why are you interviewing for the same positions in your 40s that a fresh grad could do? I’m 45 and still mostly work at jobs where I’m officially a “senior software engineer”, occasional “team lead” or “architect”. But, I am not trying to compete with fresh grads. In your 40s, you should have a trusted network of former managers, coworkers, and external recruiters that help you bypass a lot of the BS.
- ziddoap 7y ago
  >Isn’t a better question, why are you interviewing for the same positions in your 40s that a fresh grad could do? Do you generally look down on everyone who needs a job, or just the ones who need a job and are old? If you can't find work as a senior, and your options are junior or not working, which would you choose? >In your 40s, you should have a trusted network of former managers, coworkers, and external recruiters that help you bypass a lot of the BS. Shame on those not as lucky, extroverted, or with the same opportunities as you, eh?
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Do you generally look down on everyone who needs a job, or just the ones who need a job and are old? I’m 45. I stayed at one company way too long until I was 35 and didn’t get aggressive about my career until 10 years ago. If you can't find work as a senior, and your options are junior or not working, which would you choose? In 2019, in many major cities in the US - including Atlanta where I live - an experienced developer looking for a job is such a rare breed that you have to fight off recruiters. In the last 10 years it’s never taken me more than a month to find a job at whatever level I was at at the time (I was an “expert beginner” in 2009). I’m not a special snowflake, I’m just a bog standard “Enterprise Developer” Shame on those not as lucky, extroverted, or with the same opportunities as you, eh? I graduated from a no name college in a small town in 1996. What “great opportunities”? The last thing anyone has ever called me is “extroverted”, I did what I had to do because I didn’t want to be at the age I’m at now without having the optionality of changing jobs.
    - 7y ago
lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
What gets me is the entitlement around OP's post. They're older so clearly they don't have time to brush up on DS and algos. That rubs me the wrong way, as some one who transisitioned in to CS from another field and worked on learning that stuff. Yeah the signal is mostly on how many hoops you'll jump through and base analytic ability, but everyone has to do it and expecting a free pass just because you're old pisses me off. I think the previous generation is so used to the idea of "pay your dues and skip ahead" popularized by their parents that even the idea that a fresh grad might work harder and be a better fit destroys their whole world view. I've known plenty of talented engineers of all ages; they all can crush a white board interview; just because OP doesn't want to doesn't imply discrimination (or at least unlawful discrimination).
- ziddoap 7y ago
  >they don't have time to brush up on DS and algos The problem with the whiteboard trivia questions at hand is that they are trivia. They are deliberately obscure, or presented in a trick way. Brushing up on all the data structures and algorithms in the world and how those might be twisted into some 30-minute problem doesn't seem to be an effective use of time. The fact that you somehow have an incredibly talented pool of friends that can crush any whiteboard interview thrown there way does not really represent most people - given by the fact that whiteboard CS trivia is a common topic, written about (negatively) by a number of talented professionals.
  - lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
    There's a selection bias there. Few people will write, and even fewer would read, a blog post about showing up and doing well on an interview (and most companies generally don't want you posting direct answers to the process). It is true that many positions are trying to find people with more ability than is required for the position, but are you arguing that the interview process should select most people? Further more, there's a breakdown between pure trivia (problems that either just require knowing raw data or can't easily be solved from first principles) and "all white board problems". In my experience the people that take to the internet to complain weren't asked to verify a linked list isn't cyclical or write a topographic sort for a given graph; they were asked to traverse a binary tree or print Fizz Buzz.
zerogvt 7y ago
It's more that this is stuff you haven't used in years (because people don't write heapshort algorithms for a living) but you have been practicing and learning a ton of others (adding value to your company) that simply get eclipsed behind damned pedantic interviews. Let me put it this way. I use 4-6 prog languages at work. On a weekly basis. But you can say that I confused the syntax for the language I wrote in the interview and fail the interview on that basis and you would be legit from your PoV. Point is -in real world- I don't need and it offers no value to remember the exact syntax between Python, Ruby, Nodejs to do this or that. The thing is I can search the syntax and have it in a sec because I know the logic behind them all. And most of actually working people I know are very busy staying sharp in what they do rather than wasting time upskiling in WB sorting algos.