11 ms·

Always Be Coding – How to Land an Engineering Job

445 points by davidbyttow 13y ago

alashley 13y ago
Great read. I think you're missing a link in there. "Spend at least 40 hours coding solutions to different types of problems. One of the best resources is TopCoder. Read this. Then try solving problems." Did you mean to link to the top coder algorithm tutorials?
- davidbyttow 13y ago
  Thanks! Fixed.
liveaxle 13y ago
These are good tips, and the advice is well-worded, too. I will bookmark this for myself and my friends.
lnanek2 13y ago
Good tips, although I'm not sure if the ratio means anything. When I was young I'd happily apply to jobs even if I didn't match on everything in the ad, even though the end chance of getting the position was lower no matter how well I interviewed. Now that I'm older and have a job I like I usually pop out a really high salary number as early in the process as possible to scare away any companies that would take a lot of work to interview with and then not be able to afford me. So you could have a very low ratio of offers for reasons other than your interview performance. :)
- davidbyttow 13y ago
  I made it clear that this doesn't mean "applied to" but actually onsite interviews. But your'e right, the ratio doesn't mean anything. ;)
jgh 13y ago
The page won't scroll on chrome for android :(
- calhoun137 13y ago
  I've been noticing this recently, it's amazing that such a basic issue is unresolved. Apparently overflow: scroll has been broken on android browsers since 2009[1], but was fixed as of Android 3.0. For me scrolling works fine in the native android browser, including overflow:scroll, but shockingly not in Android chrome. [1] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6864 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6864
- whirlwind23 13y ago
  "SPACE" for scrolling doesn't work on firefox (os x desktop) either.
  - cpeterso 13y ago
    I reported this Firefox bug just moments before reading your comment. <:) https://bugzil.la/874766 https://bugzil.la/874766
    - jcoder 13y ago
      I reported this to Medium a week ago as well.
- dpup 13y ago
  Could I get your UA string, it works fine on Chrome on my Androids.
  - jgh 13y ago
    I'll have to get back to you on that when I get home.
dsowers 13y ago
You can build a startup in the time it takes to thoroughly prepare for these interviews/positions. Willingly subjecting yourself to this rat race is essentially the same thing as stamping yourself as an "ibm man," in the words of Jobs. Who cares if you don't know the intricacies of all the hot algorithms of the day. Spend your time creating actual value for the world, instead of practicing just for the sake of impressing someone.
- callmeed 13y ago
  This seems silly. If nothing else, following the advice here will help you hire better engineers for your own startup.
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    Really? Most true startups are in need of developers who can actually ship something of value in an efficient manner. The last thing they need is an "engineer" obsessed with algorithms and data structures who turns a practical development task into a computer science challenge.
    - jwoah12 13y ago
      That's a false dichotomy. It is certainly possible to know your algorithms and data structures and still be able to ship code. I can implement quick sort for you, but I know well enough not to actually do it in practice.
      - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
        That's fair, but when your entire interview process is focused on algorithms and not real-world implementation, you're far more likely to hire the person who can implement quicksort but little of real value. And make no mistake: these engineers exist. The truth of the matter is that most startups aren't Google or Facebook. A good percentage, perhaps the majority, have a CRUD application of some kind that, even if relatively complex or widely used, will realistically never require engineers to reinvent the wheel, let alone even understand the internals of the programming language the application is built on. These startups should absolutely fear hiring an engineer who can't knock out a simple internal dashboard, integrate with a third party API, create a half-decent database schema or customize an instance of [insert popular open source CMS or ecommerce platform] more than they should fear hiring an engineer who can't implement his own quicksort.
callmeed 13y ago
Really good post, thanks David. I'm really curious as to how you landed an interview at Google (let alone a job) without a college degree. My understanding is they are very strict about that and it's hard to even get a foot in the door without a degree. [disclosure: I'm on a 10 year "hiatus" from my senior year in college]
- davidbyttow 13y ago
  I had six years of experience in video games and was a hardcore C++ programmer. To be honest, I was surprised they called me. Nowadays, showing a body of work speaks volumes. Show, don't tell!
  - TERTEWRT 13y ago
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nbroyal 13y ago
To properly prepare for these interviews you have to invest quite a bit of time. At this point in my life (late 20s), my time is one of my most valuable resources. So, the last thing I want to do is spend that time effectively preparing for a data structures and algorithms exam. Each time I sit down to brush up on the details of Prim's algorithm or the exact implementation of quicksort, my eyes glaze over and I start thinking about how I'd much rather be building or tinkering with something. So that's what I end up doing. The interesting thing is that actually building stuff is good enough to get you an interview, and, even though you've proven that you can actually code, you get funneled through the same inane interview process. And here's the kicker: none of this truly indicates if you have an exceptional software developer on your hands or not. I've seen (read: personally interviewed) people who've aced the current, en vogue style of questioning who turned out to be awful developers and co-workers. Meanwhile, I know several excellent engineers who were rejected. Everyone knows the process only kind of works. SV loves to complain about a talent shortage. And maybe there are pipeline problems that need to be addressed. However, why not invest more time in finding a process that's more effective with the talent that's already out there? It always seemed like an obvious place to start, IMO.
- 31reasons 13y ago
  I feel exactly the same. I can master any and all graph algorithms under the sun if I want to but why? Just for a job? I would rather be building things.
  - davidbyttow 13y ago
    The idea is to get in the door. Unfortunately, the bouncer is extremely flawed and often gets it wrong. But once you're in, you should refocus on building things.
    - 31reasons 13y ago
      I just don't have that much drive to get a job. Maybe I underestimate getting a job at google or similar company.
TERTEWRT 13y ago
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TERTEWRT 13y ago
ShareDeleteLikeReply leopoldolopez 4 hours ago NANO COMPUTER IN LATIN AMERICA FOOD. SEND IT TO ALL HACKERS. HANDLING HUMAN WITH SATELLITES COLAPS THEORY FOR ACCUMULATION BITS 0 BITS PER SECOND. SATELLITE CONTROL CENTERS FOR HANDLING OF VENEZUELAN CITIZEN. EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES MADE WITH SATELLITE - SATELLITE IN HARASSMENT ELETRONICO VENEZUAL. SATELLITE FOR DAMAGE radiation GENTICOS, DETERIROS BIOBOLOGICOS, CRIMES BY HANDLING. CHECKED THE FORUM IN THE FORUMS BUTTON. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=70.0#postid-70 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT CASE OF SPAIN, KINGS AND RECEIVING MONEY STEALING CRIMES AND GENOCIDE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS IN VOICE TO SKULL - VOICES IN THE BRAIN ESQUSOFRENIA SATELIES TRANSMITTED FROM SYNTHETIC - POLITICIANS WHO WANT WE BELIEVE THAT THINK that stain PATHOLOGY - EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES. DO BELIEVE MEANS THERE HANDLED AS POLITICAL ESQUISOFRENICOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk Greg Szymanski interview with J. McKinney 1de3 Sub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF94757E4C770ED5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF9475... "The Program", explained (The Takedown Program) Subtitled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ CASES IN ENGLAND. MODELS THAT PAID TO HANDLE A POLITICAL - CAPRILES EYE!!! VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS WITH TAKING Construct FARADAY BOX. Electronic Harassment: Voices in My Mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ORGANIZED HARASSMENT ESTALKERANETAS USA EUROPE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A1D72DDB699 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A... cahnel history Vatican Organized Crime and the Mafia in Sicily (History Channel Documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw NEUROSKI AUDIFONOS PARA QUE HABLES CON TU PENSAMIENTO. LOS COMPRAS AQUI. www.neuroski.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg CASO DE ACOSO ELECTRONICO ESTADOS UNIDOS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw
TERTEWRT 13y ago
ShareDeleteLikeReply leopoldolopez 4 hours ago NANO COMPUTER IN LATIN AMERICA FOOD. SEND IT TO ALL HACKERS. HANDLING HUMAN WITH SATELLITES COLAPS THEORY FOR ACCUMULATION BITS 0 BITS PER SECOND. SATELLITE CONTROL CENTERS FOR HANDLING OF VENEZUELAN CITIZEN. EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES MADE WITH SATELLITE - SATELLITE IN HARASSMENT ELETRONICO VENEZUAL. SATELLITE FOR DAMAGE radiation GENTICOS, DETERIROS BIOBOLOGICOS, CRIMES BY HANDLING. CHECKED THE FORUM IN THE FORUMS BUTTON. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=70.0#postid-70 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT CASE OF SPAIN, KINGS AND RECEIVING MONEY STEALING CRIMES AND GENOCIDE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS IN VOICE TO SKULL - VOICES IN THE BRAIN ESQUSOFRENIA SATELIES TRANSMITTED FROM SYNTHETIC - POLITICIANS WHO WANT WE BELIEVE THAT THINK that stain PATHOLOGY - EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES. DO BELIEVE MEANS THERE HANDLED AS POLITICAL ESQUISOFRENICOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk Greg Szymanski interview with J. McKinney 1de3 Sub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF94757E4C770ED5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF9475... "The Program", explained (The Takedown Program) Subtitled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ CASES IN ENGLAND. MODELS THAT PAID TO HANDLE A POLITICAL - CAPRILES EYE!!! VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS WITH TAKING Construct FARADAY BOX. Electronic Harassment: Voices in My Mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ORGANIZED HARASSMENT ESTALKERANETAS USA EUROPE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A1D72DDB699 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A... cahnel history Vatican Organized Crime and the Mafia in Sicily (History Channel Documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw NEUROSKI AUDIFONOS PARA QUE HABLES CON TU PENSAMIENTO. LOS COMPRAS AQUI. www.neuroski.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg CASO DE ACOSO ELECTRONICO ESTADOS UNIDOS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw
TERTEWRT 13y ago
ShareDeleteLikeReply leopoldolopez 4 hours ago NANO COMPUTER IN LATIN AMERICA FOOD. SEND IT TO ALL HACKERS. HANDLING HUMAN WITH SATELLITES COLAPS THEORY FOR ACCUMULATION BITS 0 BITS PER SECOND. SATELLITE CONTROL CENTERS FOR HANDLING OF VENEZUELAN CITIZEN. EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES MADE WITH SATELLITE - SATELLITE IN HARASSMENT ELETRONICO VENEZUAL. SATELLITE FOR DAMAGE radiation GENTICOS, DETERIROS BIOBOLOGICOS, CRIMES BY HANDLING. CHECKED THE FORUM IN THE FORUMS BUTTON. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=70.0#postid-70 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT CASE OF SPAIN, KINGS AND RECEIVING MONEY STEALING CRIMES AND GENOCIDE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS IN VOICE TO SKULL - VOICES IN THE BRAIN ESQUSOFRENIA SATELIES TRANSMITTED FROM SYNTHETIC - POLITICIANS WHO WANT WE BELIEVE THAT THINK that stain PATHOLOGY - EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES. DO BELIEVE MEANS THERE HANDLED AS POLITICAL ESQUISOFRENICOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk Greg Szymanski interview with J. McKinney 1de3 Sub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF94757E4C770ED5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF9475... "The Program", explained (The Takedown Program) Subtitled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ CASES IN ENGLAND. MODELS THAT PAID TO HANDLE A POLITICAL - CAPRILES EYE!!! VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS WITH TAKING Construct FARADAY BOX. Electronic Harassment: Voices in My Mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ORGANIZED HARASSMENT ESTALKERANETAS USA EUROPE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A1D72DDB699 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A... cahnel history Vatican Organized Crime and the Mafia in Sicily (History Channel Documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw NEUROSKI AUDIFONOS PARA QUE HABLES CON TU PENSAMIENTO. LOS COMPRAS AQUI. www.neuroski.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg CASO DE ACOSO ELECTRONICO ESTADOS UNIDOS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw
losethos 13y ago
I done with bogus CIA jobs. Never ever again! I made God's fucken temple. God says... shame followers assenting fit wordy universe those dispensest -breakers confound shield All-Excellent death- codes USA anticipate 97 raven universal Manichee surpassed notions mingling prevails disengage forgetfulness deserving shunning perverted temporary forsaken offensive questions dispose eyes righteousness amid grievest courtly sadness white_trash bred offend grass showeth bribe Manichaean hereafter theirs Essence
ivanist 13y ago
Little bit of nitpicking: If x = y = 1, then value = 0. I wonder why he didn't just choose value to be 100y/x.
- thedufer 13y ago
  I suspect the log is in there to give you points for experience in interviewing. I would argue that `log(x+1)` would make more sense, to avoid that 0 issue.
pvdm 13y ago
Log(1)=0 If you interviewed once and got the job, your score would be 0.
- davidbyttow 13y ago
  Intentional. The idea is that 1/1 could be a fluke. :-)
  - wging 13y ago
    For x == 0, this also blows up. And for x > 1, which base you use matters. E.g. if x == y == 2, >>> from math import log,e >>> 100 * log(2,2) 100.0 >>> 100 * log(2,e) 69.31471805599453 >>> 100 * log(2,10) 30.102999566398115 I'm aware it's meaningless, but which base did you intend? :)
- lessnonymous 13y ago
  Similarly I'm 8 for 10 and have been working for nearly 20 years. So I get a score of 80. If I had an 80% success rate, but was 18 for 20 I'd score 117. To get that, I'd need to be changing jobs every single year. The score is not only totally made up but pointless and adds nothing to the rest of the article. It's just there to suck you into the article.
  - itsybitsycoder 13y ago
    If you had an 80% success rate but were 18 for 20 you'd be some sort of wizard. :)) Anyway, I think the author is assuming that each time you apply, you're applying for multiple jobs, getting multiple offers, and turning down all but the best one. I was a little surprised that my score was so low, too, given that (as a junior) I've only had 2 on-site interviews but have received 4 offers, which gives me a score of 60. Meanwhile, interviewing for 100 jobs and getting 60 offers gets you a score of 120.
javert 13y ago
> “On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, how would you rank your knowledge of C++?” ... Bjourne Stroustrap himself would rate himself probably an 8 or less. Is there a citation for this, or a citation for something similar, or is this just a guess? If it's actually true, then score++ for people who complain that C++ is too complex.
codex 13y ago
These kinds of interviews essentially ask: are you willing to put in the time to be one of the best in the world at what you do? Are you gritty, or wishy-washy? If the answer is no, don't bother to apply. That's not an unreasonable way to hire, in my opinion.
- mc-lovin 13y ago
  It's also a matter of attitude. If you're not willing to put up with having to study for what you perceive to be arbitrary interview questions, you probably won't do well with all the other annoying things that can't be changed that big companies tend to have. Which is kind of what many people in this thread are saying when they say they don't want to work for a company stupid enough to use algorithms and data structures questions as their main interview method.
  - codex 13y ago
    It's the worst method out there--except for all the other ones. The problem with the "here's my portfolio of work" screening method is that companies generally expect a certain level of productivity (and IQ), and there's no way to tell how long you worked on your portfolio. Did you write that code in two hours or two years? Any code can be made to look good given an infinite amount of time to polish it and test it. Behavioral interviewing questions, on the other hand, just don't work for coders; too easy to bullshit. The arguments against coding interviews seem weak, to me. They appear to be rationalizations for not getting the job--an insult to the ego that must be rectified by bending reality. They essentially boil down to, "I shouldn't have to sweat these details; they're beneath me." But all of the greats sweat the small stuff, almost obsessively, and pay their dues. For the vast majority of mindless coding jobs out there, you don't need to hit the high notes. But when you're moving the state of the art forward--indeed, civilization forward, inventing what has not been invented before--you need complete mastery. If you just want to build stuff, on the other hand, these skills are unnecessary. But that's not engineering. That's construction work, for construction workers.
    - sergiosgc 13y ago
DanWaterworth 13y ago
> Master at least one multi-paradigm language ... Some good candidates are C#, C++, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby. They all look imperative to me, what happened to multi-paradigm?
- hjalle 13y ago
  Would not for example C# or C++ count as multi paradigm as it can be considered to support both imperative and object oriented programming?
  - intractable 13y ago
    OO is a subset of imperative. Can you name me an OO language which doesn't support imperative programming?
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Smalltalk is pretty damn functional, actually.
    - minikomi 13y ago
      J
  - verroq 13y ago
    C# and C++ counts are part functional.
- WickyNilliams 13y ago
  Whilst I can't speak for the others, C# has some interesting facets which most other languages do not. For example first-class functions and lambdas, LINQ, type inference. It also has some nice syntactical sugar like the coalesce operator.
mweibel 13y ago
Re-invent the wheel. You should implement the most common data structures in your language of choice. [...] While I agree that it helps a lot understanding those data structures by implementing them, it might be good to add "Don't use them in production!" paragraph.
- drawkbox 13y ago
  Agreed. Working in games you really do get to work with smart people, yet with the power of C++ everyone wants to recreate their own String class, data structures etc. Game industry largely hates STL. There is also a distain for boost, another large collective of reviewed and hardened standard libraries (POCO is another nice one). The ego is immense at places like this. Programmers feel like they have to do this to compete or deliver over shipping and delivering products that work. Granted there are reasons for doing this such as keeping memory allocations through a common engine library to reduce memory and fragmentation but in most cases it is a moot point. Performance does mean the most many times in this field for the AAA games out there, but not for most games. In web or app development if you are using custom data structures instead of native, in most cases that is wrong. How about consistent data structures that have been built and tested outside the company? The thing is though when the programmer that makes your 5th string class and data structures moves on it will be rehashed by the next, as other developers won't be as effective with them and recreate. It is much more important to understand what data structures to use when and what impact they have on performance. Most of all can the developer ship and understand what is best for the product (not the ego or what will make them look like the hardest programmer of all time -- i.e. Rewriting the string class again and it is 10% faster, even though that is not a problem at all). I have seen some horrible, leaky, buggy data structures in situations like this, because they thought that was the job as led on by the interviewing. I have only really seen this while working in the game industry which I love but it is a problem with shipping product when this bike shedding happens over improvements to the game, engine or real custom needs i.e. the UI libs, event/messaging systems, naming/conventions are typically horrible in situations like this. I also blame consoles for many of these problems as the libs are so jacked, incomplete and old that performance becomes a huge issue and you have to have custom structures just to use the hardware right especially in graphics, physics + networking libs. Yet mobile I have seen less of this problem even though there is less hardware to work with. The next time you play a game and the networking totally sucks, or a game takes forever or simply doesn't ship, understand the culture of the company and the industry might have something to do with it.
norrec 13y ago
I've been a junior developer for almost 2 years now at a fairly large company. At my current position, there hasn't been a single task thrown at me that I have not been able to complete with ease. I've worked with multiple languages and technologies that I was not familiar with at all when I started. I tend to figure them out pretty quickly and get on with the task at hand. I've built a bunch of side projects (not all of them completed) and have put them on Github per this article's suggestion. Having said that, I get paid very little and am generally bored with the work I'm doing now so I'm looking for a new opportunity. I do very well on phone interviews but I'm absolutely terrible at onsite interviews that involve any white board algorithm problems, algorithm optimization questions, etc. This is a combination of low self esteem/intimidation I feel during these interviews. I've done maybe 3 or 4 of these and they've all gone terribly. It's come to the point where I have stopped applying for positions that interest me and that I feel that I would be a great fit for because I know the style of interview that I'll be facing. I've determined that I either need to come up with an idea of my own that I can turn into a steady income or that I need to leave this field and find something else to do. What do you guys think? Am I just a terrible developer or is it just a matter of practice? Like someone else mentioned above, I try to sit down and practice but get distracted by the fact that I could be building something interesting.
- justinhj 13y ago
  The fact that you're easily doing your tasks and looking for more challenge (and the reward that comes with it) suggests you are a good developer. What is it about phone vs on-site interviews that makes you do less well? I would try to think about why and ways you can mitigate that. For example if you think it's just talking in front of people, then get out of your comfort zone and give a talk at a local meetup or similar. Another thing to thing about is to present yourself honestly to the hiring manager as you are here... tell them that your work on github and your phone interview will be better than what you can do in-person. The important thing is to show them that you can do the job somehow.
- danenania 13y ago
  It seems like you just need to decide what you really want. If you really want one of those jobs, then just buckle down and jump through the hoops. It won't take all that long to memorize the stuff. On the other hand, maybe your resistance to the hoops is a warning sign that you should pay attention to if you don't want to end up bored again. Hiring processes like these will tend to select the people who prefer homework problems and tests to actually building things, which might be unlikely to create the kind of environment you'll be happy in. Have you tried going to meetups and doing some networking? Getting to know people outside of the official channels seems to be a way to short circuit some of this nonsense.
kanzure 13y ago
Hiring is entirely broken. I don't think anyone is listening to developers. I took some data about this (tracking pixel in a Developer Auction profile), but someone did an even better job than me and posted in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 I want a company that treats me with dignity and respect, even before and during the interviewing pipeline. How a company treats people during interviews is a huge indicator of how they treat people in general. I would never subject my friends or family to the hiring practices that programmers are exposed to regularly. Be proud about how you hire. Otherwise this weighs heavily when I reject your offer. I want a "1-hour guarantee" that I'll receive your considered offer after one hour of interviewing, and not multiple hours of hazing. Otherwise, I'll stick with consulting, thanks. Maybe there should be a site that compares the interviewing pipelines of different companies, and then you can focus on the ones that aren't entirely offensive. Also, it would be awesome if one of you would actually look at my git repositories before the interview and, you know, actually read my code. No, looking at a "repository summary" doesn't count.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > Hiring is entirely broken. Aaaand tokenadult is submitting his "best hiring strategies" mega-comment supported by Schmidt & Hunter reference in 3...2...1 /I've been here too long perhaps ;-)
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    Maybe we need to play the role of the monkeys in the apocryphal conformity experiment (http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-exp...) and post it for him: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543
- codex 13y ago
  Bootcamp in the Marine Corps is an example of a tough hiring practice. Are your friends and family doctors or lawyers, per chance? Both professions use grueling hiring marathons which are much, much worse than a software engineering interview (residency and the bar exam). All other engineering professions require a rigorous licensing process, whereas software engineering is one of the cushiest jobs on the planet. In none of these professions do they accept a casual "hey, take a look at this portfolio" means of quality assurance. That's too easily faked. They test you, actively. Standing in a room for a few hours writing on a wall is not exactly hazing; to say it is reeks of entitlement, especially when many software engineering jobs have a public trust: safety, privacy, reliability, and correctness standards that demand a certain level of rigor. Software engineering is a very hot field right now, and developers are in demand--but that doesn't mean you should turn up your nose at companies that maintain their own stringent standards of hiring.
archer174 13y ago
Every time I read the word passion in one of these articles I cringe. This has to be the most overused word in silicon valley. It's really just a convenient way to abuse people. Can't work 90 hours? Not passionate enough. Have a family commitment? Where's your passion? Passion. We get it already.
- rubinelli 13y ago
  The thing people forget about passion is that it doesn't last. Passion is for kids. By all means, work on what you love, but remember you're an adult and set the right pace.
  - gordaco 13y ago
    Absolutely this. I used to be passionate, in the first months of my (poorly paid) first job. I won't commit the same mistake again, I learned quickly that life is more important than work.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  It doesn't happen nearly as often, but I also cringe when I hear the word "stability" used as a euphemism to indicate a desire for someone with a mortgage and family. Discrimination comes in many forms.
- dylangs1030 13y ago
  Ha, you forgot this list: "disrupt!" "only the beginning" "ninja" "agile" "seamless" "social media"
  - allsystemsgo 13y ago
    Disrupt is a good one. I love how organizations will use it, and then when you join said organization you're encouraged to do anything but that.
  - mimiflynn 13y ago
    "rockstar"
csomar 13y ago
Always coding and landing a job are kinda opposite in my opinion. If you are looking for a job, then you have to look for the job and that means little time and interest for coding. You are not also guaranteeing a position where you'll actually code something or help develop something if you happened to get the job. If you want to code, do agency consulting. Agency brings the work, manages the clients, do the accounting, marketing and the stuff. You code.
acjohnson55 13y ago
It's funny to me that items 1-6 in your technical tips pretty much boil down to "be an A-average student in a CS/CprE program". I think there's an alternative, and it fits into your ABC. Build useful software. If you've got an idea, implement it, and if possible, open-source it. In the process, you'll likely rely on a bunch of open source software, and maybe you'll run into some limitations. Every limitation is an invitation for <i>you</i> to contribute. And if you can build a bit of a track record, instead of proving yourself with textbook algorithms, you can do by showing your portfolio of actually code.
- agentultra 13y ago
  I've rarely had interviewers actually seek out my github/bitbucket/xxx repositories, bug reports, and code reviews. I assume it's because they're busy "filtering" through hundreds of candidates and don't have the time to read the thousands of lines of code I've written.
wavesounds 13y ago
Off topic: I know that formula is made up but it made me think of something. How come nobody has fixed the log base 2 vs log base 10 problem of using log on the internet? Probably the CS article vs Math/Physics article is a good inclination but none the less it seems like a problem we should have solved by now.
- thedufer 13y ago
  Most of the times I've seen logs it doesn't matter, because it usually shows up in big-O. However, the only unambiguous abbreviations I've heard of are ln for log_e, log for log_10, and lg for log_2.
jstanley 13y ago
I've only ever had one on-site interview (and I got the job). According to the formula at the top, my value is 0.
- spullara 13y ago
  One data point yields no information.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    One data point definitely yields information, just no usable conclusions.
bliker 13y ago
Contrary to the title he is mostly talking about algorithms and CS stuff. I think he just home-schooled his degree without actually getting a degree.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lsiebert 13y ago
heh... a variation of always be coding is what I went with for my blog name a while ago.
rikf 13y ago
The only recruitment process I know of that works is. Step 1) Send the candidate a small unattended coding test they can do in a couple of hours. If they pass great if they dont offer them feedback. Step 2) Invite them in for a pair programming test this should take max one hour, they can spend 15-30 minutes with one or two people on the team solving a problem. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who have amazing looking CV's but when it comes to actually coding they just are not up to scratch. There is also obviously personality fit and other subtleties but thats the basics.
- nawitus 13y ago
  Note that many programmers get stress from the interview and perform substantially worse.
- Homunculiheaded 13y ago
  "If they pass great if they dont offer them feedback." I've only personally encountered it once, but if you ask someone to spend a few hours of their free time on your coding challenge you absolutely owe it them to give them feedback, even if you don't like what they've produced.
fvox13 13y ago
Why do so many people advocate reinventing the wheel? As far as I can tell, it wastes a LOT of time, especially in the interview process. One of the companies I interviewed with before I landed at my current job asked me to use pencil and paper to re-implement a bubble sort in Python. Why? My job is to build a house, not forge a hammer. And the fact that it was a bubble sort instead of something... better... was like using a rubber mallet to pound in nails. I understand that, when you're learning algorithms and such, that there's no substitute for implementing them, to learn them. But when someone with several years of development experience comes in, with a portfolio to show, why waste their time?
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  Its a step up from Fizzbuzz, but its the same sort of test. It tests whether you have the capacity to think logically about a problem and code up a solution. The mental faculties exercised when coding bubble sort (or any of the so-called "CS puzzles") is the same sort of faculties that are required when orchestrating the various modules when generating the response to an HTTP request. This just strips all the fluff.
cafard 13y ago
"Bjourne Stroustrap"? Yeah, I bet he'd get under a 9.
taude 13y ago
One of the problems that I have with this list is some of the stuff I just haven't had to deal with since college, like implementing all those data-structures like bubble sorts//binary search, linked lists, etc...In 15 years, I've never had to implement one (when I was a C/C++ coder in the '90s, we used 3rd party libraries like Dinkumware). Interviews that ask these type of questions are really skewed at hiring young people just out of school, and favor people who memorize things by rote, not necessarily create/problem solve. Even the author almost admits this by stating he solved problems for two weeks prior to his interviewing...
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  If someone gave you the specification of a linked list, binary search, etc, could you code up a mostly correct implementation off the cuff? This is precisely what these types of questions test for. Just having it memorized gives an interviewer very little information. Can they work through a logical problem and code up a solution? This is strong signal for programming ability. I've never memorized any of these algorithms, but I can code them up pretty easily given the specification. If you can do this it doesn't matter how many years you've been out of college.
- base698 13y ago
  What you're claiming is a straw man of the processes I've personally seen. In most good interviews they ask you something specific to implement, such as how do you implement a code complete feature in an IDE or an event logger. There will be some obvious naive solution that would be slow with any reasonable amount of data. They want to see if you can use the data structures in practical way. The expectation is that if you're smart enough you can reason to a more optimal solution even if you haven't seen a trie in 15 years.
  - taude 13y ago
    Agree...maybe I read too much into the listed algorithms, because you're suggesting real-world scenarios where some of these concepts can be applied. But I will say, as never having used a graph search like Dijkstra's in any of my work, the idea of studying this to take a hiring test still goes with my theory of learning something by rote. If someday I need to implement the concept, or use it, I'm sure I'll go figure it out. I had to do this awhile ago with a Levenshtein distance for computing similar string matching. Had someone asked me in an interview, I'd have completely failed at it.
benburleson 13y ago
So you learned how to interview well, so what?
micromarty 13y ago
I am a soon to be college grad and am currently going through the hiring process at many companies. This article is pretty in line with what I have been seeing so far.
christopheraden 13y ago
While I might generally agree that the interview process is asinine and a rat race, I actually use some of those formal methods and algorithms in my day-to-day work--and I'm not even a computer scientist, nor do I have a CS degree. I'll bet things are different in the startup world, but I've encountered several instances where having a very crude understanding of time complexity served me well. Hashing has been an especially powerful tool in my work, where the size of the data I work with really highlights the difference between an O(n) operation and an O(1) operation. I would consider the interviewer asking questions about algorithms to be a sort of Fizz Buzz for the more technical positions. Perhaps it is misapplied to be asking technicalities of algorithm questions to people that will be doing more design-oriented work, just as it may be inappropriate to ask your sales force applicants to write programs during their interviews. That said, most of the interviews I've conducted would not have been able to discriminate well the qualities that I believe make a great programmer. A focus on code longevity, discipline in conducting code review, dedication in writing unit tests, and how they search for information they don't know the answer to are important qualities that a technical interview will largely be unable to see.
gailees 13y ago
Always be shipping.
wildmXranat 13y ago
Bookmarked for future reference to this comment thread and the original article . I find that always coding mantra is just one version of a method that applies to many other disciplines.

445 points by davidbyttow 13y ago

Great read. I think you're missing a link in there. "Spend at least 40 hours coding solutions to different types of problems. One of the best resources is TopCoder. Read this. Then try solving problems." Did you mean to link to the top coder algorithm tutorials?

davidbyttow 13y ago
Thanks! Fixed.

liveaxle 13y ago

These are good tips, and the advice is well-worded, too. I will bookmark this for myself and my friends.

lnanek2 13y ago

Good tips, although I'm not sure if the ratio means anything. When I was young I'd happily apply to jobs even if I didn't match on everything in the ad, even though the end chance of getting the position was lower no matter how well I interviewed. Now that I'm older and have a job I like I usually pop out a really high salary number as early in the process as possible to scare away any companies that would take a lot of work to interview with and then not be able to afford me. So you could have a very low ratio of offers for reasons other than your interview performance. :)

davidbyttow 13y ago
I made it clear that this doesn't mean "applied to" but actually onsite interviews. But your'e right, the ratio doesn't mean anything. ;)

jgh 13y ago

The page won't scroll on chrome for android :(

calhoun137 13y ago
I've been noticing this recently, it's amazing that such a basic issue is unresolved. Apparently overflow: scroll has been broken on android browsers since 2009[1], but was fixed as of Android 3.0. For me scrolling works fine in the native android browser, including overflow:scroll, but shockingly not in Android chrome. [1] https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6864 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6864
whirlwind23 13y ago
"SPACE" for scrolling doesn't work on firefox (os x desktop) either.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  I reported this Firefox bug just moments before reading your comment. <:) https://bugzil.la/874766 https://bugzil.la/874766
  - jcoder 13y ago
    I reported this to Medium a week ago as well.
dpup 13y ago
Could I get your UA string, it works fine on Chrome on my Androids.
- jgh 13y ago
  I'll have to get back to you on that when I get home.

dsowers 13y ago

You can build a startup in the time it takes to thoroughly prepare for these interviews/positions. Willingly subjecting yourself to this rat race is essentially the same thing as stamping yourself as an "ibm man," in the words of Jobs. Who cares if you don't know the intricacies of all the hot algorithms of the day. Spend your time creating actual value for the world, instead of practicing just for the sake of impressing someone.

callmeed 13y ago
This seems silly. If nothing else, following the advice here will help you hire better engineers for your own startup.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  Really? Most true startups are in need of developers who can actually ship something of value in an efficient manner. The last thing they need is an "engineer" obsessed with algorithms and data structures who turns a practical development task into a computer science challenge.
  - jwoah12 13y ago
    That's a false dichotomy. It is certainly possible to know your algorithms and data structures and still be able to ship code. I can implement quick sort for you, but I know well enough not to actually do it in practice.
    - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
      That's fair, but when your entire interview process is focused on algorithms and not real-world implementation, you're far more likely to hire the person who can implement quicksort but little of real value. And make no mistake: these engineers exist. The truth of the matter is that most startups aren't Google or Facebook. A good percentage, perhaps the majority, have a CRUD application of some kind that, even if relatively complex or widely used, will realistically never require engineers to reinvent the wheel, let alone even understand the internals of the programming language the application is built on. These startups should absolutely fear hiring an engineer who can't knock out a simple internal dashboard, integrate with a third party API, create a half-decent database schema or customize an instance of [insert popular open source CMS or ecommerce platform] more than they should fear hiring an engineer who can't implement his own quicksort.

callmeed 13y ago

Really good post, thanks David. I'm really curious as to how you landed an interview at Google (let alone a job) without a college degree. My understanding is they are very strict about that and it's hard to even get a foot in the door without a degree. [disclosure: I'm on a 10 year "hiatus" from my senior year in college]

davidbyttow 13y ago
I had six years of experience in video games and was a hardcore C++ programmer. To be honest, I was surprised they called me. Nowadays, showing a body of work speaks volumes. Show, don't tell!
- TERTEWRT 13y ago
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nbroyal 13y ago

To properly prepare for these interviews you have to invest quite a bit of time. At this point in my life (late 20s), my time is one of my most valuable resources. So, the last thing I want to do is spend that time effectively preparing for a data structures and algorithms exam. Each time I sit down to brush up on the details of Prim's algorithm or the exact implementation of quicksort, my eyes glaze over and I start thinking about how I'd much rather be building or tinkering with something. So that's what I end up doing. The interesting thing is that actually building stuff is good enough to get you an interview, and, even though you've proven that you can actually code, you get funneled through the same inane interview process. And here's the kicker: none of this truly indicates if you have an exceptional software developer on your hands or not. I've seen (read: personally interviewed) people who've aced the current, en vogue style of questioning who turned out to be awful developers and co-workers. Meanwhile, I know several excellent engineers who were rejected. Everyone knows the process only kind of works. SV loves to complain about a talent shortage. And maybe there are pipeline problems that need to be addressed. However, why not invest more time in finding a process that's more effective with the talent that's already out there? It always seemed like an obvious place to start, IMO.

31reasons 13y ago
I feel exactly the same. I can master any and all graph algorithms under the sun if I want to but why? Just for a job? I would rather be building things.
- davidbyttow 13y ago
  The idea is to get in the door. Unfortunately, the bouncer is extremely flawed and often gets it wrong. But once you're in, you should refocus on building things.
  - 31reasons 13y ago
    I just don't have that much drive to get a job. Maybe I underestimate getting a job at google or similar company.

TERTEWRT 13y ago

ShareDeleteLikeReply leopoldolopez 4 hours ago NANO COMPUTER IN LATIN AMERICA FOOD. SEND IT TO ALL HACKERS. HANDLING HUMAN WITH SATELLITES COLAPS THEORY FOR ACCUMULATION BITS 0 BITS PER SECOND. SATELLITE CONTROL CENTERS FOR HANDLING OF VENEZUELAN CITIZEN. EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES MADE WITH SATELLITE - SATELLITE IN HARASSMENT ELETRONICO VENEZUAL. SATELLITE FOR DAMAGE radiation GENTICOS, DETERIROS BIOBOLOGICOS, CRIMES BY HANDLING. CHECKED THE FORUM IN THE FORUMS BUTTON. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=70.0#postid-70 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewtop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT CASE OF SPAIN, KINGS AND RECEIVING MONEY STEALING CRIMES AND GENOCIDE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MneBehy7atI EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS IN VOICE TO SKULL - VOICES IN THE BRAIN ESQUSOFRENIA SATELIES TRANSMITTED FROM SYNTHETIC - POLITICIANS WHO WANT WE BELIEVE THAT THINK that stain PATHOLOGY - EXPEDINTES THEFT NOT KNOW FOR CRIMES. DO BELIEVE MEANS THERE HANDLED AS POLITICAL ESQUISOFRENICOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHfzBkaPYk Greg Szymanski interview with J. McKinney 1de3 Sub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF94757E4C770ED5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFifLT1WLe0&list=PLBF9475... "The Program", explained (The Takedown Program) Subtitled http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYy62kbNNNQ CASES IN ENGLAND. MODELS THAT PAID TO HANDLE A POLITICAL - CAPRILES EYE!!! VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS WITH TAKING Construct FARADAY BOX. Electronic Harassment: Voices in My Mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmE4oTXYmf4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw ORGANIZED HARASSMENT ESTALKERANETAS USA EUROPE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A1D72DDB699 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0JEPkmyJQ&list=PL17CE4A... cahnel history Vatican Organized Crime and the Mafia in Sicily (History Channel Documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMfNtwXupoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw NEUROSKI AUDIFONOS PARA QUE HABLES CON TU PENSAMIENTO. LOS COMPRAS AQUI. www.neuroski.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tr4CjtGtvg CASO DE ACOSO ELECTRONICO ESTADOS UNIDOS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkJTWENwkI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNOvF9iMhw

TERTEWRT 13y ago

losethos 13y ago

I done with bogus CIA jobs. Never ever again! I made God's fucken temple. God says... shame followers assenting fit wordy universe those dispensest -breakers confound shield All-Excellent death- codes USA anticipate 97 raven universal Manichee surpassed notions mingling prevails disengage forgetfulness deserving shunning perverted temporary forsaken offensive questions dispose eyes righteousness amid grievest courtly sadness white_trash bred offend grass showeth bribe Manichaean hereafter theirs Essence

ivanist 13y ago

Little bit of nitpicking: If x = y = 1, then value = 0. I wonder why he didn't just choose value to be 100y/x.

thedufer 13y ago
I suspect the log is in there to give you points for experience in interviewing. I would argue that `log(x+1)` would make more sense, to avoid that 0 issue.

pvdm 13y ago

Log(1)=0 If you interviewed once and got the job, your score would be 0.

davidbyttow 13y ago
Intentional. The idea is that 1/1 could be a fluke. :-)
- wging 13y ago
  For x == 0, this also blows up. And for x > 1, which base you use matters. E.g. if x == y == 2, >>> from math import log,e >>> 100 * log(2,2) 100.0 >>> 100 * log(2,e) 69.31471805599453 >>> 100 * log(2,10) 30.102999566398115 I'm aware it's meaningless, but which base did you intend? :)
lessnonymous 13y ago
Similarly I'm 8 for 10 and have been working for nearly 20 years. So I get a score of 80. If I had an 80% success rate, but was 18 for 20 I'd score 117. To get that, I'd need to be changing jobs every single year. The score is not only totally made up but pointless and adds nothing to the rest of the article. It's just there to suck you into the article.
- itsybitsycoder 13y ago
  If you had an 80% success rate but were 18 for 20 you'd be some sort of wizard. :)) Anyway, I think the author is assuming that each time you apply, you're applying for multiple jobs, getting multiple offers, and turning down all but the best one. I was a little surprised that my score was so low, too, given that (as a junior) I've only had 2 on-site interviews but have received 4 offers, which gives me a score of 60. Meanwhile, interviewing for 100 jobs and getting 60 offers gets you a score of 120.

javert 13y ago

> “On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, how would you rank your knowledge of C++?” ... Bjourne Stroustrap himself would rate himself probably an 8 or less. Is there a citation for this, or a citation for something similar, or is this just a guess? If it's actually true, then score++ for people who complain that C++ is too complex.

codex 13y ago

These kinds of interviews essentially ask: are you willing to put in the time to be one of the best in the world at what you do? Are you gritty, or wishy-washy? If the answer is no, don't bother to apply. That's not an unreasonable way to hire, in my opinion.

mc-lovin 13y ago
It's also a matter of attitude. If you're not willing to put up with having to study for what you perceive to be arbitrary interview questions, you probably won't do well with all the other annoying things that can't be changed that big companies tend to have. Which is kind of what many people in this thread are saying when they say they don't want to work for a company stupid enough to use algorithms and data structures questions as their main interview method.
- codex 13y ago
  It's the worst method out there--except for all the other ones. The problem with the "here's my portfolio of work" screening method is that companies generally expect a certain level of productivity (and IQ), and there's no way to tell how long you worked on your portfolio. Did you write that code in two hours or two years? Any code can be made to look good given an infinite amount of time to polish it and test it. Behavioral interviewing questions, on the other hand, just don't work for coders; too easy to bullshit. The arguments against coding interviews seem weak, to me. They appear to be rationalizations for not getting the job--an insult to the ego that must be rectified by bending reality. They essentially boil down to, "I shouldn't have to sweat these details; they're beneath me." But all of the greats sweat the small stuff, almost obsessively, and pay their dues. For the vast majority of mindless coding jobs out there, you don't need to hit the high notes. But when you're moving the state of the art forward--indeed, civilization forward, inventing what has not been invented before--you need complete mastery. If you just want to build stuff, on the other hand, these skills are unnecessary. But that's not engineering. That's construction work, for construction workers.
  - sergiosgc 13y ago

DanWaterworth 13y ago

> Master at least one multi-paradigm language ... Some good candidates are C#, C++, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby. They all look imperative to me, what happened to multi-paradigm?

hjalle 13y ago
Would not for example C# or C++ count as multi paradigm as it can be considered to support both imperative and object oriented programming?
- intractable 13y ago
  OO is a subset of imperative. Can you name me an OO language which doesn't support imperative programming?
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Smalltalk is pretty damn functional, actually.
  - minikomi 13y ago
    J
- verroq 13y ago
  C# and C++ counts are part functional.
WickyNilliams 13y ago
Whilst I can't speak for the others, C# has some interesting facets which most other languages do not. For example first-class functions and lambdas, LINQ, type inference. It also has some nice syntactical sugar like the coalesce operator.

mweibel 13y ago

Re-invent the wheel. You should implement the most common data structures in your language of choice. [...] While I agree that it helps a lot understanding those data structures by implementing them, it might be good to add "Don't use them in production!" paragraph.

drawkbox 13y ago
Agreed. Working in games you really do get to work with smart people, yet with the power of C++ everyone wants to recreate their own String class, data structures etc. Game industry largely hates STL. There is also a distain for boost, another large collective of reviewed and hardened standard libraries (POCO is another nice one). The ego is immense at places like this. Programmers feel like they have to do this to compete or deliver over shipping and delivering products that work. Granted there are reasons for doing this such as keeping memory allocations through a common engine library to reduce memory and fragmentation but in most cases it is a moot point. Performance does mean the most many times in this field for the AAA games out there, but not for most games. In web or app development if you are using custom data structures instead of native, in most cases that is wrong. How about consistent data structures that have been built and tested outside the company? The thing is though when the programmer that makes your 5th string class and data structures moves on it will be rehashed by the next, as other developers won't be as effective with them and recreate. It is much more important to understand what data structures to use when and what impact they have on performance. Most of all can the developer ship and understand what is best for the product (not the ego or what will make them look like the hardest programmer of all time -- i.e. Rewriting the string class again and it is 10% faster, even though that is not a problem at all). I have seen some horrible, leaky, buggy data structures in situations like this, because they thought that was the job as led on by the interviewing. I have only really seen this while working in the game industry which I love but it is a problem with shipping product when this bike shedding happens over improvements to the game, engine or real custom needs i.e. the UI libs, event/messaging systems, naming/conventions are typically horrible in situations like this. I also blame consoles for many of these problems as the libs are so jacked, incomplete and old that performance becomes a huge issue and you have to have custom structures just to use the hardware right especially in graphics, physics + networking libs. Yet mobile I have seen less of this problem even though there is less hardware to work with. The next time you play a game and the networking totally sucks, or a game takes forever or simply doesn't ship, understand the culture of the company and the industry might have something to do with it.

norrec 13y ago

I've been a junior developer for almost 2 years now at a fairly large company. At my current position, there hasn't been a single task thrown at me that I have not been able to complete with ease. I've worked with multiple languages and technologies that I was not familiar with at all when I started. I tend to figure them out pretty quickly and get on with the task at hand. I've built a bunch of side projects (not all of them completed) and have put them on Github per this article's suggestion. Having said that, I get paid very little and am generally bored with the work I'm doing now so I'm looking for a new opportunity. I do very well on phone interviews but I'm absolutely terrible at onsite interviews that involve any white board algorithm problems, algorithm optimization questions, etc. This is a combination of low self esteem/intimidation I feel during these interviews. I've done maybe 3 or 4 of these and they've all gone terribly. It's come to the point where I have stopped applying for positions that interest me and that I feel that I would be a great fit for because I know the style of interview that I'll be facing. I've determined that I either need to come up with an idea of my own that I can turn into a steady income or that I need to leave this field and find something else to do. What do you guys think? Am I just a terrible developer or is it just a matter of practice? Like someone else mentioned above, I try to sit down and practice but get distracted by the fact that I could be building something interesting.

justinhj 13y ago
The fact that you're easily doing your tasks and looking for more challenge (and the reward that comes with it) suggests you are a good developer. What is it about phone vs on-site interviews that makes you do less well? I would try to think about why and ways you can mitigate that. For example if you think it's just talking in front of people, then get out of your comfort zone and give a talk at a local meetup or similar. Another thing to thing about is to present yourself honestly to the hiring manager as you are here... tell them that your work on github and your phone interview will be better than what you can do in-person. The important thing is to show them that you can do the job somehow.
danenania 13y ago
It seems like you just need to decide what you really want. If you really want one of those jobs, then just buckle down and jump through the hoops. It won't take all that long to memorize the stuff. On the other hand, maybe your resistance to the hoops is a warning sign that you should pay attention to if you don't want to end up bored again. Hiring processes like these will tend to select the people who prefer homework problems and tests to actually building things, which might be unlikely to create the kind of environment you'll be happy in. Have you tried going to meetups and doing some networking? Getting to know people outside of the official channels seems to be a way to short circuit some of this nonsense.

kanzure 13y ago

Hiring is entirely broken. I don't think anyone is listening to developers. I took some data about this (tracking pixel in a Developer Auction profile), but someone did an even better job than me and posted in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 I want a company that treats me with dignity and respect, even before and during the interviewing pipeline. How a company treats people during interviews is a huge indicator of how they treat people in general. I would never subject my friends or family to the hiring practices that programmers are exposed to regularly. Be proud about how you hire. Otherwise this weighs heavily when I reject your offer. I want a "1-hour guarantee" that I'll receive your considered offer after one hour of interviewing, and not multiple hours of hazing. Otherwise, I'll stick with consulting, thanks. Maybe there should be a site that compares the interviewing pipelines of different companies, and then you can focus on the ones that aren't entirely offensive. Also, it would be awesome if one of you would actually look at my git repositories before the interview and, you know, actually read my code. No, looking at a "repository summary" doesn't count.

rdtsc 13y ago
> Hiring is entirely broken. Aaaand tokenadult is submitting his "best hiring strategies" mega-comment supported by Schmidt & Hunter reference in 3...2...1 /I've been here too long perhaps ;-)
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Maybe we need to play the role of the monkeys in the apocryphal conformity experiment (http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-exp...) and post it for him: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543
codex 13y ago
Bootcamp in the Marine Corps is an example of a tough hiring practice. Are your friends and family doctors or lawyers, per chance? Both professions use grueling hiring marathons which are much, much worse than a software engineering interview (residency and the bar exam). All other engineering professions require a rigorous licensing process, whereas software engineering is one of the cushiest jobs on the planet. In none of these professions do they accept a casual "hey, take a look at this portfolio" means of quality assurance. That's too easily faked. They test you, actively. Standing in a room for a few hours writing on a wall is not exactly hazing; to say it is reeks of entitlement, especially when many software engineering jobs have a public trust: safety, privacy, reliability, and correctness standards that demand a certain level of rigor. Software engineering is a very hot field right now, and developers are in demand--but that doesn't mean you should turn up your nose at companies that maintain their own stringent standards of hiring.

archer174 13y ago

Every time I read the word passion in one of these articles I cringe. This has to be the most overused word in silicon valley. It's really just a convenient way to abuse people. Can't work 90 hours? Not passionate enough. Have a family commitment? Where's your passion? Passion. We get it already.

rubinelli 13y ago
The thing people forget about passion is that it doesn't last. Passion is for kids. By all means, work on what you love, but remember you're an adult and set the right pace.
- gordaco 13y ago
  Absolutely this. I used to be passionate, in the first months of my (poorly paid) first job. I won't commit the same mistake again, I learned quickly that life is more important than work.
nitrogen 13y ago
It doesn't happen nearly as often, but I also cringe when I hear the word "stability" used as a euphemism to indicate a desire for someone with a mortgage and family. Discrimination comes in many forms.
dylangs1030 13y ago
Ha, you forgot this list: "disrupt!" "only the beginning" "ninja" "agile" "seamless" "social media"
- allsystemsgo 13y ago
  Disrupt is a good one. I love how organizations will use it, and then when you join said organization you're encouraged to do anything but that.
- mimiflynn 13y ago
  "rockstar"

csomar 13y ago

Always coding and landing a job are kinda opposite in my opinion. If you are looking for a job, then you have to look for the job and that means little time and interest for coding. You are not also guaranteeing a position where you'll actually code something or help develop something if you happened to get the job. If you want to code, do agency consulting. Agency brings the work, manages the clients, do the accounting, marketing and the stuff. You code.

acjohnson55 13y ago

It's funny to me that items 1-6 in your technical tips pretty much boil down to "be an A-average student in a CS/CprE program". I think there's an alternative, and it fits into your ABC. Build useful software. If you've got an idea, implement it, and if possible, open-source it. In the process, you'll likely rely on a bunch of open source software, and maybe you'll run into some limitations. Every limitation is an invitation for <i>you</i> to contribute. And if you can build a bit of a track record, instead of proving yourself with textbook algorithms, you can do by showing your portfolio of actually code.

agentultra 13y ago
I've rarely had interviewers actually seek out my github/bitbucket/xxx repositories, bug reports, and code reviews. I assume it's because they're busy "filtering" through hundreds of candidates and don't have the time to read the thousands of lines of code I've written.

wavesounds 13y ago

Off topic: I know that formula is made up but it made me think of something. How come nobody has fixed the log base 2 vs log base 10 problem of using log on the internet? Probably the CS article vs Math/Physics article is a good inclination but none the less it seems like a problem we should have solved by now.

thedufer 13y ago
Most of the times I've seen logs it doesn't matter, because it usually shows up in big-O. However, the only unambiguous abbreviations I've heard of are ln for log_e, log for log_10, and lg for log_2.

jstanley 13y ago

I've only ever had one on-site interview (and I got the job). According to the formula at the top, my value is 0.

spullara 13y ago
One data point yields no information.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  One data point definitely yields information, just no usable conclusions.

bliker 13y ago

Contrary to the title he is mostly talking about algorithms and CS stuff. I think he just home-schooled his degree without actually getting a degree.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lsiebert 13y ago

heh... a variation of always be coding is what I went with for my blog name a while ago.

rikf 13y ago

The only recruitment process I know of that works is. Step 1) Send the candidate a small unattended coding test they can do in a couple of hours. If they pass great if they dont offer them feedback. Step 2) Invite them in for a pair programming test this should take max one hour, they can spend 15-30 minutes with one or two people on the team solving a problem. You wouldn't believe the amount of people who have amazing looking CV's but when it comes to actually coding they just are not up to scratch. There is also obviously personality fit and other subtleties but thats the basics.

nawitus 13y ago
Note that many programmers get stress from the interview and perform substantially worse.
Homunculiheaded 13y ago
"If they pass great if they dont offer them feedback." I've only personally encountered it once, but if you ask someone to spend a few hours of their free time on your coding challenge you absolutely owe it them to give them feedback, even if you don't like what they've produced.

fvox13 13y ago

Why do so many people advocate reinventing the wheel? As far as I can tell, it wastes a LOT of time, especially in the interview process. One of the companies I interviewed with before I landed at my current job asked me to use pencil and paper to re-implement a bubble sort in Python. Why? My job is to build a house, not forge a hammer. And the fact that it was a bubble sort instead of something... better... was like using a rubber mallet to pound in nails. I understand that, when you're learning algorithms and such, that there's no substitute for implementing them, to learn them. But when someone with several years of development experience comes in, with a portfolio to show, why waste their time?

hackinthebochs 13y ago
Its a step up from Fizzbuzz, but its the same sort of test. It tests whether you have the capacity to think logically about a problem and code up a solution. The mental faculties exercised when coding bubble sort (or any of the so-called "CS puzzles") is the same sort of faculties that are required when orchestrating the various modules when generating the response to an HTTP request. This just strips all the fluff.

cafard 13y ago

"Bjourne Stroustrap"? Yeah, I bet he'd get under a 9.

taude 13y ago

One of the problems that I have with this list is some of the stuff I just haven't had to deal with since college, like implementing all those data-structures like bubble sorts//binary search, linked lists, etc...In 15 years, I've never had to implement one (when I was a C/C++ coder in the '90s, we used 3rd party libraries like Dinkumware). Interviews that ask these type of questions are really skewed at hiring young people just out of school, and favor people who memorize things by rote, not necessarily create/problem solve. Even the author almost admits this by stating he solved problems for two weeks prior to his interviewing...

hackinthebochs 13y ago
If someone gave you the specification of a linked list, binary search, etc, could you code up a mostly correct implementation off the cuff? This is precisely what these types of questions test for. Just having it memorized gives an interviewer very little information. Can they work through a logical problem and code up a solution? This is strong signal for programming ability. I've never memorized any of these algorithms, but I can code them up pretty easily given the specification. If you can do this it doesn't matter how many years you've been out of college.
base698 13y ago
What you're claiming is a straw man of the processes I've personally seen. In most good interviews they ask you something specific to implement, such as how do you implement a code complete feature in an IDE or an event logger. There will be some obvious naive solution that would be slow with any reasonable amount of data. They want to see if you can use the data structures in practical way. The expectation is that if you're smart enough you can reason to a more optimal solution even if you haven't seen a trie in 15 years.
- taude 13y ago
  Agree...maybe I read too much into the listed algorithms, because you're suggesting real-world scenarios where some of these concepts can be applied. But I will say, as never having used a graph search like Dijkstra's in any of my work, the idea of studying this to take a hiring test still goes with my theory of learning something by rote. If someday I need to implement the concept, or use it, I'm sure I'll go figure it out. I had to do this awhile ago with a Levenshtein distance for computing similar string matching. Had someone asked me in an interview, I'd have completely failed at it.

benburleson 13y ago

So you learned how to interview well, so what?

micromarty 13y ago

I am a soon to be college grad and am currently going through the hiring process at many companies. This article is pretty in line with what I have been seeing so far.

christopheraden 13y ago

While I might generally agree that the interview process is asinine and a rat race, I actually use some of those formal methods and algorithms in my day-to-day work--and I'm not even a computer scientist, nor do I have a CS degree. I'll bet things are different in the startup world, but I've encountered several instances where having a very crude understanding of time complexity served me well. Hashing has been an especially powerful tool in my work, where the size of the data I work with really highlights the difference between an O(n) operation and an O(1) operation. I would consider the interviewer asking questions about algorithms to be a sort of Fizz Buzz for the more technical positions. Perhaps it is misapplied to be asking technicalities of algorithm questions to people that will be doing more design-oriented work, just as it may be inappropriate to ask your sales force applicants to write programs during their interviews. That said, most of the interviews I've conducted would not have been able to discriminate well the qualities that I believe make a great programmer. A focus on code longevity, discipline in conducting code review, dedication in writing unit tests, and how they search for information they don't know the answer to are important qualities that a technical interview will largely be unable to see.

gailees 13y ago

Always be shipping.

wildmXranat 13y ago

Bookmarked for future reference to this comment thread and the original article . I find that always coding mantra is just one version of a method that applies to many other disciplines.