IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

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Noodleface

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In regards to interviews, have you guys considered just pointing them to your Github account? "Check out my repos if you want to see my code", and dispense with the stupid code challenges.
I understand what you're saying but htat's just not realistic.

Imagine how insulting it would be to an interview someone and you ask them a question and they say "please see my github." I mean, it's perfectly valid to say "I can't do that off the top of my head, but on X project on my github I actually implemented that <or something similar>." But I'd be willing to bet most interviewers won't go there. I think it'll be more common soon.

Also I don't really code at home.
 
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alavaz

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I used Notepad++ and mingw with batch files to build and debug for small C programs. I never wrote enough to want to mess around with getting VS setup for C.

I think code challenges used in the context of getting an idea for someones thought process and problem solving abilities is fine. It's just annoying when people want to use them as a way to reaffirm their own biases - which I feel like happens the majority of the time.

When I sit it on interviews for Systems guys, I like to try and ask open ended questions so I can get a feel for the way troubleshoot and their approach to integration. I definitely want to hear that they automate, but don't necessarily care if they are bash/python wizards so long as I get the impression they can figure it out when the time comes.
 
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The_Black_Log Foler

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In regards to interviews, have you guys considered just pointing them to your Github account? "Check out my repos if you want to see my code", and dispense with the stupid code challenges.
Ya I mean I feel like it's standard for them to ask for your GitHub. Whether they view it or not who knows. You kinda have to play by their dumb games.
 

ShakyJake

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Ya I mean I feel like it's standard for them to ask for your GitHub. Whether they view it or not who knows. You kinda have to play by their dumb games.
I forget I'm in a different industry than most of the guys in this thread. We employee full stack web developers, so interview questions revolving around algorithms and such aren't that important. For us, it's mostly about whether you have experience with a particular language + framework, and are familiar with common design patterns. We couldn't care less about white boarding a hash collision algorithm.
 
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TJT

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I forget I'm in a different industry than most of the guys in this thread. We employee full stack web developers, so interview questions revolving around algorithms and such aren't that important. For us, it's mostly about whether you have experience with a particular language + framework, and are familiar with common design patterns. We couldn't care less about white boarding a hash collision algorithm.

Yeah but that strategy has its own pitfalls and retardation. There are so many tools out there for any conceivable purpose. Lots of them are put into the workflow at any given company. It is outright impossible to have encountered and used all of them. One of my friends here wasn't taken on for a senior performance engineering role just because he was not familiar with their monitoring platform. Although he had a ton of experience with three other similar platforms.

I ran into this a lot during my job hunt. I've worked on mostly SQL server when it comes to setting up databases and getting into the nitty gritty of them. However I also have a good amount of experience in Oracle and MySQL. But I've never used PostGres... okay they don't want you just for that. A lot of interviews are like that.

I get that you want someone who can, "hit the ground running" and has extensive knowledge of every piece of your tech stack. But I think that is awfully hard to find in a lot of cases. I was discussing this with a coworker the other day. For the Austin tech market it would be hugely beneficial for you to work at a startup for just a few years. Preferably a startup that is going through rapid iteration and using tech and discarding quickly just to you get hands on with it. After like two years there you'd be in prime position for all kinds of places.
 
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Noodleface

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It's strange too that some companies will send in interviewers that aren't working on the tech you're applying for. I saw this at Akamai where one of my interviewers was on a different team and blasted my C knowledge. Something about how a for loop flattens out and what the values of some read would be. I can't remember but his question irritated me.

Like.. I was applying strictly for a UEFI BIOS position, I know the codebase they're using, I know the tools, everything was identical to my old job - but they brought in this rando to ask me C optimization questions and some multi-threading stuff. Stuff that you can't even do in UEFI BIOS.

My point is, I could show up and there could be 6 dudes from all different parts of the company asking their own canned questions that they think shows a person is capable. Let's not forget that a bunch of these guys have one answer in their mind and it's all they'll accept. I interned on this dude's team for 2 years - I know exactly what they do.. yet I'm nervous I'll be thrown a curve ball.

Maybe I'm stressing too much, or not enough.
 
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Noodleface

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BTW Apologize but pretty sure I brought this topic up 2 years ago... and a year before that
 
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ShakyJake

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Yeah but that strategy has its own pitfalls and retardation. There are so many tools out there for any conceivable purpose. Lots of them are put into the workflow at any given company. It is outright impossible to have encountered and used all of them. One of my friends here wasn't taken on for a senior performance engineering role just because he was not familiar with their monitoring platform. Although he had a ton of experience with three other similar platforms.
We're not that strict. Honestly, all the client-side frameworks follow similar concepts -- such as data binding, HTML templating, communicating with an web API, etc. We never say you HAVE to have experience with Angular, for example. If someone applied that had extensive experience with ReactJS, even though we use Angular, that would be fine since both, conceptually, are very similar.
 

Vinen

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I forget I'm in a different industry than most of the guys in this thread. We employee full stack web developers, so interview questions revolving around algorithms and such aren't that important. For us, it's mostly about whether you have experience with a particular language + framework, and are familiar with common design patterns. We couldn't care less about white boarding a hash collision algorithm.

Full Stack without understanding algorithms? You must be hiring low end people with broad shallow knowledge.
 

ShakyJake

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Full Stack without understanding algorithms? You must be hiring low end people with broad shallow knowledge.
All I'm saying is, we're not white boarding algorithms during our development. So it's not something we focus on during an interview.
 

Lendarios

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just ask them to do a function to tell you if the number is a fibonachi number.

done with all the algorithm questions you need.
 
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The_Black_Log Foler

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Ya throw them Fibonacci, gcd, towers of Hanoi, few string reversals here and there.

All the greatest hits
 
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Noodleface

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Not even a tree traversal or reverse a linked list?

If someone threw me something like a towers of hanoi I'd be a little offended. "I've worked for 7 years and you want me to solve a dumbass puzzle.."
 
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Noodleface

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I just remembered my (not) favorite interview question

Write down your most impressive Linux command
 
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Lendarios

Trump's Staff
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Not even a tree traversal or reverse a linked list?

If someone threw me something like a towers of hanoi I'd be a little offended. "I've worked for 7 years and you want me to solve a dumbass puzzle.."
can you do an implementation of the hanoi algorithm on a white board.

go you have 10 minutes.

We know the algorithm as a human, but representing it in code is a slightly more complicated.


Also another question of the top of my head.

Implement a Sudoku engine.

Go.

I'm an awesome interviewer.!!
 
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