Current Events > currently interviewing someone for a programmer jerb

(+) Yeah! (+)

holy fuck this is awful.

was told it was going to be a coding test interview, he has no environment setup so he's coding in notepad now. A question that normally takes people 5-10 minutes took him 25. Then was asked a question about arrays and made a dictionary for some reason. When asked how to improve the efficiency of his solution he split the array and just looped through both arrays instead of one.

dude wants $120k/yr.

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Can you post the questions here? Im just curious to know how Id do.

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FizzBuzz, loop from 1-100, print fizz if divisible by 3, buzz if divisible by 5, fizzbuzz if both. Any competent programmer should come up with the brute force solution quickly, then I'll ask them what efficiency they can do. This one I don't really care if you can make it more efficient or not, it just let's me see your thought process. I usually don't have them code an alternate solution unless their alternate isn't better and I want to see if they'll realize it on their own. Plus this is a pretty common interview question and if they prepared they might already have a solution worked out. there's a million and one answers.

Second is 'magic index'. If an array A[n] determine if the array contains a magic index where A[i] = i. The array is an ordered list of distinct integers. Again brute force is very simple, so the follow up is a way to make more efficient.


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Those are very common basic programming questions for interviews, it's probably not a good sign if he fumbled them. I guess he was nervous......but still

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Where do you work? I'd do that for $10/hr or so.

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Wetterdew posted...

Those are very common basic programming questions for interviews, it's probably not a good sign if he fumbled them. I guess he was nervous......but still

Or unqualified lol

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Is this Python?

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shouldn't a first year student be able to pass the first part easily

ChocoboMogALT posted...

Where do you work? I'd do that for $10/hr or so.

10$? lmao where do YOU live? Janitors make more than that

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A guy interviewed at my place for a senior network engineer position and was asked how many IP addresses are in a Class C IPv4 address and after thinking about it very hard for 5 minutes he says "about 150"

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Pome posted...

shouldn't a first year student be able to pass the first part easily

yes. Which is the point of it. I don't like the 'brain puzzle' questions that used to dominate programming interviews. It's meant to be a very simple question that you can come up with an elegant answer to.

LastTomorrow posted...

Is this Python?

the jerb is .net core and angular, but neither of these questions are dependent on any language. the last question would have been in angular and basically just showing me that you can consume a rest api in angular as an 'open internet' question. But when we already spent an hour on the first 2 I wasn't wasting my time any further on it.

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I Like Toast posted...

When asked how to improve the efficiency of his solution he split the array and just looped through both arrays instead of one.

Tbf I think he had the right idea with splitting the array and then probably just couldn't think through the exact logic of how to do it on the spot with interview pressure and so iterated through because he couldn't think of what else to do.

I just threw together an 'efficient' solution for magic index by repeatedly splitting the array until it either finds the magic index or has confirmed there is no magic index in Python and reckon I'm doing it in 2^x >= N where x is the number of iterations, e.g. an array of length 100000 requires 17 iterations. I'd be interested to see if there's a better option than that.

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(I assumed also that the integers can be negative. If it's positive integers only then it can be done with one operation guaranteed.)

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Tyranthraxus posted...

A guy interviewed at my place for a senior network engineer position and was asked how many IP addresses are in a Class C IPv4 address and after thinking about it very hard for 5 minutes he says "about 150"

For us non nerds, how many is it really?

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I Like Toast posted...

FizzBuzz, loop from 1-100, print fizz if divisible by 3, buzz if divisible by 5, fizzbuzz if both. Any competent programmer should come up with the brute force solution quickly, then I'll ask them what efficiency they can do. This one I don't really care if you can make it more efficient or not, it just let's me see your thought process. I usually don't have them code an alternate solution unless their alternate isn't better and I want to see if they'll realize it on their own. Plus this is a pretty common interview question and if they prepared they might already have a solution worked out. there's a million and one answers.

Second is 'magic index'. If an array A[n] determine if the array contains a magic index where A[i] = i. The array is an ordered list of distinct integers. Again brute force is very simple, so the follow up is a way to make more efficient.

i can do this in excel lol

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LazLemon posted...

Tbf I think he had the right idea with splitting the array and then probably just couldn't think through the exact logic of how to do it on the spot with interview pressure and so iterated through because he couldn't think of what else to do.

I just threw together an 'efficient' solution for magic index by repeatedly splitting the array until it either finds the magic index or has confirmed there is no magic index in Python and reckon I'm doing it in 2^x >= N where x is the number of iterations, e.g. an array of length 100000 requires 17 iterations. I'd be interested to see if there's a better option than that.

The efficient solution is to do a binary search.

Check A[len / 2] - len / 2 and recursively refine from there. If positive you need to go backwards. If negative you need to go forwards. If 0 you found the magic index.

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Makeveli_lives posted...

For us non nerds, how many is it really?

Short answer is 256.

Slightly longer answer is 0 is the network and 255 is the broadcast so really only 254 addressable ips but if you fart out some number greater than 249 and less than 260 I'd probably accept it anyway.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

The efficient solution is to do a binary search.

yup, no one pays attention to the ordered and distinct bit. if anyone actually got the answer in a reasonable time (not a big deal to me, again i'm more so just looking to for how you think) the follow would be how does the solution change if the numbers are not distinct.

the most common answer i get is to check from both ends, few seem to pick up on conditions that let you immediately determine if there is no magic index which is usually what i'll hint them towards.

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Both are easy, I mean fizzbizz is trivial not really sure how you can optimize it since you need to output for every number but w.e.

Magic index is probably on the easier side, maybe an easy medium level question..

They say that most candidates can't code out of a paper bag tho, and tbh is asking leetcode questions when you're not a major tech company really the best way to screen a candidate? you should give a code snippet with bugs and ask what's wrong and how to improve

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Unless you told him that his own laptop was being used for the coding then that's on you
But yeah those are somewhat standard programming questions in interviews so I dunno what to tell you
Did he have 'bootcamp' as a qualification or something

Nyst be a government job or a former government employee

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nothanks1 posted...

Unless you told him that his own laptop was being used for the coding then that's on you

he was told to ensure he has his environment set up and to be able to setup a new angular app.
IllegalAlien posted...

and tbh is asking leetcode questions when you're not a major tech company really the best way to screen a candidate?

neither of these are 'leetcode' one is can you actually write code and listen to instructions (many do 0-99 instead of 1-100), the second is we found the app is running slow, how can we improve the logic. Brute force is fine 99% of the time in real world situations, sometimes it's not and we need to be able to re-work the logic. In neither case am I evaluating the efficiency of their solution compared to others, it's entirely trying to get to do they think out their answers. Even if they come up with a wrong answer, seeing them realize it's a wrong answer is good to me. Especially in the WFH world we're in where I need to trust they're going to be reasonably efficient with their time.


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I Like Toast posted...

he was told to ensure he has his environment set up and to be able to setup a new angular app.

Gotta love when interviewees can't follow instructions

I Like Toast posted...

he was told to ensure he has his environment set up and to be able to setup a new angular app.

neither of these are 'leetcode' one is can you actually write code and listen to instructions (many do 0-99 instead of 1-100), the second is we found the app is running slow, how can we improve the logic. Brute force is fine 99% of the time in real world situations, sometimes it's not and we need to be able to re-work the logic. In neither case am I evaluating the efficiency of their solution compared to others, it's entirely trying to get to do they think out their answers. Even if they come up with a wrong answer, seeing them realize it's a wrong answer is good to me. Especially in the WFH world we're in where I need to trust they're going to be reasonably efficient with their time.

fizzbuzz isn't leetcode b/c it's the basic filter, but magic index or w.e. certainly is. modified binary search problems are common nowadays... if you actually took the effort to wrap magic index around a real world problem then good job, but it's still a leetcode problem when you ask to go from O(n) to O(nlgn) and the solution is modified binary search........

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IllegalAlien posted...

modified binary search problems are common nowadays.

which is the point. Asking him to understand business logic that even if i hired him I wouldn't expect him to grasp for another 3-6 months is a pretty shit interview process. They aren't complicated gotcha questions that leetcode questions are trying to do. It's, I know if you're looking for a job you googled common interview questions, so, can you do them. If you aren't familiar with programming basics, you aren't going to use them when they're appropriate to use.

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Modified binary search problems are common leetcode problems which are asked nowadays. I can ask you an arbitrarily tricky modified binary search problem, and when you fail it I can just chalk it up to weak fundamentals right?

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IllegalAlien posted...

arbitrarily tricky

Let me know when that clicks with you.

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you're the one crying about your poor interviewing practice not me, keep asking people who don't grind leetcode problems leetcode problems and then cry when you can't find an Angular CRUD developer lol

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bye bye troll

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Ew, working for Toast

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I Like Toast posted...

dude wants $120k/yr.

lmfao

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Hire me. I just learned that at my CC 2 years ago.

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damn toast, are you a hiring manager?

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Slaya4 posted...

Hire me. I just learned that at my CC 2 years ago.

we're making an offer to someone next week, who came through a recruiter. so just have to get my boss to approve the spend. I did employ an ex-cemen before though.

Parappa09 posted...

damn toast, are you a hiring manager?

I'm 'director of development', we had someone take another job so have to fill it so i can keep playing video games instead of real work. I haven't had to interview anyone in about a year, though I'm hoping towards the end of the year we can grow the team.

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I Like Toast posted...

I'm 'director of development', we had someone take another job so have to fill it so i can keep playing video games instead of real work. I haven't had to interview anyone in about a year, though I'm hoping towards the end of the year we can grow the team.

thats p cool

what type of roles do you look hiring for at for your company? just programming or more?

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yeah programmers or sql/report writers would be where i'd get involved.

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I Like Toast posted...

yeah programmers or sql/report writers would be where i'd get involved.

I one time accidentally told people I can make reports now it's all I do.

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if i never have to touch crystal reports in my life, i will be slightly happier.

We're migrating everything over to power bi right now, hoping to have that finished in the next 6 months.

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randy_123r posted...

And if you did, these questions are straight forward.

yup, i only care if you can do the brute force. Then I'm just checking the thought process. They aren't meant to be tricky gotcha's, just are you going to stop and listen to the question. the third question which is more real world (build an angular app that uses itune api to search) which is where i put the most weight on.

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I Like Toast posted...

FizzBuzz, loop from 1-100, print fizz if divisible by 3, buzz if divisible by 5, fizzbuzz if both. Any competent programmer should come up with the brute force solution quickly, then I'll ask them what efficiency they can do. This one I don't really care if you can make it more efficient or not, it just let's me see your thought process. I usually don't have them code an alternate solution unless their alternate isn't better and I want to see if they'll realize it on their own. Plus this is a pretty common interview question and if they prepared they might already have a solution worked out. there's a million and one answers.

Second is 'magic index'. If an array A[n] determine if the array contains a magic index where A[i] = i. The array is an ordered list of distinct integers. Again brute force is very simple, so the follow up is a way to make more efficient.

I'd be pretty insulted if these were the questions I was asked to interview for a 6 figure position.

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employee: do you have a bachelor's degree?

interviewee: no

employee: there's the door

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Frostshock posted...

I'd be pretty insulted if these were the questions I was asked to interview for a 6 figure position.

Then you can feel free to decline an offer

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I Like Toast posted...

holy fuck this is awful.

was told it was going to be a coding test interview, he has no environment setup so he's coding in notepad now. A question that normally takes people 5-10 minutes took him 25. Then was asked a question about arrays and made a dictionary for some reason. When asked how to improve the efficiency of his solution he split the array and just looped through both arrays instead of one.

dude wants $120k/yr.

Thats the going rate for an average code monkey these days.

The elite ones go to work for Big Tech for compensation packages (including stocks) over $500K/year. Which is kind of a waste of talent because Big Tech produces nothing but spyware, but people chase money...

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