Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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qntm: Jun 17, 2009

I'm depressed to say that the joke sorting algorithms (bogosort, quantum bogosort, sleepsort) are the only ones I can remember very well

# ¿ Aug 19, 2011 20:57

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:20

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

tef posted:

goog tend to hammer people about algorithms in the hiring process.

if you want to avoid learning about algorithms, try applying for jobs of 'middleware developer'

I was going to say. Speaking as somebody fitting the latter category, it's surprising how little genuinely advanced and complex code we write :geno:

# ¿ Aug 23, 2011 09:44

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

pr0metheus posted:

Why don't you just go to the interview and ask them a lot of questions about what they do and how they do it.

This is the correct answer. Interviews go both ways.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2011 09:41

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

shrughes posted:

Two people are on a boat. Fred Lowenol falls off. Who is left?

I would also like to know what this is supposed to mean.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2011 10:44

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

TasteMyHouse posted:

Welp, that isn't valid in any language that I know of, sounds like he was just a complete moron.

Works in PHP.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2011 18:35

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

shrughes posted:

pigdog, I'm wondering what you ask when you interview developers.

What, and judge me by my code??? Well, only some code I've written years ago is online, and it's at http://samuelhughes.com . (That's not necessarily my real name, by the way, I registered it so that qntm couldn't have it.)

That's also not necessarily my real name, by the way. :v:

# ¿ Mar 21, 2012 12:59

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

You should all just write perfectly polished code in 1 hour like me :smug:

# ¿ Jul 9, 2012 23:48

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Careful Drums posted:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so let me know.

When is it okay to leave a company? I've been at my first job in a medium sized Microsoft house for a year and a half now. It's not a horrible place, but I'm not learning anything - just triaging old poorly written code. The place doesn't have much longevity either - a huge vb6 legacy with no plans to upgrade. The culture isn't too bad but I somehow find it depressing. The company has a rep for not being able to hold on to young people, as well. It's becoming clear why.

It feels clear that it's not good for my skills or career, and recruiters call me all the time. If I find an offer I like, is it okay/not stupid to take it?

Yes.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2012 20:02

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Ithaqua posted:

Yup, that's why getting some examples along with the correct answer is good. For example:
Interviewer: What's the factory pattern?
Candidate: *blah blah blah correct answer*
Interviewer: Can you give me a simple example of when you'd use a factory pattern?
Candidate: *blank stare or bullshit answer*

I've had candidates able to explain how the .NET GC works in excruciating detail, but couldn't write a for loop.

To be fair, a blank stare is probably the correct answer to that question.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 19:11

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

BirdOfPlay posted:

All this talk of security clearance reminds me of how my grandfather (a career Army officer) had issues when he needed to get his. They don't like it when you don't know what your own first name is...

How did that happen?

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 18:06

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Would you really put "implemented <a specific algorithm>" on a CV? I've always found algorithm implementation fairly easy. A lot of them are even explained in terms of pseudocode.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2013 12:05

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

jiggerypokery posted:

What kinds of things do people recommend talking about if asked to give a 5 minute presentation introducing themselves in front of all the other candidates? Sounds like it could be quite tense, i've never had to do anything like that before.

Never given a serious presentation before? It's easy, 5 minutes is no time at all and 100% of the thing is having confidence, and "myself" is a topic anybody can speak confidently on.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 20:00

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

You dress for the occasion. The interview for the job and the job itself are two different occasions. This applies to the interviewers as well. Where I work it's permanently casual, but when people have to interview new candidates, they wear suits that day.

Also, purely pragmatically, you can take off a suit jacket and tie, untuck the shirt, whatever.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2013 13:52

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

hieronymus posted:

Part of the problem is that it's pretty much totally hopeless to deploy a software product with manual steps involved to an ops person - we attempt to fully automate the develop process so installing a server or the workstation client can be done by anyone with no special training. The problem is that pure operations people will find problems (real or imagined) and start making random changes to stuff like the IIS configuration, and then everything goes to hell. If your product has manual setup steps of any kind to install, it slows down test, it slows down development, and it slows down operations, so the ROI on fully automated deployment is really, really good. If you have two groups, development and operations, they'll just fight with each other because the developers want the general (and lazy) solution and the operations people just want to fix the problem now. With devops, the people installing the product are the people doing the development for the installation, so they have to eat their own dog food, and can incorporate their tribal knowledge fixes into the build script rather than trying to communicate findings to a different group and go through all sorts of red-tape.

quote:

"Our build process is manual. If you need one done, email us." *sets up an automated daily build request email* #solved

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 22:38

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Sab669 posted:

Just got "stood up" for a phone interview with a company for the second day in a row, now. Found word of the job through a staffing agency. Is there a tactful way I can tell the recruiter, "I understand people are busy and can't always make agreed upon dates, but gently caress this company, what else do you have for me?"

The only draw to this job was the salary, as they primarily work with Sharepoint which...well I think speaks for itself.

This is going back a way, but are you sure they have the right phone number?

# ¿ May 22, 2013 09:33

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

I mean, the job and the interview are two separate events with differing dress codes. Day to day work may be shorts and flip-flops for candidate and interviewer alike, but an interview is serious business.

# ¿ May 24, 2013 20:55

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

As opposed to what? Just letting anybody commit whatever? :psyduck:

# ¿ Jun 17, 2013 14:02

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

feedmegin posted:

Yes, this is pretty much standard in the UK too - 3 month probationary period during which you can be given 1 week's notice, and after that it's 1 month's notice and they have to have a good reason (I think it generally tends to go up the longer you've worked somewhere too).

Very different from what I experienced in the US (edit: specifically Michigan) where it's 2 weeks' notice all the time any time for any reason.

I thought in the US you could be fired without notice for no reason?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2013 14:29

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Jsor posted:

The job posting specifically said they were looking for people with no prior experience in the field.

But you guys are right, I'm really too much of a blithering idiot for CS. A friend of a friend who works there apparently said the interviewer did recommend me for another interview (my friend wanted them to ask for me for some reason), but I haven't heard for weeks. Still I just sent a followup email saying that I'm too stupid to work there. I'm going to go try and get a job at a department store, maybe they're hiring for Christmas now. Sorry for wasting everyone's time.

Everybody starts out as too much of a blithering idiot for CS, but you're setting new records.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 14:15

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

2banks1swap.avi posted:

I highly recommend making your local wildlife fat and happy for your own mental health to all developers here.

We do this, but our local wildlife is just other developers. There's a ridiculous amount of cake in our department.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 22:36

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Splurgerwitzl posted:

Do you guys like your jobs? Did many of you go to a 4-year school while working? I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. I need a career and programming seems appealing. I know very little about coding but it seems like an intellectually interesting and comfortable job that won't break my body.

On the other hand my dad is a software programmer and he's not too happy. Works at home though so I don't see what he has to complain about, other than me.

The biggest complaint I have at my job is that I wouldn't, in all honesty, buy the software we sell. Everything else is great - pay, benefits, huge flexibility in working hours and holidays, the option to work from home, the working environment, the colleagues. It's a pretty good sector.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 21:37

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

JawnV6 posted:

But the cobbler's children never had shoes

I don't know what you mean by this.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 01:34

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

down with slavery posted:

Honestly if you went through an entire CS degree and can't program in a professional capacity you've probably got way bigger problems than finding a job.

Computer science and software development are very different things, and a "CS degree" can lean very strongly towards the former and be of no help at all for the latter.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 23:46

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Coca Koala posted:

I have never heard of this problem before but I have experienced it several times. After the third time, I made a rule that any time I ask somebody for help, I need to explicitly describe the general problem I'm trying to solve, the things I've tried but haven't worked, and the current solution I'm working on. This serves several purposes: if the person I'm asking for help doesn't have time to listen to all of that, then they're too busy working on something and I shouldn't be bothering them asking them for help. Also, it demonstrates that I've put a modicum of thought into the problem and have tried several things, which haven't worked for explicit reasons. And finally, laying it all out in the open helps bump me out of the rabbit hole where I find a solution that's almost right but not quite, try to fix it with a solution that's almost right but not quite, try to fix it with a solution that's almost right but not quite, etc ad nauseum. There have been several times when I've called my dad to say "So here's this thing I'm working on. I'm having trouble with FOO; my current train of thought is that I can do BAR, but that has GAF problem and so I've been working on ZAP and oh my god I'm an idiot, I should just try LIP instead" and he'll say "Yeah, that sounds about right. Call me back if you have more problems; I love you!"

This is called rubber duck debugging. The "rubber duck" is the person you explain the problem to, and doesn't necessarily have to be animate. :eng101:

quote:

So anyways, thanks for bringing the xy problem to my attention.

More recently I've started running into the XX problem, whereby the person answering the question second-guesses what you're asking for because they think they know what you're trying to do better than you do, but don't. Either they fail to answer the question ("Why would you want to do that?" which is usually code for "I don't know how to do that") or they give the correct answer to a different question.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 12:00

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

astr0man posted:

Is this normal in the UK? And even if it is, what actually happens if you say "I'm leaving in 2 weeks deal with it"

It's not particularly incongruous for the UK. Remember it works both ways, your employer would probably need to provide a similar amount of notice before terminating you.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 15:50

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Whatever Glassdoor says, and whatever the pay in London or SF is like, you should be able to do better than �16k in a developer job without moving an inch. That's preposterously low for any job which actually involves the writing of code.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2014 11:52

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

VisAbsoluta posted:

How much of a correlation is there on "being good at math" and "being good at programming"?

perfectfire posted:

Computer science is math.

Computer science is far more closely related to mathematics than it is to the actual practice of writing computer programs for, like, work.

But anyway, as a major point, mathematics trains you to be constantly thinking about edge cases - if a proof doesn't work in every case then it doesn't work, and similarly if a function can't handle every possible combination of inputs then the function is defective. Hopefully this leads to relatively robust code, attention to detail, sound program designs, a good eye for defects, good unit test coverage, etc.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2014 20:23

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

There are lots of things between "startup" and "Google/Amazon", it's just that they don't tend to make as many headlines.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 14:53

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

It's having a strong "at 5:01pm I stop working and go home" mindset, and relatively little inclination towards overtime or weekend work, even paid. Work/life balance, in other words.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 15:48

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Claim you're not hungry, then beg or steal the interviewer's fries.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2015 18:13

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

kuf posted:

Lately I've been feeling like I want to do test. Am I crazy?

Speaking as someone who spent several years in test, got sick of it and left, I am eternally grateful for the people who enjoy that role and are happy to stay in it.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 13:18

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Or you could just stop taking all those illegal drugs :rolleyes:

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 19:35

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Jsor posted:

Show up to all interviews nude

You can't be wearing the wrong thing if you're wearing nothing, I always say.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 15:58

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Tao Jones posted:

Take your dress cues from the organization. If they asked for a coding ninja in their job postings, show up in all black with a facemask and shuriken at the ready. This will prove that you're willing to get to work assassinating your new daimyo's enemies immediately.

Or, don't show up, but claim you did show up and went completely undetected through the entire interview.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 18:35

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

I had a phone interview today.

Holy poo poo writing code on the fly over the phone is loving hard, worst of all when you're told to write a recursive function and you've used recursion maybe once or twice in projects. I got it mostly right but still, I struggled to clearly explain it properly and he had to explain the solution properly at the end (which was mostly mine but still, my struggle probably reflected poorly on me).

What, narrating braces and parentheses? That's an absurd way to test coding ability.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 10:32

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

sarehu posted:

This is an easy problem that tests your ability to write some basic for loops. If you have trouble with this sort of thing you need to get better at programming.

What's your solution?

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 02:48

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Sarcophallus posted:

Source control has basically nothing to do with Computer Science.

Sure, in the same way that lecture theatres, teachers, textbooks and the entire physical universe have nothing to do with CS. If you are writing any amount of code for academia, source control is a critical tool for your work.

kitten smoothie posted:

I strongly disagree with this. Hell, I know a guy who's pulling down probably a million bucks a year on mobile apps and his self-admitted version control strategy is Foo.java.bak.

Some of the arguments for source control become weaker if you're working on your own, you're working solely with your own code, you're (by definition) working on one thing at a time, and you can keep the way everything works in your head all at once.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 20:41

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Plorkyeran posted:

Neither of these are true. I can obviously only be literally typing code for one thing at a time, but it's not at all unusual for me to have multiple feature branches in progress at once, or for me to put whatever it was I was working on on hold while I fix a bug which I stumbled across.

And you use source control, right? Because otherwise this becomes a dangerous mental juggling act?

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 22:52

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

Infinotize posted:

I've never found this to be true. At my current and past job some of the most valuable people have hour+ commutes and have been around at least a couple of years. Ruling people out because of their commute is foolish if the candidate is mature and capable. Maybe worth a quick "Have you ever had to handle a long commute in the past" question and look out for red flags, but I don't see value in reading into it past that.

Another point, what business is it of the interviewer where the candidate lives?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 12:50

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:20

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

"This is not a problem if you have a good software design" doesn't strike me as a great way to argue that something is not a problem.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2016 00:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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