Math Learn Direct Safety Mathlearndirect B Math Learn Direct Math Math Learn Direct Math Learn Direct Szh 1 Math Learn Direct Why we don't hire programmers based on puzzles, API quizzes, math riddles, or other parlor tricks - (37signals)

I am puzzled a program, 22/7 upto to 300 decimal point

Nonsense post… but comments worth reading..

I had this kind of experience once, and I still think it was pointless. When I myself had to the opportunity of hiring people, I asked about software engineering fundamentals, using a written test, which I think allows people to develop their thoughts with more freedom and confidence. But these discussions make me think about how we write code and what one really needs to be a good developer. And I still think this type of puzzle-based selection is shallow and empty. Maybe a good practice to feed an image of “coolness” for the kind of company that values this.

I see these situations in reverse: Companies who demand these idiotic questions are not worth working for, and as soon as one hears such a thing, one should just pack-up and leave. Pronto.

We use Simple white board code questions as a filter. We start with trivial tasks, and add constraints.

Understand that it’s just one tool in the interview. But it is a filter. If you can’t do the basics….

If you cannot nail reversing a string, and then show the changes required to make the code more general (templates, or for other problems, delegates, using interfaces) then you don’t pass the filter.

It does not matter if you remember the exact syntax or function names, that’s what resharper / is for. But if you start having loops within loops to reverse a string, the interview will be politely short. (this happened!)

Again, it’s one tool. Show us you know the basics, and show us how you deal with addition constraints.

Then we move on. What have you worked on, what part did you play in that, tell us about etc etc etc

I have had “senior engineers” who could not cope with these simple tasks on a white board.

“Trick puzzles” mostly tell you if the candidate has read up on the trick puzzles web site.

I had a job interview which started off with 20 questions. Around question #15, I was not familiar with the topic he asked about, so we continued on. After we finished, he told that I was one of the few that got #15: he made it up. He said he would get all sorts of answers to a question where the premise didn’t even exist.

I have had my ‘more-than-I-deserve’ share of nightmarish experience related to puzzle solving, and text-book questions in interviews. I have had an interviewer ask me, “In 19xx, a famous computer scientist design a algorithm that changed the world of computing. I want you to write that algorithm on this whiteboard”. WTF ? Really?

I have been known for delivering quality products, and always on-time. I don’t memorize algorithms – that’s what is for to be honest. And then they teach us in CS-101; “Do not reinvent the wheel”.

I don’t need to solve puzzles that are more mathematic in nature than they are analytic. I don’t mind discussing, and solving a real world problem. In fact in one of the best interviews I have had, the interviewer gave me a laptop with bunch of IDEs, SDKs installed, and with full internet access. He gave me 3 different problems to solve, and just watched me while I was at it. He saw me refer for some weirdish APIs that take 11 different parameters, he saw me design the solution on a piece of scratch paper, he saw me write code, and he saw me solve the problems.

Next, he took me to his cube. Showed me some code, told me the problem he is having, and asked me how would I go upon fixing it. As we were talking, he followed what I was saying, and changed the code accordingly. He ran it on the debugger, found some issues, and then we discussed how to fix those issues. Not saying I fixed his bug, but he got a taste of how I work in the real world, he got a feel for whether or not I will fit in his team.

With such an interview, even if you don’t get the job (by the way, I did get it), you don’t feel too bad. You feel you were given a fair chance of demonstrating what you know best.

As opposed to the interviews I have had at Amazon, Microsoft, and other such technical giants who ask weird algorithms, puzzles, and 1970s stuff, I’ll take a”close-to-real-world” interview setup anyday.

I don’t mind doing a simple quiz but I have been to interviews where they ask you how you would solve a business problem that are currently having. You don’t get the job but a few weeks later you see that they have solve the problem.

I recently had my first interview in about 14 years. It was for a SysAdmin position at a Game Dev. company.

I am a SysAdmin by trade, and a midnight programmer for myself.

My interview was at 10AM on a Monday. The first thing that happened was I was given a chair in a public hallway (next to the reception desk, where people had to walk around me) and 10 minutes to answer like 10 questions.

Mind twisting, ‘trick’ questions that if you don’t know the trick, you’re not going to get answers in less than 10 minutes.

Anyhow, I bombed. My mind was prepped into ‘people-person’ mode, which takes a lot of effort for a computer geek. :) I wasn’t expecting a (ridiculous) logic quiz for a network/system administrator position.

WHY OH WHY would you put someone in that kind of pressure situation without a least a bit of warning?

In the end, after an interview that involved me explaining how DNS works, followed by being asked way too many questions about my opinion on programming languages, and which software projects I had completed, I’m glad I didn’t get it.

It was apparent they didn’t really know what they were looking for, or at lest they were advertising something different than what they wanted.

Their answers to my basic inquiries about the status of their network and data didn’t instill a feeling of them wanting to do anything different/better: “We keep our data backups in a vault in the basement, and that’s all we need”.

@txklgr: Have to agree with you, except for the part where you “flamed” all the others for being copy-and-pasters ;-)

I don’t think that funny quizzes and tricky questions are needed to get into a discussion that reveals technical expertise. I try to make it sounds like child’s play, because that is what brings nothing.

Its the same with interviewers that try their best to get you to show weaknesses and flaws. Interviews should be about getting to know each other, and i don’t think that can be done by asking funny questions and doing psychological tricks.

Your’e right about the technical discussions, but technical detail discussions don’t require parlor tricks.

I’m not a fan of puzzles or brain teasers in interviews. I like the quick preliminary phone interview to see if communication skills are ok and also any red flags for strange personality or attitude issues (mesh factor is important to me). I like to ask a few technical questions in the preliminary phone interview as well but not dive too deep until it is determined they are worthy of in person interview. Once in person then ask a broad range of technical questions (troubleshooting performance issues, language features, database skills, etc) but also get into specific tool issues. I mean we as developers use tools and I expect them to know the difference between pressing F10 vs F11 when debugging in Visual Studio!

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