> I brought in a guy that hadn’t programmed professionally in years, in fact he didn’t even have programming on the first page of his resume. However, he had been practicing while looking for a job and he rocked my programming interview. He reasoned through the problem, wrote the code, it ran perfectly the first time. I hired him.
And yet, I have a computer science master with an 8.1 (equivalent to a 4.0 GPA) and companies like Spotify/Google won't even give me a chance to do an automated online coding test.
> One other thing: if I ask for a program sample ahead of an interview, don’t even think about sending in code that doesn’t include unit tests.
I haven't learned about testing in school or at my previous jobs or freelance gigs. Where's a good place to practice it? I mean, I know what assert does and all but I don't have a strong mentality to write a unit test, unless I'm writing code that is finicky like a Red Black tree, then I do write some tests.
I hate these snarky posts, because I don't even get to an interview. In all fairness, maybe I shouldn't apply to A-tier companies such as:
- Google
- Facebook
- Spotify
- Digital McKinsey (I did some business studies back in the day)
Shout out to Optiver and OpenAI for giving me a chance though. Optiver made me realize I needed to brush up on my algorithms in the first place. OpenAI made me realize that I need to brush up on my math.
> but there ain't no way I'm writing unit tests for a throw away coding exercise
I would, if whoever gave the exercise told me they want unit tests.
Not telling that, and then failing people for the lack of tests is fucking stupid imo. At that point it's just rejecting them for not having the right (secret) religion.
Just writing a unit test for an existing code would actually tell a lot more about the applicant's skills than a coding interview with vi. Or a task like "here is 100 lines of code, there is a bug there, show me how would you look for it". I wish more companies were doing these kind of coding tasks. Instead, all we get where I come from is "write a simple todo list application in your free time".
And yet, I have a computer science master with an 8.1 (equivalent to a 4.0 GPA) and companies like Spotify/Google won't even give me a chance to do an automated online coding test.
> One other thing: if I ask for a program sample ahead of an interview, don’t even think about sending in code that doesn’t include unit tests.
I haven't learned about testing in school or at my previous jobs or freelance gigs. Where's a good place to practice it? I mean, I know what assert does and all but I don't have a strong mentality to write a unit test, unless I'm writing code that is finicky like a Red Black tree, then I do write some tests.
I hate these snarky posts, because I don't even get to an interview. In all fairness, maybe I shouldn't apply to A-tier companies such as:
- Google
- Facebook
- Spotify
- Digital McKinsey (I did some business studies back in the day)
Shout out to Optiver and OpenAI for giving me a chance though. Optiver made me realize I needed to brush up on my algorithms in the first place. OpenAI made me realize that I need to brush up on my math.