Category: fired/job hunt

Two types of code challenges in hiring interviews.

revivalzzLeave a comment

While trying to land a job, I’ve been thru quite a few code challenges.

I noticed that there are 2 types of challenges.

1/
The company sends you the requirements and you agree to submit the results by a certain date.
– you can have a say about how much time you need to finish the challenge
– usually the challenge is a bit more complex, than just probing to see if you know a certain algorithm
– it allows you to be a bit creative and to build a small domain for the business problem
– you can your favorite/familiar IDE

2/
You get a link to hackerRack, Colidity, Hired, etc,,,
and you have 1/2 hours to solve 2, 3 specific problems

I prefer the 1st type of challenges, and I don’t tend to do very good on the 2nd type of challenges.
And I don’t think stress helps me come up with the optimal solution.

Also I find the 1st type of challenges more similar to everyday real life project problems. Where you receive some business problem and you have to model it into code constructs.

I don’t understand why there is a strict time box to solve the problems. Under strict time-pressure,  it is highly likely that I will miss the best idea for the solution.

It is like asking a chef to prepare a very special meal.
– Do you think that the chef will do his best if you give him just 1 hour to prepare the meal?
– Or do you think the chef will do a better job, if you tell him:
“I would like to have a lunch reservation for tomorrow at 13.00.
Could you please prepare for us this amazing meal by that time?”

[fired/job hunt] Nice feedback in an interview

revivalzzLeave a comment

I got this nice feedback in an interview I had with a company from India.
– they are pretty demanding in terms of code quality(Clean Code, SOLID, TDD), DevOps, FullStack
– so I told them exactly what I know but also where I am lacking

As you can see,
– honesty
– being comfortable and open about what you can and can’t do
seems to be paying off..