Delete comment from: Stevey's Blog Rants
Not everyone has or cares to have either the memory for, not the intense interest in computer science that you have. Respectfully, some of us just want to have fun doing your job, while we have other interests in life. Believe me, there are things out there to spend a lot of time on. Plenty.
What is striking me funny these days, as I reflect on technical interviews, and after being in the industry for 10 years, is the lack of simplicity: why not just ask people what they have done, look at their code, go over it with them, look at their implemented architectures, go over it with them? Ask them where they were, who they worked with, who they are. Nobody ever asks me these questions, the human ones. Believe me, you are going to locate a lot more smart people that way. As it is, you are going to end up with a lot of extreme geeks. Maybe that works for you.
While I was at Amazon, I was astounded to watch technical interviews done by my peers, and listen to their philosophies, or lack thereof. It was like some big hazing episode. And, yes, I've experienced it first hand too. I've been insulted to have to answer questions that have and won't ever have anything to do with anything I will ever do. Like data structures for multi-dimensional tic-tac-toe, that one wins the cake, from the morons Speakeasy. I think I'm glad I got fazed out.
My claim to fame is I never asked an interview question that did not have to do directly with what the team was doing everyday. And I kept it simple. None of this is very hard really, sorry to disappoint those of you out there that think you're really some hot stuff. My mother could do what I do, if she cared to. Fact it, most people don't want to.
The truth is, you people don't want to look at what people have done, because you don't have the time. Or you just don't want to bother. And you can't think outside the box and be real. So what do you do? What's been done to you: what your professors did. Same old sad story. Btw, there are other teaching and assessment methods out there. You might want to write a paper on that and get your head out of your algobook. No one cares.
Aug 17, 2008, 10:55:00 PM
Posted to Get that job at Google