Originally posted here
I studied computer science at Stanford. You probably would’ve expected me to be swimming in job offers. In my sophomore yea...
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Who really wants to work for a company that asks you to whiteboard basic CS nonsense that you can google in less than a minute? That's a sure sign that the people who hire you are in no way connected to the people you will work with, because those people would have questions actually relevant to the job. I got my degree, but if a company asks me to balance a tree on a whiteboard for the interview, I leave. There might be some positions where such knowledge is actually what you do every day (if you like that kind of stuff), but for most jobs it's not worth your time: Nice to have seen it once, but if you don't remember it, who cares?
I agree and disagree - I agree that whiteboard interviews are usually useless, but I don't agree that it's a sign the people giving the interview aren't the people you'll work with.
A lot of the places I've worked, the technical people brought in to give interviews alongside HR or management have no idea what they should be asking, and so instead of asking the sort of questions they'd have liked to have themselves, they fall back on generic whiteboard or tech test questions because they think that's what everyone else is doing.
It's not necessarily a deal-breaker for me, but it would make me super-probey when they get to the "do you have any questions for us" part of the day.
Ok, agreed. Been there, done that, when someone asked us to create a meaningful coding test. Personally, we didn't go for whiteboard tests, but our idea wasn't that much better ;-)
Sometimes it's more about seeing someone's problem solving skills or how they approach a problem than the problem or solution.
I do agree that problems like these do not reflect what majority of the job will be after getting hired. This is especially true for SDM's who are getting asked to do this type of interviews.
Yaaas. All of this.
Technical interviews are a very cold-damp-intimidating space. There's so many bad practices that can come out of left field, (thank god riddle problems are dying).
But treating it as a skill is 100% great advice. I'm glad you didn't give up and kept at it.
Congrats!
This is why I wrote this:
linkedin.com/pulse/bs-hr-part-1-st...
They interview developers as if it was "Who wants to be a billionaire" show.
Talking out loud when practicing something you have to talk out loud for is seriously underrated. Yes it feels awkward, but it will multiply the effectiveness of your practice.
Welcome to Amazon :D
Reminds me of university, where I learned how to do exams. In the end I was good at exams and not at the job I wanted to do, lol
I should have read something like this months ago. Congratulations for you new work!!!.
@reggylong can you name the authors of this books, i found a few books entitled 'Cracking the Coding Interview'. Thanks.
The author is Gayle Laakmann McDowell.
Congrats and thanks for sharing!
Well done sir :)
I'm still amazed that the technical interview thing is such a hurdle in some places and I wonder to which extent it's a cultural thing.
That's right, there's nothing wrong with you. It's just another problem to solve. Great job and congratulations! Welcome to Amazon! 😊
Great work and well done. Thanks for sharing.
Congrats. Your hard work paid off. I have used Leetcode. This post is an inspiring, resourceful and practical life experience. Thanks.
I struggle in these type of situations... thanks for the valuable advice, gives me some hope!