Jimmy, and other “i have a degree and even I can’t answer all those” chaps: I have no degree and no formal education in programming at all and I can. I think one of the schools this process is designed to filter is the school that thinks academic certification is strongly correlated to true programming ability.
After I finished your test, I’d ask when do I take the personality test, the IQ test, the drug test and the physical…
I would love to have had an interview involving those questions! Never happened though…
If he is saying humans have ten fingers and work in base ten, then a computer should have two fingers, not one, in the analogy.
That depends if you consider “zero” a finger or not, I guess.
Hi Jeff,
Am pretty sure the Original Joke is:
Why do Programmers get Halloween and Christmas confused ?
dec(25) = oct(31)
Anyways, I would fair pretty well at this interview … What money would you be expecting in the US for these skills? I’m in NZ and the money ain’t good
Funny quote: As Steve says, “Computers don’t have ten fingers, they have one. So people need to know this stuff.”
If he is saying humans have ten fingers and work in base ten, then a computer should have two fingers, not one, in the analogy.
It’s sad that his point about learning tricks in other bases is screwed up in the quote he wanted to make memorable
Briefly, the -E flag in the post is redundent to the -a flag. Rsync will likely fail to get crucial operating system files backed up and restored, especially while the OS is live.
Jeff, you intuitively went for a much wiser strategy. There are linux equivalents, but the method given is not one of them.
crap, that was meant for your backup post
Sorry to burst your buble, but this kind of interview is why so many companies are full of mediocres, morons and imbeciles. Any monkey on drugs can rebember a few technical solutions. If your company is structured where there is a clear distintion of who is a n analyst, designer and coder, then with this questions you are hiring coders that will putcode before anything else and are incapable of thinking, just on following code specifications written by thinkers.
Last company I worked was full of this kind of people, I call them “Russian Scientist”, the ones that will write a solution because is theirs, instead of google one, or buy one cuz is someone else’s.
Once we changed our interview process to get the thinking man, the one that understand there is more than one way to skin a cat and that after all we are solving an information problem, not trying to probe 1+1 = 2, the pipeline of issues really cleared out and we had more time to do more coding tht meant something to the bottom line of he company.
I have never been one to ask low–level questions of an Interviewee. What I usually look for is:
What experience do they have? What types of projects have they worked on? What type of problems have they solved, and how? What environment are they comfortable working in? Will they fit in with our team? Do they exhibit passion for their trade? Do they keep abreast of the latest technologies?
I usually ask a few technology or framework specific questions, however nothing so low–level.
Personally, if I were on an interview and were asked the types of questions you have listed here, I would be deeply offended. That would be a deal–breaker for me. I would leave the interview right there; short of telling the Interviewer to K.M.A. You may think this is a somewhat prima donna reaction. However, I did not spend 14 years building up my reputation, project portfolio, and satisfied client list to be treated like a recent college graduate.
Of course, in reality, I do not have traditional interviews anyway. It’s usually a business lunch meeting.
stumbled through, read the article, wanted to say great job, it was a good read, and I’m sure to save it. thanks again!
Appreciate it. Shaken how I have forgotten my fundamentals. Agreed we don’t work on stuff that involves shifting bits. Also agreed that we need to have a strong fundamental base and cannot justify forgetting them, even when you are only studying newer technologies every day. And also agreed that it is impossible to do so and it would take a constant super human effort to do so.
But hey… who said engineering was an easy 9-5 job.
messin’ up is fine… not making an effort, not accepting the screw up or trying to justify your failure is what is unacceptable.
Kudos Jeff…!!! I love this one…
Been interviewing software engineers for 16 years. My experience as an employer has led me recently to the same strategy as Jeff. I now believe and test for:
- Coding skills with simple loops and a bit of algorithm
- its amazing how many “programmers” can’t code even this well
- Some scripting
- anything really in any script language
- Design
- User interface or API or OO, anything
- A passion about something related to work
- a project, a technology, hardware, anything
In my experience, only someone who has all 4 is a really useful developer as opposed to a coder or an architect or an “information guy”.
I had a phone interview with Disney, and I missed nothing - they mostly asked the same questions they had already asked me in written form before the phone screen! But after the interview I never heard a word from them - and they ignored all my emails voice mails. What a bunch of douches.
These are smart advices on how to conduct an interview over the phone but I disagree with all the questioning, it is a real torture for the candidate.
I have 7 years experience, and from time to time, I forget things.
Ask me about data structures now, I would be less knowledgeable than i was 3 years ago for instance.
I refuse an interview where i know i will have to answer 50 questions about this and that.
I do not know if you guys do realize that we have left high school ages ago, and it is a real pity and a misery to have to study again, and prepare answers.
What is this exactly ? Do we really need to be super geeks and super intelligent to get a job now ?
I understand why there are so few women in IT when i see how boring the recruitment process can be.
i totally agree with chachaching.
This blog is a joke and i really do not thank you for giving such advices to conduct an interview.
IT interviews are some of the most boring in the market due to geek questions like these.
It is a real torture for the candidate.
I’ve only been programming professionally for about two years, almost exclusively with .NET.
My first interview was for a junior role, so the questions were more in broad scope with no real coding exercises. I had to take two written tests. One allowed Google, the other didn’t. Of course they were watching me from another computer, so it was more of a “will he follow the rules” type of exam.
I’ve gone through a few phone screenings and they typically ask questions about, JOINS in SQL, what is polymorphism, function overriding/overloading, what is AJAX, etc…
I still find it intriguing that I’ve never had to provide a code sample. Perhaps it’s because the positions I’ve accepted are not senior in nature and they want to know if I have the potential to do it, and not so much the exact knowledge at this moment of doing it.
I think it all depends. Some people can ascertain from just speaking to someone if they have a clue what they are talking about. Others want to see you actually do it.
I wouldn’t be offended if at an interview they asked me to code some of the examples above. I might kind of laugh and say is this COMP 200 Intro to Programming, but I would gladly do it.
Also I almost refuse to believe that someone with over one year of experience cannot code a FizzBuzz example.
I was a music major in college. The only computer class I took had us “turning on the computer” as the first days lesson (easy A class).
I’ve been indie developing for 1 year, and taught myself everything. Even I can answer half those questions without a second thought. Reversing a string? Are you kidding me? I’ve written my own scripting for my games because I dislike Lua (even if it did point me in the right direction). Maybe I don’t know some theory stuff a CS major would know but it doesn’t change the fact that when you get down to it a real PROGRAMMER lives eats and breathes this stuff. A real programmer might blow an interview or two, but when they encounter something they don’t know…they will learn it. Plug in those holes, not because they want the job, but because they want to be better.
This isn’t to say that there should be a one size fits all interview question. It’s stupid for a .Net developer to ask the same questions as a developer who uses Cpp except for general theory to see if they know how to program. At least you guys can get the phone interview. With no CS degree and no “work” experience I can’t even get that.
Wow, I have to say a lot of that sounds very very familiar. I think that your company contacted me for recruitment. I must say that after three phone interviews and technical screens I decided I wasn’t interested.
I can understand the desire to try and determine something of a candidates technical knowledge before bringing them in for interviews. But I was being asked to program, over the phone, very detailed and complex problems. Perhaps since the person doing the phone screen had spent the last 3 or 4 years working on that problem it was easy. But it was a completely inappropriate level of complexity for a phone interview. Also compounded by the problem that I was not being recruited for a programmer job.
I think that I have to agree with chachaching. This may get you a certain type of person and if that is the type of person that you want to recruit then well I guess it works for you. I want to recruit smart, thoughtful people, who have a broad and diverse background, and know how to research and solve problems. I really care nothing for the ability to regurgitate some meaningless program code at the drop of the hat.
I’ve been asked these sort of questions. If they’re prefixed by “I’ve read your application and I’m sorry to have to ask these but we have to treat all applicant identically” then I’ll humour them. Please do excuse me if I take a moment to remember what a Fibonacci number is, as they are not something I’ve ever had cause to actually code here in the Real World.
But if the employer’s representative hasn’t looked at the 40KLOC off FOSS software I mentioned in my application, then it’s time close the discussion, as I’ve just learned all I need to know about the prospective manager’s own skills and willingness to work hard.