Title: I Can't Think Fast Enough in a Coding Interview

Author: Martin Moene

Date: 04 May 2017 09:22:31 +01:00 or Thu, 04 May 2017 09:22:31 +01:00

Summary: Sean Corfield shares his thoughts on the technical interview process.

Body: 

‘Practice’ is not the answer. ‘Cracking the Coding Interview’ is not the answer. A few people have said it – and more of us should be saying it: these ‘coding monkey interviews’ are stupid. They do not determine how good a programmer someone will be once they’re actually hired and working. The big companies that use them have finally started to admit this. The hiring process is broken and we need to stop participating in this silly game so many companies have adopted because they’re too lazy to figure out how to interview people effectively. I’ve refused to interview with companies that do this and I’ve walked out of interviews that have turned out that way. If a company really believes a quick fire ‘coding monkey interview’ will find them the ‘best programmers’ then that is a company you want to avoid – they don’t understand their engineers, they don’t know what makes a good team.

Remember that the interview is a two-way street. You are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you. An interview should be a conversation about what you enjoy in a software project, in a team, in a manager – as well as what you find problematic. It should be a chance for you to talk about how you approach problems – both technical problems and people problems – how you balance trade offs, and how you deal with things that don’t go your way. You should be able to defend your choice of technology but you should also know it well enough to be able to talk about its flaws or the situations where it isn’t such a good fit. You should be able to ask about the company’s processes, how they manage teams, how they resolve conflict, how they reward success.

An interview should reflect the sort of collaborative process you can expect once you are an employee at that company. If an interview seems to be a confrontational process, assume that’s how the company will treat you once you’re hired.

I’ve been a hiring manager for about twenty years now. I do not do ‘coding monkey interviews’ because I know they do not work. And I have never hired anyone that can’t do the job I’ve hired them for.

Reference

https://www.quora.com/Im-a-software-engineer-with-20-years-experience-but-I-cant-think-fast-enough-in-coding-interview-What-should-I-do/answer/Sean-Corfield?share=1587c4af#

Notes: 

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