How does Sup Forums feel about whiteboard interviews?

How does Sup Forums feel about whiteboard interviews?

article related
theoutline.com/post/1166/programmers-are-confessing-their-coding-sins-to-protest-a-broken-job-interview-process

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shiftedup.com/2015/05/07/five-programming-problems-every-software-engineer-should-be-able-to-solve-in-less-than-1-hour
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>"""programmers"""

It's fucking cancer but then the entire hiring process today is fucking cancer compared to just 20 years ago when they didn't have to ask a lot of retarded questions that have nothing with your job to do or come up with stupid joke tier ideas like whiteboard interviews

>They also discriminate against people who are already underrepresented in the field.
sounds like SJW trash article to me
never heard of whiteboard interviews before but now i love them

>mfw if you wanted to be a cashier at a covenience store 20 years ago you could have just walked in a shook the managers hand
>mfw today you have to apply online by giving them you your CV, written application, and a short essay about customer support and why they should hire YOU.
>mfw they only hire you if you have a degree in economics (or if you're the managers uncles grandson, when you can skip the whole process)
>mfw Im not even qualified to do a minimum wage job

Atleast I get almost the same amount in NEETbux.

I interview people all the time and I refuse to do whiteboards. I can get everything I need to know about a developer through a conversation.

I will ask technical questions but they are more to gauge a persons seniority (god damn 25 year olds insisting on a senior title).

Only ever had one. An Amazon interviewer asked me to implement some algorithm I hadn't heard of on the whiteboard.
Turned out five minutes in he'd explained it so badly that I was doing totally the wrong thing. Couldn't do either the thing I thought he wanted or the thing he actually wanted, having not previously encountered the blasted thing. Tried to give up and they kept insisting I keep trying, communication broke down and suffice to say I didn't get the job.

he did that on purpose, you mongrel. The interview was about asking questions, until you were both on the same page. It's called Requirements Gathering, and if you don't know how to do that as a Software Engineer, you shouldn't be in this field, or go be a code monkey somewhere else.

No. His explanation was clear, it was just wrong. Besides, even if it wasn't this exchange occurred earlier in the interview.

Do you know UML?
No, we're learning it next year.
Draw some UML models of this on the whiteboard.
I don't know UML, explain it to me.
Uhhh... No, just do it anyway.
(This continued about five times with me trying to get him to either explain what he wanted more clearly or skip this part of the interview, he would do neither).

Which doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his masterful control of the interview.

what is NEETbux, user?

The money the People's Republic pays you for existing.

>Got college degree
>Interview for jobs related to my degree
"Sorry user, you also need experience"
>Interview for minimum wage jobs
"Sorry user, you're too overqualified"

>Turned out five minutes in he'd explained it so badly that I was doing totally the wrong thing.
>communication broke down

Right, I'm sure the issue is the company hiring tens of thousands of programmers and not you.

who the fuck still uses uml

Recently dropped out of university after 3 years, but have plenty of experience from hobby projects. I've applied to four companies for a devops/neteng position, got three invitations in the upcoming weeks. Wish me luck

I understand the frustration with them and recognize that implementing a particular algorithm on-the-spot without references doesn't reflect actual dev work that well, but it's still better than personality-gauging interviews ("what does success mean to you user?).

Retarded post

Those faggots would never pass an oral final test at an USSR university.

What happened to preparing for interviews/tests?

The difference between interviews and work demands is that you have unlimited time to prepare for an interview.

How do whiteboard interviews discriminate against minorities? Did I miss something?

Whiteboard interviews are a good way to weed out dipshits who don't have the basic inventive faculties to solve programming-related problems.

>durr I have to google how to get the length of a python string
Then study the basics of the language your interview will be in you dolt.

or you just put foo.getLength() on the whiteboard and move on because that's enough to communicate that you have found out what you're expected to be doing and developed a plan of execution to get there

You can still do the shaking hands thing though. That's how I got my job.
>shook hands with ~4 customers before getting to the manager

They're fine if you're competent whatsoever.
Everybody should be able to show they can design algorithms or use them appropriately in pseudo-problems using pseudocode at the least.
It's like when you learned how to do integrals there wasn't an immediately obvious application, so you just measured random ass shapes. That doesnt make it useless and anybody who knows their shit would be able to apply those techniques to any given arbitrary problem.

shiftedup.com/2015/05/07/five-programming-problems-every-software-engineer-should-be-able-to-solve-in-less-than-1-hour
As this post so eloquently puts it
>The people that think are above all these "nonsense" are usually the ones that can't code crap.

>This means companies tend to favor recent computer science grads from top-tier schools who have had time to cram; in other words, it doesn’t help diversify the field with women, older people, and people of color.
Why is this author directly insulting the intelligence and capabilities of women, the elderly, and non-whites?

It's interesting how all browsers now support the (non-standard and proprietary) -webkit-text-stroke properties.

>“Whiteboard” interviews are widely hated. They also discriminate
Whiteboards are racist and sexist?

>typically pits candidates against a whiteboard
Imagine your opponent being an inanimate object... and you losing.

Not their intelligence - just their time management skills and/or their willingness to read (or maybe knowledge of?) "how to pass the interview" books full of all the kinds of bullshit "development" questions that will be asked during interviews for big, shitty companies that pay you stupid money.

Also: I do not have a whiteboard, but I do test candidates on a piece of paper. So far, the acid test is this:

>In your programming language of choice, count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13.

Without access to Google, 95% of candidates cannot do this test. And you thought FizzBuzz was too easy?

These people getting pissed at interviews seem to think that they are entitled to a job, since they spent the required two weeks in a "Koding bootcamp". I am not looking for a coder; I want a programmer! If you cannot do FizzBuzz without looking it up on Google, what sort of programmer are you?

>count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13
i = 700
until i < 213 do
puts i
i -= 13
end
?

Welcome to the top 5%.

wait no I'm retarded
>until i < 200 do
its 1am please do not fire me

Call me an idiot, but isn't that as easy as
var=700
while var=>200:
var -= 13
print(var)

>var x = 700;
>var endval = 55;
>while (x == endval)
Also what the fuck is that document.getElementId("output").value = endval; shit?
Is this seriously the job market competition?

Does not matter. You know simple loops. You are in the top 5%.

Welcome to the top 5%. You must be some sort of genius hacker with a PhD in mathematics, because pic related.

You see, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do these exercises without Googling! Others would take a few hours to come up with a solution that semi-worked, and yet you did it in a few seconds!

>JavaScript "engineering"
>"engineering"
Well at least she knows she's a fucking idiot.

Everyone should be able to do fizzbuzz or equivalent on a whiteboard.
Asking to do something that is unrelated to the position the person is applying is not useful. What you end up with is false negatives and may end up rejecting good candidates. I understand some companies get HUGE number of applications and can afford to be picky, but if the only candidates that survive the rigmarole are the ones memorizing interview books there is something wrong.
Can such dull person who memorizes interview books be anything but jack of all trades but master of none. If he spends time reading little bit of everything to cover all bases, can he possibly have deep understanding of anything?

Candidate made two attempts, separated by the black line in the middle.

First attempt, candidate multiplied x by 13, because I said "multiples of 13". Candidate took 2-3 seconds to forget that I said "from 700 to 200".

Second attempt, after I had carefully explained that I wanted to start at 700, and decrement by 13 each loop. Candidate decided that the solution was...
...
...
...to divide 700 by 13, round UP to 55, and loop from 700 to 55, using a while loop that will never work because the initial conditions are wrong.

Would you believe me if I said I got a job at the gas station down the street just by walking and asking for a job? The manager gave me a bullshit interview basically out of formality and I started working in like 3 days

The downside is that I'm still working there now that I have my CS meme degree

>javascript

Even if he passes he shouldn't get the job. Even if all you do is webdev frontend shit, your language of choice for a whiteboard question should not be JS.

JavaScript: Not Even Once

>count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13
print range(700,200,-13)
700, 687, 674, 661, 648, 635, 622, 609, 596, 583, 570, 557, 544, 531, 518, 505, 492, 479, 466, 453, 440, 427, 414, 401, 388, 375, 362, 349, 336, 323, 310, 297, 284, 271, 258, 245, 232, 219, 206


did I get the job? will make one number per line if wanted, only one more line of code

jesus. job interviews are this easy?

Here's the kicker: The fact that this candidate was able to write some code at all... already puts him in the top ~25% of candidates.

Lots of people simply shut down without access to Google. They know absolutely nothing, other than copy/pasting from stackoverflow.

So this nonsense code, which does not work, and this candidate who could not even get the answer correct in theory... is still better than most other applicants.

I kode with karlie™®©'ↄ

Honestly, yeah.
Unless the position absolutely mandates a required knowledge of a particular language or framework, just about anybody with a functioning brain and critical thinking skills can nail a non-senior position.
I remember doing a bunch of interviews to hire an SDET and the quality of applicant was appalling. We used TFS and SCVMM super heavily so there was a lot of weird network bullshit going on (we outsourced out IT, hooray!) so I always asked the applicants "do you know what a static IP is? Can you set one on a windows machine?"
Every response was a flat "No idea what that even means" except one guy who we ended up hiring that said "I sort of know, and I'd probably have to google it"

That guy also did absolutely nothing for 6 months after we hired him and then subsequently shitcanned him, so, jokes on us.

for (var i = 700; i >= 200; i -= 13)
console.log(i);

>95% of candidates cannot do this test
WHERE ARE MY SIDES NOW?

Imagine having to go to stack overflow to write a for loop.

for (var i = 700; i >= 200; console.log(i), i -= 13);
:^)

Pretty sure gas stations are the only types of places where you could get hired that easily. I've heard they go through employees constantly.

do either of you happen to be the manager from jet.com?

a few weeks ago some guy started posting that he got a lower level management job leading a team of programmers and had no idea what the hell he was doing, he said he bullshitted a whiteboard interview.

he wanted help figuring out what he needed to do with IBM watson.

me and a few anons ended up emailing his team members and got him reprimanded (maybe fired?) later the boss got on the thread (we had emailed the thread to his team members) and was upset about how candidates come in and waste months of their time.

do either of you happen to be bossanon from jet?

Call centers will hire pretty much anybody with a pulse as well.

>job interviews are this easy?
People seem to have this idea that every company on earth is like Google, and if you cannot prove that you have Carmack-levels of skill, you are not getting the job.

The overwhelming majority of the programming that you do at work is straightforward and easy:
>Customer will input age in this field. Make sure that age is in a positive integer between 12 and 120. Prompt the user to re-input if otherwise.
THIS is what your work is going to look like, 80% of the time, at 80% of companies that are not Google.

Sure, there ARE huge companies that require excellent programmers, but fresh grads are not going to work there. Typical companies just want someone who can solve simple problems on the regular, without taking days. As simple as FizzBuzz is (or 700->200 in decrements of 13), it is enough to show that a candidate understands programming and problem solving.

And 95% of candidates do not understand programming, or problem solving. For proof, check the link in OP.

kek, no, but I do remember that thread. I sent them an email as well.

if either of you are hiring manager I would like to submit resume if you provide link

to be fair, i work with winapi shit daily, and still have to go on MSDN for like 40% of the calls to remember what parameter does what

kek, that pissed me off.

glad you were there to see it.

python and java programmer here, i do the same.

but do you need to reference docs to count up/down or foobar?

i mean, these are all just dealing with primitives. im sure you can do that if you work with it daily.

There's a very substantial difference between not knowing how to write basic things like a loop or how to decrement something and needing to have 35 MSDN tabs open because the WIN32API is confusing dogshit.

>hiring somebody off Sup Forums
this office already has too many autistic arguments

Why haven't you died in that plane crash yet?

Premature optimization is the root of all evil. :^)

i am a functioning autist tho.

I was hiring, but I am burned out. Will try to hire again in a few months. My "team" consists of one guy, and I have been trying to find him a programming partner for almost two years now, with no luck.

Problem is that I stay in Malaysia, so I am legally not allowed to hire non-Malaysians. At least, not yet.

An interview is not fair if it asks questions that a typical programmer would not be able to answer without checking references.

But I am asking: Count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13.

She should be embarrassed. I know more about programming and I just tool around with assembly and C to make simple games.

I never understood the whole white board intimidation thing. I've never been to one but it's obvious the interviewer just wants to see how you think. He doesn't care about syntax. He wants you to explain your reasoning and how your method would solve the problem. Going home and searching for a few hours just to copy and paste some crappy non-optimized function is not what a company wants to hear.

oh, no, i see your point now

i also learned how a ton of winapi shit works from stackoverflow, but i guess there isn't really any other way to figure it out

>too many autists
impossible.

dont hire me. i will consult independently for cryptocurrencies.. i dont like fiat money anyways. I have prog degree and several professional comptia certifications. will work remotely, its what I do now.

I still go to school and cant get full time job but I do this same consulting thing for app makers in dresden and oxnard.

if you provide me with some sort of link or contact i would submit a resume

> using for loops at all
for loops are:

-- less flexible than while loops
-- take more space than "int i==-1; while(++i

That was real? I didn't stick around for the end of the thread because I thought the guy was trolling.

>have retarded and unique syntax that i don't even bother remembering

>for loops suck
>i don't remember the syntax

>take more space
it gets compiled into the same shit who cares

someone ended up getting on claiming he was the manager and he was tired of this stuff happening.

we said he wanted a real programming test to screen applicants but hr kept refusing it on the cost basis.

we referred him to a website where you can creating a programming test and direct applicants to it.

he seemed really happy

give me one reason why i should bother to remember syntax for a construct that takes longer to type, is more obtuse than simplistic while loop and is less flexible

Iterate over an array using a while loop without using an external variable.

give me one reason i shouldn't be using goto and labels for all my loops

>without using an external variable
for loop CREATES a variable you doof

Contained within its own scope, assuming your language isnt from the 80s.

not defending anons somewhat lame statement of not bothering to remember the syntax, but to be honest, every for loop is a while loop when it comes down to assembly and a while loop can be constructed just as easily.

for loops are just constructs of the compiler, then the processor performs a loop it is always doing a while loop.

it performs an action, checks a value, and jumps somewhere if true (or false)'

a for loop in every sense is just an overly complicated and needlessly specific while loop

>Contained within its own scope
so it basically does a thing i didn't asked to do

i can "contain my own scope" by simply putting { and } where i want

For loops are entirely redundant and not worth spending your memory own

maybe the compiler doesnt support it?

and an interpretor will never support a goto

but if your coding in asm, it will ONLY support a goto or a jump

>an overly complicated and needlessly specific while loop
Initial state; Condition; Action(s);
Is in a significant number of situations far more clear than spreading those things out in different parts of a while loop (e.g. Where are you incrementing if you're using an iterative condition? Where did you set it initially? Which actions are tied directly to the loops continuation rather than being an inner part of it?)

So you're saying you *can't* do an iterative while loop without using an external, i.e. outside the scope of the loop, variable?

Nigger you don't even remember the syntax for assignment. How am I supposed to take you even shitpost grades of seriously?
for(var i=-1;++i

I have no CS or programming training and could def solve 1-4 within the hour, maybe without the recursion on 1. I use an interpreted language and have built a habit of avoiding recursion, so I never really learned it.

>It looks like one less character to type
so it IS shorter to type

and IS simpler to remember

Again -- why should i bother with construct that is inferior analog of simpler more flexible one

If you're wondering why nobody will hire you, now you know.

Yeah that's mostly the point of whiteboard questions. It's a "Can you think" exercise first and a "okay show me you can write anything" second.

so your saying the same thing, you just think a for loop looks prettier sometimes?

im not arguing with you. im just saying a while loop is closer to what is processed by the compiler.

mov ecx,100
mov eax,0
FUCKFORLOOPS:
inc eax
dec ecx
cmp eax,ecx
ja FUCKFORLOOPS
ret

This looks ugly but is objectively a superior for loop for counting up to and then returning 100

Yes because ultimately both of them compile down to the same thing.
If you're doing stateful looping then a while loop absolutely makes more sense, I use them constantly in data structure traversal (I don't like recursion, it strikes me as lazy most of the time)
But if I ever need to do iterative looping I almost always use a for loop because its much, much more clear about whats going on.
The condition I'm tracking, its initial state, and how I'm modifying it on every pass is all in one nice, neat place.
It's got nothing to do with runtime efficiency.

>not using the stack for your ax to save bytes on disk
pathetic

>large companies have never had organizational problems
Ayy. But really, it was both.
I'm sure I was supposed to take an approach less standoffish than just "No, I can't do this, let's move on". However they could have reacted to it better than just "Things aren't going according to plan oh fuck it never occurred to me that this could happen, I'll just keep trying to force it back on track by literally saying the same thing five times in a row.".

>not using jnz
pathetic

>Yes because ultimately both of them compile down to the same thing.
not quite
int main()
{
for (int i=0; i

Dude. By the time your compiler gets done optimizing, your loop may look nothing like what you've written.
Stop posting anytime.

Just bombed an interview. Got asked to implement the bubble sort sorting algorithm on a whiteboard, and sum all the primes below 2 million. Never heard of bubblesort until then, and they actually expected me to compute the primes myself. They walked me through the sorting algorithm, but I couldn't catch on and failed. Then I told them I could sum the primes if I had them, but they weren't impressed. I've never felt so defeated.

>95% of candidates cannot do this test.
what company is this and where?

ask them when they expect you to be implementing your own sorting algorithms, or calculating primes during the job

>Never heard of bubblesort until then

is this bait?

>all these people barely know what they're doing

thanks for the eye opening read

>In your programming language of choice, count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13.

is this a trick question somehow or are people really this retarded?

your machine code bean counting and is autistically pointless because of modern architecture of CPUs where machine code itself is translated down to microcode and then optimised further down for conveyor (simultaneous) execution

and even then -- these types of algorithmic optimisation are doubly pointless because the biggest optimisation gains are on optimisation by memory (placement)

majority of time CPU spends doing absolutely nothing while waiting for bus to deliver data from memory -- ensuring these pauses are minimal is the only type of optimisation worth doing

i am typing this from work, actually

did somebody say calculate primes?

Ordered?
def SieveOfEratosthenes(size):
array = [True] * size
for each in xrange(3,int(sqrt(size))+1,2):
if array[each]:
array[each*each::2*each]=[False]*((size-each*each-1)/(2*each)+1)
return [2] + [each for each in xrange(3,size,2) if array[each]]


or random?
def generateMersennePrime(bits=1024):
# Return a random prime number of max bits
while True:
num = randrange(2**(bits-1), 2**(bits))
if isPrime(num):
return num

a pasta

Do you understand bubble sort well enough to know why not to use it in almost every case?

don't ever (You) me again

yes, but I also literally have never had to sort a list in 3 years i've been working at a fortune 500

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