Are Coding Interviews ACTUALLY Broken?

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People are FRUSTRATED with the current state of coding interviews. Down with data structures and algorithm interviews! Why am I being tested ON THE SPOT in the interview, only to have my anxiety spike? Do hiring managers even know what the hell they’re doing!?
We’ve landed on a controversial topic for sure in this video! I brought on 2 hiring managers and put them on the spot with many of the common concerns I’ve heard about the interview process. One has extensive experience training and hiring in the startup world. One has a tremendous amount of experience doing the same at FAANG companies.
I think these 2 were the perfect people to bring on for this. I challenge them with many of these frustrations developers have. Both are VERY honest, so I hope you’re ready. They may challenge a couple of your assumptions about the hiring process. Try to keep an open mind during this episode. Enjoy!
Scott Ferguson (guest):
Linkedin - / scottferg
Daniel Tomko (guest):
Linkedin - / danieltomko
Topics:
0:00 - Intro
2:33 - “Data structures and algorithm challenges don’t test knowledge that’s going to be used on the job.”
7:31 - How do hiring managers assess a candidate who’s anxious, or better yet, someone who freezes up?
18:16 - It’s ok to have fun in interviews. You don’t have to remember EVERYTHING.
24:20 - Why hiring managers are more worried about accidentally hiring a developer that’s bad vs accidentally passing on a developer is good
26:07 - How hiring managers tend to interview junior developers differently
32:18 - What do you think about take-home projects? Do candidates actually have some power in the interview?
39:31 - Negotiation, level bands, promotions, and advice for all 3 of these
49:36 - Candidate caught cheating on a take-home project! Are take-home projects really worth it?
57:51 - Positions claiming to be entry-level require years of experience (WTF)
1:04:52 - How the hell are you supposed to prepare for coding interviews that are coming up???

[@DonTheDeveloper]

If you enjoy the content, we'd love to have you as part of our junior-friendly Discord community. Feel free to join us here: discord.com/invite/H69QqZ8MVJ

[@kdietz65]

I interviewed at Google a few years back. I was asked some pretty hard questions that I thought were borderline unfair to ask with 20-30 minutes remaining with a candidate who as a Masters degree in CS (in other words, NOT a PhD in CS). In one case I was asked a question which had an obvious worst case O(N^3) solution with a less obvious O(N^2 logN). If that's not hard enough to do in 20 minutes, let's thrown in the fact that the interviewer was a Chinese national with very heavily accented English that I could barely understand her. Nevertheless, I persevered and thought I had at least held my own in the question. I knew it wasn't perfect, but I felt I was on the right track and I did a pretty good job of articulating a potential solution to a problem I'd never seen before, and exhibited what I would consider characteristics of a good engineer. Well, boy, was I in for a rude awakening when the recruiter got back with me to deliver the feedback. She said "Ya know, I've met a lot of people like you who know how to code, but don't know computer science." Now them's fightin' words right there. Keep in mind, this feedback came from a 22 year old recruiter who, as best I could tell, spent the majority of her day shuffling people from the lobby to their appointed interviews, and she's saying this to me, a 47 year old engineer with a Masters degree in computer science who had dedicated his whole life to computer science. I don't care what you say, maybe she was right, but that's just no way to treat a candidate who's studied hard for the interview, showed up, and put in a sincere effort. Even if I fell flat on my face, non-actionable feedback like that is incredibly rude. Experiences like this and others have made me decide on an entrepreneurial path instead of this. Companies like that don't deserve me, and they wouldn't be able to take advantage of my skills even if they did hire me.

[@domgia9248]

We gave the interview coding exercise in advance and then had them go through it in the interview. Worked pretty well until I think the recruiters caught on and did cheat sheets. I disagree with needing to see their process. The process usually involves searching and finding partial solutions and making something out of that. You can't do that in an interview.

[@CrochetBecky]

This has to be my favorite video. This helped to put my nervous mind at ease before I even start applying. So much good advice for those of us trying to break in and get our first job. Having done pair programming and not being afraid to ask questions, hearing that is something that managers want to see is great. Thank you!

[@generalaccount62]

Thanks Don for this video. I really agree with what the two interviewers have said. As an interviewee, I always somehow knew that the thought process is more important than the answer, but couldn't really put it into words and I think the two guests explained them succinctly. Also love the advice and the frank situation of hiring structures in small vs mid-to-big sized companies. Really sheds some light into what's happening behind the scenes. I guess I'd just like to know about the rubric that one of the interviewers mentioned. Is there like a checklist and is there a concrete sample? I guess it'd help interviewees on which aspect they need to focus on.

[@marciomolina5525]

Amazing video, this information is golden. I'm definitely gonna use this knowledge on my self thought journey! Thanks Don, Daniel and Scott!

[@rungxanh2901]

Thank you very much for the valuable content Don! I have a short but big question: How do I show and prove my train of thoughts to the employer, if the algorithm assessment comes before the actual interview process, and is done on a 3rd party platform instead of on-call or in-person with the interviewer?

[@jesuschavez2610]

This video was really insightful and just sticking to a plan and keeping your cool is something that comes a long way after realizing interviews aren't all just about the code but the process you go through. It's funny because in my university experience deadlines and being able to have a plan to work through that stressful situation seems similar to that of work on the job and interviews with timers.

[@jphurdl102]

Amazing advice! Thank you for such an in depth interview ❤

[@cronnosli]

Most interviews focus on algorithms. But let me tell you something! Engineers are not scientists, the main job of an engineer is not to write the best algorithm or be the smartest guy in the world. A great engineer is someone able to find and apply the best solution, someone that can look at a problem and come out with a fit output. Sometimes an engineer can solve a problem in minutes, sometimes in days. And this is normal! Noone asks an electrical or a building engineer to build something in the interview, it is not practical!

[@vorpalchoppers]

I feel like they want to keep the number of people who get hired low and artificially make the interview difficult to pass. Because the more people get hired the less the demand will be and thus the less the salary will be. All it comes down to is not losing money.

[@misterzucker4131]

Your channel is so good man. Keep it up.

[@themahanaxar]

great recommend Don, thanks. Really appreciate your questions and their take on coding inerviews.

[@DonTheDeveloper]

I'm glad you watched it. This conversation helped shift my thinking about these types of interviews.

[@codethinh7319]

One of my favorite videos to date!

[@dongwong297]

Thanks! I am currently changing careers, I have criminal justice degree and Business management degree, currently am a trucker. Just got approved to head back to school to get web design degree. Basically using the VR&E from VA to change career into Tech. Java Script focused, this and other videos of yours really hit home for me. Thank you sir and the professionals who join us :)

[@DonTheDeveloper]

Hey, thanks for the support! Sorry it took so long for me to reply - busy with the holidays. Glad to hear that you've been enjoying the content.

[@DamianSzajnowski]

How's it going?

[@Nokoredev]

Thank you all so much for the insight I have learned so much tonight

[@LeoNelBuilds]

One of the best interviews on this channel, hands down!

[@JacobAuthier]

Wonderful video!

[@droidgenetx]

excellent content Don

[@SuperJecd]

loved ! nice episode, thank you starting with a udemy ''tutorial'' your channel helps a lot. Thank you again

[@bobbytabernacle]

I just genuinely don’t understand why they can’t give coding problems and judge you based on how you solve that. They seem hellbent on these algorithms for absolutely no reason that they can clearly articulate.

[@DamianSzajnowski]

44:00 Yeah but the expectations for you might be to perform like an Energizer rabbit from that point onwards and you might either burn out or not want to keep that crazy pace for years. Interesting conundrum.

[@glucus2274]

1:07:20 yes, mastering the fundamentals by coding the project is a good thing, but there is nothing about algorithms and data structures at 2:51. And what is the best way of learning these tasks? Maybe Leetcode and Codewars?

[@samys288]

I have been to doing technical interview to many profile for long time in different enterprise and only we need use the right questions; we can to identify if the candidate is the right or not. I do'nt aggree with any challange test because them to add more pressure at the process. We do not look for an of special forces candidate only look for the knowlage and working in team

[@jellibelli288]

Great vid, thanks for the advice Scott and Daniel !!!

[@BrunoBeltran]

Great commentary from everyone here, especially the great examples about what signals to look for in a coding interview. One comment that stood out to me as going against the way I *want* software engineering to be: "if you don't do [software engineering] because you think it's fun, maybe you should find a different career". I think it's great to work with super passionate engineers. I think people that love their job are lucky. But I hope that eventually the idea that you can't be a software engineer purely and only for the money goes away. Civil engineers that love building bridges are great. But plenty of civil engineers are perfectly competent but really just there for the paycheck, and that's okay. Software engineering should be the same. It's just a job at the end of the day, and acting otherwise leads so many people to unhealthy work habits and imposters syndrome and a host of other toxic issues. Hopefully it's fun but jobs aren't meant to be fun, they're meant to get you the paycheck you need to live the rest of your life.

[@isaac80745]

I've dived into a course to learn the basics. I still see leetcode to be difficult but not impossible

[@saliexplore3094]

“Too many people are learning too many things by rote, and focusing on knowing answers rather than knowing how to find answers”.

[@isaac80745]

There's a difference between flat out cheating and doing some research to get the answer and actually knowing how you got the answer.

[@unitydev457]

One thing that I absolutely disagree with and find frustrating about tech interviews is this notion that writing code before slowly and carefully planning out your solution is inherently a bad thing. It's just a different way of thinking and approaching problem solving. Some people solve the problem better by just diving in blindly and mucking around deep in it first and THEN they step back and clean up their code and derive a cleaner more elegant solution as a result of their experimentation and playing around with the logic and thoughts of it. I think that viewing things that way makes companies less able to hire more creative problem solvers. If all you are looking for is extremely logical organized structured thinking then sure ... you should be wary of someone who is a bit messy and impulsive in their start to solving the problem, but some of the best solutions come from out of the box creative thinking and creative thinkers are often the type to just dive head first into the problem and find solutions via emergent results that they see as they mess with the problem.

[@Mark-nh7zg]

I agree, things make sense to me once I commit some code just to try things and get an idea of the landscape. Just like artists go through test sketches and try out concepts before they actually start working on their real artwork.

[@LiamRussell-iz1us]

0:17

[@LiamRussell-iz1us]

😅😅

[@LiamRussell-iz1us]

X 0:28 😅

[@LiamRussell-iz1us]

😅😅x 0:42

[@mr.mystiks9968]

What’s cringey is how even with this entire video, people will still whine and complain to say interviews are broken. Some candidates just have a broken attitude

[@michael.novati]

Daniel gave fantastic advice making sure you start at the right job level at big/mid sized companies. If you are on the border, down-leveling and "kicking ass" at big companies can accelerate your career (and even pay more): kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGSrf3dvh7V_rNE A lot of ambitious people starting out in their careers really want to join a company with the highest title and salary possible but and this solid advice is very counter-intuitive at first.

[@DonTheDeveloper]

Accepting the lower-level pay band was a really interesting perspective that I hadn't even considered before. The reasoning behind it made sense though.