Junior Dev Mock Interview on CoderPad

We were joined by Junior Engineer Derick M. to do a mock interview using JavaScript problems to work through
You can find Derick on Twitter at:
/ derickcodes
This was streamed on our livestream on Twitch:
/ coderpad

[@derickmoncado]

My brother in christ. The humiliation, the carnage. This was like watching a train wreck that lasts an hour looool. Had no idea this was online until someone messaged me about it ha. Everyone, everyone, I suck A LITTLE LESS now okay 🙂, I'm still dogsh*t but we still out here practicing don't worry. -guy in video

[@marlonstevenson4923]

How long had you been coding for when you did this mock interview?

[@derickmoncado]

@@marlonstevenson4923 Honestly, since 2012. I know, I know, but it was mainly just HTML, CSS, and Sass with a tiny bit of jQuery. Hadn't ever taken programming seriously until 2020 when the pandemic hit and realized how much I didn't know. I'm still dogsh*t at it but making progress. Data structures and Algo's are just very difficult for me, can't seem to get them.

[@jerictorres3552]

Idk if you see this man but i'm an 8kyu type of guy and you seemed very human and it was a relief to see this type of interview vs the galaxy brain 14 year olds interviewing at google. So fwiw I greatly appreciate your sacrifice to all of us underachievers.

[@derickmoncado]

@@jerictorres3552 appreciate the kind words man 🙏 I've got nothing in those kids, on my best day, they could probably code me under the table on their worst. This was probably the most vulnerable I've ever been, I honestly needed it though. It gave me tremendous perspective.

[@jerictorres3552]

​@@derickmoncado I'm glad you're okay with it. Definitely nothing to be ashamed of. It was really cool cause a lot of what you said were a lot of the same things I feel like I would think in the same position. Granted, I'm not exactly a dev, but adjacent, and I hate technical interviews with a passion. I really can't shine in them but I'm trying to improve that aspect of myself anyway. Are you dyslexic/mildly dyslexic by any chance? I saw you mentioned that algos are a struggle for you, you should maybe consider that. This realization helped me with algebra, calculus and physics etc. Tbh I used to think my brain just couldn't do it. I struggle with algos a lot too, and I think it's cause I have dyslexia/dyscalculia. I actually use bizarre highlighters, themes and even comic sans (comic code) in my CE so that I can visualize the logical structure of my code better in my head. Learning is much, much easier for me when I write difficult concepts involving variable, algos, and logic on paper and then transfer. I would actually do BETTER in a technical interview if I had to use a paper and pencil lol.

[@phil7121]

Interviewer: "Which one do you want to start off with?" Interviewee: "Probably the array one." Interviewer: "Okay, sure." *picks the Diff one*

[@notpreacher1564]

I love how patient the interviewer is.

[@derickmoncado]

Corbin was a saint for this.

[@NewVybzBoss]

I love to see this. Gives me more perspective

[@derickmoncado]

You and me both lol.

[@uchennanwosu4625]

I hate to say this, but you guys are going about coding the wrong way. You are getting lost in the implementation details. The first thing to do is to draw pictures. This enables you properly visualize and understand the problem -- you did this when you had the lists side-by-side vertically. Afterwards you can choose your algorithms. At that point you can opt for using inbuilt functions like filter, include, splice etc. In this case, the problem is isolating the differences in both lists. The solution is iterating through the first list and for each member checking to ensure it is not in the second list. If it isn't push or append it to a temporary list. If it is in the second list delete it from the second list. When you have looped through the first list, concatenate your temporary list with whatever is left (if any) in the second list - those are items in the second list that do not exist in the first. Deleting the items in both lists enables us to ultimately determine the items in the second list not in the first. It also makes the code more efficient because the second list potentially gets smaller as we progress in the loop. The advantage of using the so-called old way is that it's simpler to do a runtime analysis of your code. When you use inbuilt functions, you have to be either knowledgeable of their implementation or view their documentations. In certain cases, they make your code more difficult to read and maintain. 😊