Open thread, 23-29 June 2014

David_Gerard

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Previous open thread

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I'm going to be participating in an interview of a candidate for a Software Engineer position. I'm supposed to ask him some technical questions.

Perhaps someone here has some good ideas for technical, programming questions/problems? (I could google for some, but they would be the ones that everyone has seen before).

Thanks!

Short answer: this popped up on r/programming the other day. Lots of interesting questions there, and they don't come with answers. This will force you to solve them yourself, without spoilers, which is an incredibly valuable exercise which I strongly recommend for any questions you ask.

Long answer: you're going to have to unpack your intentions a little. You only have an hour (or less!), and you want to provide the maximum possible resolving power, so to do the best possible job you must know what your company's decision criteria are for this employee,... (read more)

3Squark12y

What I used to do when interviewing software engineers is letting them write a simple (but complete) program (not on paper but in actual IDE, compile, run, debug etc.). I used a command line game I invented where the player navigates a simple "labyrinth" of squares, but feel free to invent your own. Typically, the candidates took 1.5-2.5 hours to complete it. This gives you a way better idea than programming puzzles: you see how they write real live code, how well they understand the requirements, how they test their code, how they use the debugger etc.

4Shmi12y

If your applicant can solve googlable questions, s/he is probably way above the average. A version of Fizzbuzz is likely to trip up a lot of weak applicants.

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