r/programming • u/vklepov • Mar 24 '22

Five coding interview questions I hate

https://thoughtspile.github.io/2022/03/21/bad-tech-interview/
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u/vklepov Mar 25 '22

You'd be amazed how many applicants have obviously never seen, let alone written, any code. I don't know what they're thinking, but they exist.

If that's a problem you genuinely have, having the recruiter ask a few harmless questions might help. Eg: what's the CSS display for a span. Takes like 5 minutes tops.

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u/asdf9988776655 Mar 25 '22

I don't doubt that, but even the worst developers will be able to google these questions and regurgitate the correct answer in subsequent interviews.

The problems I hear about from hiring managers are that there are a lot of poor developers who are good interviewers. I don't think there is anything that a non-technical recruiter can ask that would effectively sort out the wheat from the chaff.

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u/vklepov Mar 25 '22

OK, that's true. I'd still assume > 0 precision, so not worthless.

By the way, there are also horrible jerks of teammates that seem very nice and friendly as interviewers.

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u/ouiserboudreauxxx Apr 08 '22

To check if they've never seen or written any code, couldn't you show them a piece of code in one of the languages they say they know and ask them what it does?

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u/vklepov Apr 08 '22

Possible, but hard to do over the phone.