If you’ve done coding interviews Some of the best stuff gets made by slow and steady types. If this sounds like something a tech company would do to interview developer talent, it’s by design. It's not pleasant tanking an onsite interview, and we don't want to unfairly put people in the interview room knowing full well they are gonna go down in flames. Recognize that you just weren't right for each other and keep searching. Google will still be there in a year and in the meantime there are other opportunities. Seriously, he talked significantly more than I did. Not long ago, I came to the conclusion that I would rather continue my career as a programmer than in management. Not to mention, a skype interview where they do pair programming but you're always the navigator, and some weird "no we have to stop writing code and write tests or it isn't TDD!" At some point in every interview there will be technical questions. So there is a definite element of throwing the dice. If you are accepted, we’ll ask for more information and start talking to employers for you. Do as much studying as you can until friday and hope for the best. Do not be discouraged. I wonder if I'm better suited looking for enterprise work. However, if you performed to the best of your ability, displayed all your relevant technical expertise, demonstrated your competencies and communicated in your most engaging manner in an interview but were still turned down, then you can take comfort from knowi… How I applied lessons learned from a failed technical interview to get 5 job offers. They spent a lot of time going over and over the same points with you. Very few people know whether their interview techniques really work, because they never learn more about those who failed. As a 26 year old engineer, with at least 6 years of programming for personal projects, and 3 professional years … Perhaps I am too slow to work at a start-up. I failed an easy technical interview. As someone once said, "argue for your limitations, and they're yours", New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the cscareerquestions community. Learn, Evolve and Try again. You’re an econ major. I have been selected by 6. Succeeding in the interview, however, is an entirely different story. But when nothing disproves their hypothesis they take it as confirmation that they are true. If you want encouragement that one difficult experience doesn't slot you for life, then here it is: one bad experience doesn't slot you for life. More than 200 people on Reddit answered the question, "What was your worst interview experience?" It's easy to get in a rut, but it can be a lot of fun getting out of it! Reading the first few chapters gave me so much insight that I even made my own cheat sheet.This allowed me to get the ball rolling on the general questions before the technical part of the interview. Also, one final thought... the purpose of a phonescreen is to determine if it's a huge waste of time to bring you on site or not. I get the sense that they were looking for a certain breed of dev - a sort of amp'd up, super aggro-stoked-out adrenaline junkie start-up kind of dev - if that characterization makes any sense, which I guess I'm not. Interviews make me nervous in general and I was REALLY REALLY nervous about this call (because OMG Google!) Then he asked me a technical question which I attacked pretty well to start with but like every other technical interview he added conditions that would fail my previous algorithm. Technical Interview Questions. I walk slow. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. You’re a CPA. Personally I wouldn't jump to 3 too quickly. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the cscareerquestions community. 10. Most technical interviews will be much easier though you still have a few things to work on. This translates to me like “You are not smart enough to work at a start-up, stay with the enterprise company where all the slow kids work”. But certainly that is something you could watch out for. I actually enjoy sitting in airports because I appreciate the limbo-time to do absolutely nothing, to let my thoughts wander, to watch people, to read a book. to "Why do you exist?" After a phone call like this, they will usually set you up with a technical phone screen, and in those you dive right into technical questions. I had taken 6 months off to go all in on coding and moving to Australia with my girlfriend, when I finally returned to Norway — and a job. We all learn from our experiences, and interviewing is no different. Depending on the job you're interviewing for, you will be asked about the skills, experience, certifications, competencies, language, processes, systems, and tools you have that are a match for the job requirements. A bit over 2 years ago I was coming off a failed startup and out looking for new opportunities. From the lonely hacker who writes unreadable code in the new obscure language of the month, to people who maintain Cobol code that has been running for 30 odd years. Que sera, sera. First time was when i was fresh out of college. This is quite similar to what you could expect at other consulting firms. I don't think I completely failed, because the recruiter was interested in keeping in touch and encouraged me to get in touch once I saw my current project through. Even during this disastrous pair programming exercise, Jyrki was so kind and patient, never making any indication that the interview was over early. The resume review to phone screen rate is also average. Are you sure this wasn't just the recruiter phone call? The interviewer wrote the code, whereas I was to inform him what to write. The second time was recent. Or how I failed my interview. I know, life will go on afterwards, and I can always reapply later. What else can one do? In general - not just in programming, but in life in general, I am not a speedy sort of fella. Have gone through the phone screen twice. Of course, I'm doing that now. Applicants complete several technical coding challenges on their own in advance of a technical interview—a live technical coding session with an instructor—in which they will be asked questions about their prepared work and possibly to expand or change their code to solve new problems. So be confident, speak clearly and freely. This tends to derail a good number of people. This fact wouldn’t hurt so much if I was a junior programmer just out of school, but I am in my early forties and have been programming for 13 years. So anyways, I want to hear about how you guys got stuck during a Google phone interview (or any, really). Heard back from the recruiter today with a "we'll reach out again in a year" result so... fail. A subreddit for those with questions about working in the tech industry or in a computer-science-related job. TDD is a very weird thing to do in an interview with someone who has never done it before. However, this was only the second time I had ever done a technical phone screen in this kind of format, where you write code in a shared document and talk through the solution as you go. But if you failed to do this, and the interview ended without you addressing some of the concerns they brought it, it’s unlikely you’re going to get a job offer, and it’s definitely a sign the interview ended pretty poorly. Actually, I can't tell you why they failed, but I can tell you some things that they do wrong that tend to lead to a downward spiral. I actually read a similar suggestion somewhere on reddit when I was job hunting a while back. Pair programming's harder to do without buy-in, but it doesn't sound like that was the core issue. I have one next week with PL so i'm curious how intense it is. The experience was a bit bruising, but after a little time has past I just feel more impelled to keep learning and to continue trying to improve and grow. We do this on purpose ;P. Anyway, you seem to be doing your homework... and that carries some weight (at least with me). It was almost like a dream. I'm honestly shocked that they reached out to me (via linkedin) and offered me an interview. How you address the questions that probe those gaps is what matters most. How I targeted the Reddit CEO with Facebook ads to get an interview at Reddit. 7 min read. Great advice, thanks. A terribly inefficient solution which you write down is way WAY better than abstractly talking about how you would solve the problem more efficiently. Dont beat yourself up over it. Interview process was very quick. There might only be one, there might be 20. I'm not ignorant to the fact that small groups require like-minds, but something about this doesn't seem right. Once you’ve completed that, you set up your technical interview. The terrible start to the technical interviews ironically made me realize how much I wanted the job after all, after all of my interactions with Leveroos so far. I'll give you a somewhat different perspective and tell you why lots of people I interview fail. I am glad I had the experience though. And so my question to you, Reddit, is what I am to take away from this? He went on and on about working in Google and how he started off and what he was doing now, etc. The interviewer was polite but didn’t sound interested at all. Sure, he didn't do well, but this interview essentially removed what is fundamental to programming: thought. If you want to get comfortable with TDD, do it where you are - I doubt management where you are now will stop you, provided you aren't spending too much time on it. I hadn't thought about like this. Solve the problem!! Probably just utterly stuck. I got told in a phone interview a few months ago that I wasn't assertive enough (and they'd fly me in to interview for a senior position, but not a lead; I declined, because it wasn't what I was looking for and I only had so many vacation days), despite getting all/almost all of the answers right. Review this list of the top technical interview questions that are most often asked by tech employers and recruiters. 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