

A Strategy For The Dreaded Interview Coding Question - tysont
http://www.etherealbits.com/2012/07/a-strategy-for-the-dreaded-interview-coding-question/

======
gwillen
I don't know about you, but I don't dread interview coding questions at all --
I love them. What I dread are the squishy / soft questions. "Where do you see
your career going in 5 years?" "What do you want to get out of this job?"
"What is your greatest weakness?"

Coding I can handle.

~~~
asparagui
Here's a good cheat sheet of answers to memorize.

<http://www.gowrikumar.com/interview/index.html>

~~~
jmillikin
Rather than memorizing the answers to bad questions, technical interviewers
should memorize the questions themselves. Then if any of those show up in an
interview, walk out -- one doesn't want to work at those sorts of companies.

~~~
cdr
That's a bit much - it's rare that a company doesn't have something broken
about its hiring process, even good/great companies. If you want to work there
otherwise, what does it hurt to learn the expected answer for fluff questions
and recite it when asked?

~~~
MartinCron
It is a bit much. Good managers can be crappy interviewers (and vice-versa). I
would take it into account when considering my options, though.

------
msluyter
Yes. Having been on both sides of the process a lot recently, I'd agree that
restating / asking questions / talking through the problem as you do it is
helpful. But beyond that, I think that simply practicing typical whiteboard
questions is the best preparation. You can find a lot of these simply by
googling, or, by looking at a typical CS algorithms or data structures
textbook. Re-familiarize yourself with lists, trees, etc... and basic
searching/sorting algorithms. Steve Yegge offers similar advice here:
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-
goog...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html)

~~~
cdr
Yegge's post is a classic but getting a bit old. I highly recommend "Cracking
the Coding Inteview" [[http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-
Programming-...](http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-
Questions/dp/1466208686)] for serious prepping.

Edit: It looks like the author of the above has a newer book out called "The
Google Resume", probably worth taking a look at too.

------
jimmyhwang
This framework is very similar to case interview questions management
consultants use during their interviews. The bit about repeating the question
not only buys you some time to think about the problem some more, but also
allows you to confirm your assumptions (as the write notes).

As another comment pointed out, the best way to become better at this process
is to practice. I know when I was preparing for my consulting interviews, I
practiced the framework with a friend for weeks at a fast food joint so that I
had the process down. Once you can perform the process instinctively, you can
focus your brain cells on actually solving the problem.

------
Shoomz
I like the framework you layout. It's always good to have a method for walking
through problems because it conveys a cogent thought process (reminds me of
SAT multiple choice problems or Spelling Bee questions about word origins).

------
Kroem3r
I think the world could have done without this post. The reason being that
while the interview question might be anywhere in 2hr-solution space, the
answer is always: Make sure you understand the problem, the edge cases and
present a viable structure for a solution. Now we're going to have to find a
new question.

~~~
wtracy
"present a viable structure for a solution" is easier said than done. This
post elaborated a bit on that point and offered some suggestions that I found
useful.

~~~
Kroem3r
I think you missed my point, and that's ok. Maybe also the OP. Well, and also
that I was being a little tongue-in-cheek.

