What's interesting to me is that companies are either looking for superstars or code-monkeys. There's no middle way in the hiring process.
And the results are many times not those wanted ... those looking for superstars end-up with subpar performance, while those looking for grunts will end up with good people that will leave sooner or later.
I once did an interview were on one task I had to program a DFA for a Lego-mindstorm with the technical questions being pretty heavy for the kind of work they did ... like if I were at Google, how would I model an algorithm for finding similar links (with the discussion flowing to sparse matrices, distance functions, clustering)
... only to find out that they were a company that did online quizzes, with the developers involved building them with a semi-automated process involving an Office-plugin that generated PHP code and some fixes here and there to make it work where the generator failed. One day I'll submit the story to DailyWTF. That project manager interviewing me had to be on crack :)
Not saying it's the case for RethinkDB ... they look like a fun project. Just wanted to share my experience with the current state of affairs.
I had a similar experience (strangely enough, also for a company that did online surveys). The questions weren't quite as tough, but they did have me attempt to solve toy store puzzles while answering questions (pull jumbled pieces of metal/puzzle boxes apart, etc).
I put up with it because it was for my first job and I was desperate. Now, I don't do all day interviews, long programming assignments, recite the alphabet backwards while parachuting and coding a quick sort on a laptop, etc, at least not for the typical job. I might jump through some hoops for the dream job, but most jobs just aren't.
Comments
What's interesting to me is that companies are either looking for superstars or code-monkeys. There's no middle way in the hiring process.
And the results are many times not those wanted ... those looking for superstars end-up with subpar performance, while those looking for grunts will end up with good people that will leave sooner or later.
I once did an interview were on one task I had to program a DFA for a Lego-mindstorm with the technical questions being pretty heavy for the kind of work they did ... like if I were at Google, how would I model an algorithm for finding similar links (with the discussion flowing to sparse matrices, distance functions, clustering)
... only to find out that they were a company that did online quizzes, with the developers involved building them with a semi-automated process involving an Office-plugin that generated PHP code and some fixes here and there to make it work where the generator failed. One day I'll submit the story to DailyWTF. That project manager interviewing me had to be on crack :)
Not saying it's the case for RethinkDB ... they look like a fun project. Just wanted to share my experience with the current state of affairs.
I had a similar experience (strangely enough, also for a company that did online surveys). The questions weren't quite as tough, but they did have me attempt to solve toy store puzzles while answering questions (pull jumbled pieces of metal/puzzle boxes apart, etc).
I put up with it because it was for my first job and I was desperate. Now, I don't do all day interviews, long programming assignments, recite the alphabet backwards while parachuting and coding a quick sort on a laptop, etc, at least not for the typical job. I might jump through some hoops for the dream job, but most jobs just aren't.