Coding interviews are broken. Let's fix them.

It's no secret that the technical interview process is broken. It's time we fix them.

[folgerf]

Recently I interview for the first time in 2 years after my last job switch, and there were 3 heavy algorithmics exercises that were meant to be done each in 20 min, I couldn't crack the first one and stay stuck in there, I'm an engineer with 13 years of experience and yet fill really shity about myself and felt that I'm not good enough for quite some days. since this kind of algorithmic exercise is things you won't do on the day to day job, I have to waste around 5 days just practicing for a particular skill that I will not use while there are so many other things that are more worth someones time. if there is someone out there feeling bad about failing an interview hang in there eventually it will work just dont lose motivation.

[suhdongbin]

Too bad that many companies still don't find this process broken. I completely lost trust in company after experiencing this broken as hell interview process.

[randysvids]

take homes are the best because they can be challenging but gives me time to figure out the best way to solve the problem.

[cjm]

Great video, Emma! This really hit home for me, especially after just recently going through a brutal job search of countless coding challenges and technical interviews. I loved the portion about transparency of expectations, I think that would go a long way to improve the interview experience for both job seekers and employers. I went through various coding challenges and technical interviews where I was being grilled on technologies that weren't even listed on the job requirements and/or relevant to the job itself.

[StarcoreLabs]

You nailed this video. Every technical interview I've had was toxic. At my last job the interviews made fun of my name. How immature and unprofessional is that? I had to take the job because that's what was available at the time. I think the coding interview process is a reflection of the corporate culture of the company.

[tahirahmedt]

The day this video released, i had a technical interview for a React developer role. It was a online interview. The Interviewer did not turn on his camera (first bad impression). He did not even mention a word about himself (what's his name? What does he do in the company?). Right after the intro, he started to ask me the stock JS questions (diff between var, let and const).

He left the interview in midway. Did not even join back.

[atilacorreia]

There is a whole "market niche" around technical interviews, that's how ridiculous this whole thing has become.
- The time to solve hard questions is unrealistically tight.
- Find the solution for a problem is not enough, it has to be the best one. ( Even when interviewing for start-ups, lol).
- Hard problems have a bunch of gimmicks.

[rasrules]

This video is pure gold. Been in several hiring process. In some of them they literally said: we are facing this issue, how will you solve it ??? and I proposed a solution, maybe not the best one, but then I wasn't hire.... that felt awful actually. But as my Sister said to me, a hiring process should like dating, we both should do our best effort to conquer the other. They( the company) are also trying to convince you to start a relationship with them not just you.

[muctar_s]

Interesting insights from the survey you conducted. These are some things I'll have to think about when I'm interviewing for internships next year.

[Yatrix]

I was crushing an interview a year+ ago and then came the "assessment". It came in the form of a laptop hooked up to a screen (for the 3 devs to watch) while I worked through a problem. They (hilariously) let me know it was a problem that took them several days to solve, but wanted to see how I'd approach it. Sounds fair, right?

I was acing the interview until the coding part. I was answering the questions right and had a good rapport with the manager, HR and the devs. The moment I started drawing blanks at the keyboard, it was over. My brain just turned to jelly. I hung on a few minutes and then closed the laptop and explained I'm not good at coding for audiences and that I was leaving. Had I taken my pants off and stood on my head, they'd have looked less surprised. For the record, I'm a dev of 14+ years (and good at it) and a fairly confident guy, but those situations freak me the **** out.

Very well said Emma and great video, it had to take a lot of time and effort! You have described it exactly how I feel it. 👍

BTW the older I'm and the more experience I have (currently about 16+ years as a software engineer 💻🤓), the more afraid and more stressed by interviews I'm. It's because those interviews are to increasingly senior positions so they're tougher but they still could be more applicant-friendly.

[jordanbuttkevitz]

The technical coding interviews are utterly demeaning to those with real world experience. I don’t have the time to adequately prepared by practicing hundreds of LC bullshit problems while simultaneously relearning depths of Linux systems. I am supposed to find the time to practice between a full time job as a DevOps Engineer with on-call responsibilities and supporting a family. Luckily there are plenty of companies albeit smaller and unknown who do not force LC interview problems (forget FAANG).

[wora]

Funny hearing this. I have been programming for like 50 years in different companies. There was exactly one interview where we talked about my programming skills (with people that had a decade less experience than I did). And I interviewed quite a few people (>400). before hiring some of them (about 100). I usually asked how much experience they had, which languages they used and that was mostly it. I always assumed (and told them so) that I expected them to learn everything they need at the job. That worked out in >95% of the cases. The important think to me was an open mind for new challenges and the general understanding of programming. Many theoretical concepts can be vastly simplified in a specific application. And (in "my" company) we kept our "new" software developers on a very short leash the first days/weeks, watching very closely how they worked und supporting where needed. Saved a lot of money in the long run, because few left the twenty years I worked there.

[thesunno]

I can't agree more with this, I have more than 10 years experience and I suck at live coding interview, why? Well, I'm not used to code while people is seeing what I'm doing, I'd prefer to do a project at home and then answer questions about the implementation.

One of the worst cases is when they do a coding inteview without telling you first, it's not a nice surprise, I had been in that situation a couple of times.

[DThompsonDev]

This is incredible! Really well done Emma! The interview process really is broken and I had to go through a lot to land my first role and I see it with everyone I am helping to get jobs. It is insane. Love how you edited this video and all the graphics! Awesome stuff!

[stannone]

Lets talk about Java! Me dropping the pen on the table and walking out.

[MoonRed]

I've had interviews where it was all men and did no introduction because they wanted give as much time to the interviewee. This video mentions an internal transfer situation but for some companies, they still go through a formal interview. I know a lot of company's like to ask computer science questions that aren't really used in the job. But if they're getting thousands of applicants, company's need to find an efficient way to weed out people. At the moment, algorithms, system designs, and small project questions are what companies do. It sucks that it might not full evaluate an engineer but given the time and budget, I understand why company do things this way.

[tadejpolajnar]

Hey Emma, how would you compare interviews in EU and in USA? :)

[srijan]

Regardless of the problems with coding interviews, I think that the greatest virtue of them is that they give equal opportunity for everyone to shine. In other fields, in many cases it is not possible to get a job at a good company unless you are already from the elite class who has connections to the other elite class people who already work at those companies companies (finance, banking just to name a few). You would most probably have to had gone to an expensive prestigious college that many people cannot afford. However, at least in computer science, you get the opportunity to work hard and ace the interviews at big tech companies like google, Amazon to get a prestigious job. I am forever grateful for this field not being as rigged and don't care how much people hate these interviews.

[SelftaughtSoftwareEngineer]

I think you made a lot of great points. I also want to give a word of encouragement to parents, especially moms, who are working full-time and want to learn how to code. It is doable.

I was working full-time and taking care of two young children while learning how to code. I started working as a Software Engineer after 17 months of self-teaching (no CS degree, no bootcamp, no prior work experience in tech). I went through the whiteboarding interviews with algo and data structure questions. The sky is the limit when you believe in yourself and work hard at what you want to achieve.