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Discussion on: I failed an interview because of an algorithm

 
luiz0x29a profile image
Real AI

Just to clarify, I don't like doing those tests on people. I like to leave them a problem in open scope and then see the result of what they can do.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

So we agree on most things, there's no much point on repeating the same things all over again. Of course we're talking about web development (if I didn't catch bad the OP). We could even being talking about whatever field of development process and target (which could be insane).

Glad to see you are a theoretical learner, that's nice, each one have our own way to learn things, mine is mainly pragmatic (i usually put my hands on and let the theory for later), others are reflective and so... (I just published a post about that this morning, you can find it on my profile).

All this is about the precision of job interviews on our matters, IT is a science which it's job doors are handled by human resources people, who obviously knows nothing about. Then I even found companies on which tech interviews are handled by IT department and are even worse than those handled by human resources, because HR people at least look (or should) for abilities and behavior on each individual while some IT people that performs this tasks have zero idea about and mostly have no motivation for it.

A change is taking place on this thanks to internet and some companies experience but TBH I've seen continents moving faster than the evolution of IT interviews 😅

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

Yes i catch your point of view and i also read your answer to the sorting issue (converting into string is a bit tricky here, you'll need to change dots for a value that makes 3.10 sort as bigger than 3.3.3)

Another solution could be split this data into a matrix and assume weight for each array position decreasingly, then you sort each array inside the matrix by it's weight value.

There are some valid solutions i figure out for that problem but well, it's all about practice. I've been commenting here to show a bit of hate about IT interviews (I've to do so once a month for keep breathing 😂) but the OP's tech interview is not that bad, he needs a bit of practice and he'll make it for sure.

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luiz0x29a profile image
Real AI • Edited

I only suggested that because some beginners seem to have it easier when working with strings, I would allow that as a solution to the interview, If I was obligated to do one.
I remember solving this once with a format, but the language already did the tricking "masking" on the "." dots to me. (I think it was VBA, lol, I used to work on that)
The weight solution would be more correct as working with strings is kind of bad for performance usually.
And its really all about practice, and you can't disqualify people because based on failing such a trivia if they create good code in the end. Those things won't pass code review anyway (or you company has other problems, and tech interview is one of those). Those are the sort of things that more people working together always get a better solution, because everyone know a bit of different trivia.

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇

I started with an HTML course using windows notepad when I was 14, the first backend language i used was ASP Classic (which was not too different from nowadays trendy python after all 😂)

Whatever language gives you skills :)

And yes, all companies have issues with IT, specially due to the fact you need to adapt IT to the company but also the company must adapt it's processes for being more efficient and effective while using IT, and most of them only wants IT to adapt things to the way business is driven.
Also the change factor it's important, there are companies hiring junior devs to cut costs and asking them for big products where they have no experience, then you got a poor result of course. I've been coding professionally since almost 11 years and I even could be scared if I had to manage a whole big product for a company with no IT background (learn about the business, understand the needs of each part, pick requirements, deep analysis, define the project architecture, organize the team, break the project into tasks and milestones, guess the timings for each task, prepare the server and the repo, add CI/CD, make a readme, set agile cycles, start coding and pray for all to be ok on each milestone and for the Requirements to remain same as were on the beginning and that if there's any change that this changes don't make your initial architecture and design useless so you need to patch it how you can or rebuild some parts of the already coded app).

I'm tired after thinking on that all but excited for doing it again too 😂 it's a love-hate relationship