Jeff Attwood posted 5 Questions for programmers applying for jobs:
In an effort to make life simpler for phone screeners,I’ve put together
this list of Five Essential Questions
that you need to ask during an SDE
screen. They won’t guarantee that your
candidate will be great,but they will
help eliminate a huge number of
candidates who are slipping through
our process today.
1) Coding The candidate has to write
some simple code,with correct syntax,
in C,C++,or Java.
2) OO design The candidate has to
define basic OO concepts,and come up
with classes to model a simple
problem.
3) Scripting and regexes The
candidate has to describe how to find
the phone numbers in 50,000 HTML
pages.
4) Data structures The candidate has
to demonstrate basic knowledge of the
most common data structures.
5) Bits and bytes The candidate has
to answer simple questions about bits,
bytes,and binary numbers.
Please understand: what I’m looking
for here is a total vacuum in one of
these areas. It’s OK if they struggle
a little and then figure it out. It’s
OK if they need some minor hints or
prompting. I don’t mind if they’re
rusty or slow. What you’re looking for
is candidates who are utterly
clueless,or horribly confused,about
the area in question.
07000
