Hacking the Coding Interview

This is a talk I gave at the Chicago Coders Conference about the current standards for technical interviews and their impact on the diversity of of a company.

Transcript

1. Hacking the Coding Interview Dushyant Srikant – Software Engineer
2. Introduction
3. What is a diverse workplace? • Diversity of thought • Diversity of experience • Diversity of personality
4. Google
5. Facebook
6. Airbnb
7. Our path to a more diverse workplace… Programs for children in underrepresented social groups Inclusive workplace Representative interview process
8. Why a technical interview? 1. We want to know whether a candidate knows computer science fundamentals. 2. We want to know how a candidate can thinks through a problem. 3. We want to know if a candidate can work through a solution with an engineer that they might be working with.
10. First Date Questions • Where is your family from? • What did you study in school? • Do you like your job? • What that most fun experience you’ve had recently? • What are you favorite passtimes?
11. Dating vs Interviewing Objective of First Date Do you want to go on a second date with this person? Objective of Technical Interview Do you want to work on problems with this person? Do you want a long term relationship? Does this person have good design thinking or an interest in architecture? Do you want something casual? Does this person ship code quickly?
12. Typical Technical Interview Question Given a string a length n, how would you tell if that string is a palindrome?
13. Equivalent First Date Question Given a hamper of dirty clothes, how would you do the laundry, such that the white were rid of stains and the colors did not lose their color?
14. More Realistic First Date Person A: What’s something you do in your free time? Person B: I recently signed up for improv classes at Second City. I go hang out and play improv games with my class every Wednesday night. Person A: That’s so cool. What got you into that? Person B: Well, I saw a show at Second city and … Person A: Awesome! I’ve always wanted to see improv. Maybe we could go to a show sometime! Your show even!
15. More Insightful Technical Question Pick your favorite topic/question in technology and explain it as you would to a child in elementary school. • Encourages candidate to share their passions. • Gives interviewer a chance to find common ground with the candidate • Allows for impromptu questioning of technical skills • Highlights differing ideas and thought processes • Gives the candidate an opportunity to represent themselves.
16. What do we want out of a technical interview? 1. We want to know whether a candidate knows computer science fundamentals. 2. We want to know whether a candidate can think through a problem. 3. We want to know if a candidate can work through a solution with an engineer that they might be working with.
17. More Representative Interviews Mean… • Diversity of thought • Diversity of experience • Diversity of personality • Diversity of employee
18. Questions?
19. References • https://www.google.com/diversity/ • https://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/123472998984/please-see-here-for-our-eeo- 1-report • https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/07/facebook-diversity-update- positive-hiring-trends-show-progress/ • https://wispapp.com/blog/2015/11/16/job-interview-for-it-pro/