I wouldnt worry about getting passed up by the bigger companies. Everyone knows their interview processes are highly dysfunctional jokes. Then most startup companies copy them because they all think they are going to be the next google etc.
My last interview at amazon went like this:
Stupid trick coding question over the phone that I did not understand at all. Followed by 3 memorization questions. followed by one question I felt was valid and i know i got it right.
I was being interviewed for a specific product that was right up my ally. I could literally build what they had built easily, but they never once asked questions related to the product or my experience.
I looked at the product a year later and basically nothing has been done to it.
This reminds me of my Facebook interview. The coding question was "given an array of all the words in the English language, print an array of arrays containing all the anagrams". In studying for the interview, I'd just refreshed on recursion and, in my general nervousness + excitement thinking I'd just been asked a question I'd literally studied an hour before, went right to work generating all the anagrams of each word in the English language.
About 5 minutes after the call ended, my jaw dropped open and I slapped my forehead. To find the anagrams of a word, just parse the set and remove any words that are (a) the same length and (b) contain the same numbers of each letter in the original.
Fizz buzz. And I made it like 1000x harder.
A generous interviewer would say, "Well at least he knows recursion and can do it on the fly in a stressful situation". But this is Facebook and they don't have to be generous. I gave them a reason to say "no" and then they said "no".
But as for "dysfunctional jokes", I have to agree (and you can tell from my OP that I have plenty of experience with it). Asking someone to code on the fly is like asking someone to write a novella on the fly. You need focus and concentration. By demanding it with someone breathing into your ear the whole time, you're simply giving those who are better able to handle pressure an advantage and those who can't a disadvantage. If this were a bomb-diffusal position, you'd want to filter for that. But this is coding, so what should pressure-handling matter?
haha exactly. i mean my typical day coding is my boss runs into my office. Tells me the entire company is going to fail if i cant figure out this trick problem in 30 seconds flat.
I mean i never research or think about shit. i just code it man and release it like a boss because thats how coding in the real world works. You better be quick on your feet if you want to get into the big guys. This is real world coding after all :) ...
Did you mean memoization, the optimization technique where you cache intermediate results? Or were they literally asking you to memorize and recite minutiae over the phone?
I always get these two words mixed up, and it doesn't help that Firefox doesn't think "memoization" is actually word.
I meant memorization. Questions that if I could remember I would have the answer to, or if i could google it then i would easily find the answer.
For example implement some specific algorithm. If you remember some of that algorithm or memorized it you are good. Otherwise you suck at development because you haven't had the need to implement that algo ever in your career..
I did the new grad assessment test last week for Amazon, I am more than positive I aced both sections, especially the coding questions (passed all tests). Yet somehow I still didn't advance. I have other interviews in the pipeline that were way tougher and I didn't get the solutions 100% yet I still advanced.
Could be worse. About five years ago I was interviewing at Amazon, and had gotten picked by the hiring manager and all that was left was a "trivial" HR screen. Lady there felt that since I had mainly done consulting I couldn't be trusted to stay at a full time job, and so overruled the hiring manager and I didn't get the position.
The rest of the story? A couple years later I had a chance to talk with the hiring manager while he was applying for a position at a place I was working - seems the person HR picked led to their whole unit being disbanded because they failed so miserably. He felt he had to take some of the blame for not keeping a closer eye on the person, but still...
During this period, my dad said something that stuck with me: "The interviewing process is very human. There are all sorts of reasons it can fall apart, many that have nothing to do with you. Maybe they've got an inside candidate or someone decides they don't like the school you went to or the tie you're wearing."
I've found this to be true in a small number of my experiences. There are certain positions I interviewed for where my history was 100% in line with their needs, the interviews all went well and I should have gotten the job. But then didn't. Have no idea why not.
Acing all tests and doing great with question and still not being hired usually means you weren't a "cultural fit" (usually an institutionalized popularity contest).
I usually add these companies (and if possible, the team in question) and keep track of the position and project as well. They're not going to like it when the chip on my shoulder becomes too big and I decide to compete against them.
Just don't become a super villain like Guy Pierce did in Iron Man 3
My last interview at amazon went like this:
Stupid trick coding question over the phone that I did not understand at all. Followed by 3 memorization questions. followed by one question I felt was valid and i know i got it right.
I was being interviewed for a specific product that was right up my ally. I could literally build what they had built easily, but they never once asked questions related to the product or my experience.
I looked at the product a year later and basically nothing has been done to it.