when interviewing engineers and developers i tend to use the following rules of thumb.
1. pose questions that show wether somebody is knowledgeable or deductive, knowledgeable people often appear to be very good, but are often not adaptable. you want deductive programmers.
2. Im more interested not in what people know, but in how they fill in the gaps in their knowledge. a good engineer knows how to use resources, books, internet, open source etc to find a problem solution that they may not know.
3. Look for generalists, people who write code that solves classes of problems, not specific problems.
4. look for people who show enthusiasm for the application, if they dont get turned on by your application then its just working for money, and they are unlikely to go the extra mile.
5. dont be too driven by qualifications, most of the really good people i have worked with have been self taught, and motivated to keep current, see 4 above.
6. look for people who will ask for help when they need it, there is nothing worse than an engineer that grapples with a problem for days when a simple question would clear it up.
7. ask them to describe the most elegant thing they have seen, and tell you why it was elegant.
For the reasons above, im not really keen on mechanical testing of skills, you need to just chat to the candidate and get a feel for their approach to things.
On 27 Apr 2009, at 13:00, iqbalgandham wrote:
Hi
Its actually not that hard, aside from there fitting into your overall company culture, which is something you can deduce yourself. What I always do (if I can meet the person face to face) is to give them a pen and a piece of paper, and then get them to write me 3 programs
1. A simple one which asks them to open, red, write etc from/to a file
2. Something which asks them to pull info or insert into a database
3. Something a little more advanced which asks them to carry out a calculation, i.e count the number of primes between 1-1000 etc etc
The key is the pen and paper, you will be surprised how many coders cannot do it with pen and paper, since they like to code, run it, see if it works, then try again and again. If a coder can do it on paper, they will be on a diff level to most you will meet.
Also note, that you do not want to make the questions too difficult, since what you need coding will usually come down to working with a DB, inserting, deleting etc etc.
Also check out
http://www.techinterviews.com/perl-interview-questions-and-answers
they have segments for each language, and OS,
This is MS interview questions, they deal with OS, algos etc
http://halcyon.usc.edu/~kiran/msqs.html
Here are a few from google, MS , amazon etc
http://placementsindia.blogspot.com/
Also note, when stuck between two coders, who are equally as good, get them to
a) Write a paragraph of text explaining what they did last summer on holiday
b) Create a 3 slide ppt, showing what they do at work
Why? because whenever you are stuck between two people, the one who can write things down, and present them clearly and coherently and concisely wins
Iqbal Gandham
L: www.iqbalgandham.com/in/iqbalgandham
W: www.iqbalgandham.com
T: @iqbalgandham
S: feelin_tired
From: Tom Watts <[address removed]>
To: [address removed]
Sent: Monday, 27 April, 2009 11:55:03
Subject: [entrepreneur-1056] How can we test a developer’s skills?
Hi everyone.
Long time listener, first time caller.
I was hoping that someone on this group could offer some advice…
We’re in the business of building and running online communities for research and innovation, which we deliver to brands and agencys. Part of our proposition is the delivery of our bespoke social network tool.
To date, we have been working with an external agency, who have done a good job at building our product to specification. However, as business ramps up, we are looking to refine the product and introduce new features and services. As such, it has become necessary to recruit a developer, who is versed in the use open source tools (LAMP).
We’ve looked around and have a good final list of candidates, who we feel could be a good ‘fit’ to our existing team.
The one area that we have yet to test for is the ability to actually code – including their approach to coding. Not having these skills internally, it is difficult for us to achieve this. As such we were hoping to find some form of test that we could give them.
In my mind, I thinking of a simple 1-2 hour exercise, whereby the candidates could make a simple web application/service/feature, which would demonstrate their skills. We have a friendly developer who could then look through what they have made and give us an idea of their abilities.
Is there such a test that people know of? If not, perhaps there is a different approach that someone has used successfully?
Either way, I would very much appreciate any ideas people may have.
Thanks in advance
Tom
–
Tom Watts
Director
w: dubstudios.com
t: +44 (0) 20 8123 3452
m: +44 (0) 7791 163 866
skype: tomwatts22
dub I Communities for Insight & Innovation
Youmeus Ltd t/a Dub Studios is registered in England and Wales, Registration No: 6167745 and registered at The Pines, Boars Head, Crowborough, East Sussex. TN6 3HD
–
Please Note: If you hit “REPLY“, your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Tom Watts ([address removed]) from London OpenCoffee Meetup.
To learn more about Tom Watts, visit his/her member profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, click here
Meetup Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 USA
–
Please Note: If you hit “REPLY“, your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by iqbalgandham ([address removed]) from London OpenCoffee Meetup.
To learn more about iqbalgandham, visit his/her member profile
To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, click here
Meetup Support: [address removed]
632 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 USA
|
Be the First to Comment
Add A Comment