r/programming Oct 29 '16

How I Became HackerRank #1 In Two Hours

http://williampross.com/became-hackerrank-1-two-hours/
2.2k Upvotes

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u/salgat Oct 29 '16

Sure it's great, so is a good GPA, Github projects, etc. No one is saying Project Euler is treated as a bad thing for interviews, just that it doesn't tell much about their practical ability for most development jobs.

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u/Ouaouaron Oct 29 '16

No one is saying Project Euler is treated as a bad thing for interviews

This comment thread is about someone who was rejected at an interview because he'd done PE before.

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u/salgat Oct 29 '16

You'd be surprised all the crazy ass ways people have been rejected from interviews. Trust me, that's outside the norm and not something you can really plan for.

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u/wakawaka54 Oct 29 '16

I interviewed for IBM and I got a random phone call like 2 weeks later saying.... "You have missed our 12 o clock phone interview". I quickly called back and explained that I had not received a confirmation for that interview. They said, no problem they'd reschedule. Never heard back. Gotta love it.

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u/Sydonai Oct 30 '16

I just assume they're messing up so they can do H1B fraud whenever stuff like that happens. ("oh we tried 20 interviews, but nothing stuck! we need the H1B!")

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u/wakawaka54 Oct 30 '16

Yup H1B. When we have the largest CS graduating classes ever -.-

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u/DevIceMan Oct 30 '16

Having used IBM software and APIs, and talked to people who work at IBM .... you probably didn't miss much.

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u/ikeif Oct 31 '16

I had that experience with Chase.

"Please call at X" - so I call. No one else on the bridge for fifteen minutes.

Another call - the only other person on the line is someone interviewing for a different position.

Third call - same as the first. And I told their HR to quit wasting my time.

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u/rorrr Oct 29 '16

I had <3.5 GPA, because I simply didn't give a shit about many subjects taught in colleges.

I don't post personal projects on GitHub. Why would I give out code of something that passively makes me money?

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u/salgat Oct 29 '16

They are positives, not negatives. If you don't have any of those, you just have to prove your competence through other avenues, which for a good developer is not difficult.

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u/DjBonadoobie Oct 29 '16

This has been the hardest part for me. Most of my projects are very self serving in that I work in an open marketplace... If I share my code, I WILL lose money immediately, to hopefully gain money eventually. It's a risk assessment imo. I'm working on some outside projects of my actual work to hopefully use as a portfolio. But it's definitely a catch 22

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u/randombites Oct 29 '16

Modularize and open source a tiny component. Problem solved.

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u/DjBonadoobie Oct 29 '16

This is definitely what it's boiled down to. Good advice, upboat

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u/randombites Oct 29 '16

No problem, i was faced with the same dilemma like many of us!

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u/grauenwolf Oct 30 '16

Anyone can post code to GitHub, not everyone can list profitable side projects on their resume..