Bad interviewer!! Beware!!

New
ujshbj

New

ujshbj
May 5, 2021 54 Comments

Recently this dude from Microsoft posted (and now deleted) about how LC and Grokking are stupid,and that his interviewee was able to answer these LC questions spot on, but couldn't an answer his "basic fundamental CS questions".
Turns out his question was fundamentally soo flawed that if I was the interviewee, I would have lodged a formal complaint!!
Attached the chat I had with him, but don't want to disclose the identity. I don't intend to shame him, but want others to realize what happens when they think they are amazing interviewers and ask stupid non-calibrated questions with incorrect knowledge themselves, that end up costing the interviewees 100s of hours of wasted efforts!!

If buffoon interviewers like these exist, how can we companies safely ever move away from LC?

Bad interviewer!! Beware!!
Bad interviewer!! Beware!!
Bad interviewer!! Beware!!
Bad interviewer!! Beware!!

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TOP 54 Comments
  • Apple
    bl00m

    Go to company page Apple

    bl00m
    You’re a moron. Git is actually relatively new. I’m 20 years old and I used SVN when I was a young teen.

    Someone with 12 YOE should definitely know more than just Git, and be comfortable talking about VCs and how they work... and the trade offs of each. What if he was interviewing for TFS?

    You weren’t there for the interview, nor were you hiring. You can’t claim anything on the basis of the question or making assumptions about the candidate’s response.

    What if he really fumbled his response and didn’t even know how to use Git? See, now we’re just speaking hypothetically.

    What if he knew what Git was but couldn’t speak to merkle trees and how commits work? This is something you have to know for TFS / Azure DevOps...
    May 5, 2021 12
    • Google
      CqlP40

      Go to company page Google

      CqlP40
      20 year old moron 🤣😂🤣
      May 6, 2021
    • SAP
      isitMike?

      Go to company page SAP

      isitMike?
      My GitHub registration date is Jan, 3rd 2009. By that time I already used git without GitHub while in college. As an SDE I couldn't care less about pros and cons of certain VCS, I just know how to work with couple of them.
      May 6, 2021
  • The question was dumb. Debating with them was even dumber.
    May 5, 2021 4
  • Google / Eng
    gtrpn48

    Go to company page Google Eng

    PRE
    Startuply
    gtrpn48
    Yep very stupid question from what I assume is a mediocre Microsoft SWE. The question had nothing to do with "CS fundamentals". It was about familiarity with a specific tool. Pretty sure the interviewer lacks CS fundamentals, hence stuck at his underpaid Microsoft job.
    May 5, 2021 0
  • There are bad interviewers everywhere. Clearly this person is seeking to show off some knowledge he/she has. The interviewee was unlucky in this experience but lucky that he or she won't have to work with such moron. There was a time when Microsoft interviewers would automatically no-hire you if you didn't know the methods in the COM IUnknown interface.

    Sorry for the bad experience with Microsoft.
    May 5, 2021 4
    • Google / Eng
      gtrpn48

      Go to company page Google Eng

      PRE
      Startuply
      gtrpn48
      > There was a time when Microsoft interviewers would automatically no-hire you if you didn't know the methods in the COM IUnknown interface.

      Wow really? When was it? Microsoft were the original inventors of the Leetcode style coding interviews back in the 1990s before Google/FB even existed. When did they ask domain specific questions like that?
      May 5, 2021
    • +1 to bad interviewers everywhere.
      When I switched team internally, I was surprised that how many bad interviewers Microsoft has. Some were even abusive.
      Also other companies too, same story. Unfortunately it is 50% chance of interviewer's fault than interviewee if interviewee fails interview.
      May 6, 2021
  • IBM
    fangchod

    Go to company page IBM

    fangchod
    This is what all interviews would be like if we didn't have algorithm style questions.

    And then preparing for interviews would be memorizing superficial trivia about random things.
    May 6, 2021 1