Interviewing in Scala
It seems like language is more important to interviewing than I originally thought. I usually interview in python since it's easy to code interview questions with. However, it seems like engineers will actually consider the language people interview in when evaluating a candidate. I know scala really well. Should I interview in scala even if it might be harder to code interview questions in, particularly if the role involves spark development?
What are the downsides?
It's hard to code interview questions in that language (for loops are considered bad practice)
Yeah but Scala has alternatives to that
Lol donāt interview in scala, your interviewer will hate you if they donāt do scala.
Isn't it typically the case that you tell the recruiter which language you prefer and they find engineers who know the language? I feel if I was interviewing someone and they coded in scala I might be more inclined than if they coded in Java, all things being equal.
Is that the case at amazon? No, recruiters desperately get any live body available on their loops
Why don't you ask your interviewer which language they prefer you code in?
The problem with interviewing in Scala is that for most interviewers, the mental model of what theyāre looking for is nifty for loop > improved for loop > brute force for loop. They havenāt considered a functional solution and so if you code one theyāll mostly just reject you or ask you to change all of your maps etc. to for loops. (Iām not saying functional programming is some genius thing they donāt understand, just that they arenāt looking for inventiveness, theyāre looking for the answer they found online for the question). This has held true even when Iāve interviewed for explicitly Scala positions. Unless youāre whiteboarding code for a Spark job, Iād stay away from scala.
If the job requires Spark experience, then you should program in Scala. But for general coding challenge? Nah. People probably dont know Scala anyway, it has a rather steep learning curve