Whether or not to test algorithms in programmer interviews has become a regular topic on every major job forum. And suffer from brush more and more students can not help but ask: there is no algorithm of the company?

Of course there is. Star 15K on Github lists more than 700 companies worldwide that don’t use algorithms for interviews (reliability is self-rated).

After an initial cull, we found nearly 300 in North America, including some of the bay Area’s biggest tech companies, such as Stripe, Slack, Netflix, Github, and more.

Source: github.com/poteto/hiri…

So the question is, how do these companies that don’t test algorithms interview? After knowing the truth, the feeling is still easy to brush the question…

“Nine chapter algorithm class 2020 editionExpand the class five times

Highlights of the course:

  • The epidemic response version of “Nine Chapters Algorithm Class 2020”, Teacher Linghu Chong expanded the curriculum by 5 times

  • Explain 57 core interview questions in 8 weeks

  • The course is expanded from 9 to 43 chapters

I signed up for the first free audition class

Maverick, bay Area non-face algorithm company

Stripe does not test algorithms, coding ability needs to be strong

Stripe, dubbed the “US Version of Alipay”, is one of the few mega-unicorns to see its valuation rise rather than shrink this year. In April, Stripe announced $600 million in new funding at a valuation of $36 billion, up from $35 billion last year.

As one of the Bay Area’s best-known unicorns, Stripe has long been popular with programmers, but its approach to interviewing is unusual among bay Area tech companies.

Stripe interviews have coding sessions, but they don’t write whiteboards, they don’t test algorithms. The interview content is close to the actual work, and the question bank is small. Onsite candidates are required to complete programming and debugging on their own computers. While the interview questions may seem simple, they don’t have a higher pass rate than the algorithmic ones. Coding speed, code quality, whether bug free and so on are all in the scope of investigation.

In addition, Stripe values culture fit and has very high requirements on whether people are nice or not. So it’s important to be enthusiastic and smile during an interview.

Netflix algorithms are not important, but an 8-wheel onsite education system is needed to educate people

Netflix is sure you’re all familiar with this — don’t ask, 400K. Netflix’s salary for employees is directly the industry’s top level, and all cash, bay Area code farmers expressed greedy tears.

Yet there isn’t much of it online for a cruel reason: the bar is too high.

Different from other companies, Netflix’s code farmers are all at the same level: Senior Software Engineer, so Netflix only recruits engineers with rich experience.

What makes it even more brutal is that Netflix has several more rounds of interviews. First, two or three rounds of onsite interviews, then eight onsite rounds, and at least 10 onsite rounds if you are onsite.

Eight onsite teams are onsite for the first and second halves. In the first half of the five rounds of technical aspects only three rounds, the content is also close to the reality, if there are algorithm questions, the difficulty is not difficult; The other two rounds are hr and Manager. The second half is with HR and Director, etc. It is more about Culture fit, whether you really care about Netflix or your understanding of the company’s development direction.

In terms of interview, Netflix values Culture fit more than flax.

Slack wants an interview? Do your homework first

Thanks to the rise of telecommuting, Slack has also gained a lot of attention during the pandemic, and its market value has soared. When Slack hires engineers, it gives them a take-home exercise, mainly in the form of code review.

After the candidates have been screened by phone and taken home exercise, there will be 2 rounds of technical interviews and 2 rounds of non-technical interviews. In Its onsite coding, Slack has a long-standing tradition of not using whiteboard coding, which means it doesn’t do algorithmic questions, according to its official Technology blog.

Source: medium-Slack Engineering

First, they don’t think whiteboard coding is good for evaluating candidates’ practical technical abilities; Second, by trying to be realistic about the question itself, Slack wants candidates to implement a basic version of a real feature that might be relevant to the work they do later. Finally, Slack wants to make the interview experience as real and as close to a daily job as possible.

For Slack interviews, use your own computer and feel free to check out Google, Stack Overflow and other references you might use in your daily work. Interviewers focus on candidates’ code accuracy and style, attention to detail and design, and an understanding of the importance of testing.

West coast algorithm, east coast experience

Google, some say, has fostered the popularity of algorithms among Bay Area tech companies; Some say It was started by Microsoft, Google built on it, and then others followed.

Unlike the algorithms that are common in the Bay Area, most Startups and Startups in the East focus on basics and Take Home Project.

Many finance tech companies in New York, such as J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and so on, have little or no knowledge of algorithm questions, and the interview mainly focuses on experience and basic skills.

Other eastern technology companies also like to ask CS fundamentals in the interview, such as process thread, how to implement JVM GC, and algorithms are also very basic questions, which are similar to the situation of small and medium-sized companies in China.

Job interview in China

Since the outbreak in the United States got out of control, many American code farmers have turned their attention to China. But domestic companies in addition to a few big factories and a unicorn algorithm post, and north American technology companies interview is basically a different style.

You have met the domestic company to know that the algorithm is really the simplest way of assessment, why not push ali to try half an hour to ask you speechless feeling?

I believe this is the experience of most of the students who have met big factories in China. Domestic interview is more important to your professional foundation and the breadth and depth of knowledge, the interviewer will often ask you for a point, until you can not answer, and then another topic to continue.

Algorithmic questions aren’t unheard of — bytedance, for example, is known for doing job interviews — but they don’t carry nearly as much weight as silicon Valley companies.

Therefore, students preparing for domestic interviews need to pay special attention to the reserve of professional knowledge.

In general, there are not many companies that do not value algorithms or even test algorithms. On the contrary, if you really want to find them, you can find many. But look down, and you’ll see that it’s probably the easiest way to interview… All right, I’m gonna go work on it.