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How To Show Code Samples?
Todd writes "I've been looking around at 'help wanted' advertisements for programming jobs, and almost all of them demand that you not only have professional experience, but also that you show samples of your work. This got me wondering; with the work product, trade secret, and non-disclosure laws/agreements, how exactly can you show work that you've done in a professional capacity to a prospective employer without violating the privacy of the company for which the code was written? For instance, I can't say I've written many BASH scripts (at least, not large ones) for myself personally, but the assortment of such scripts written for my current job is wide and varied indeed. I can't very well just deliver these scripts, or even small portions thereof, to third parties to help demonstrate my scripting prowess. With that in mind, what am I supposed to show them?"
Work on an open-source project, and use that code.
Table-ized A.I.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You should have side projects.
The big win with side projects that are entirely under your control is that the code is entirely your style. Almost all of the code that you write for work will have some legacy or shortcut warts, but your self-made utility code can be entirely of your own style and principles. This can be good or bad.
If you don't have any code that you can show, ask your prospective employer to concoct a reasonable example.
If you don't have any code of your own to show them, that tells them something. If they can't come up with a reasonable task for you to demonstrate your abilities, that tells you something.
Funny, but it's a good point. How do the employers know that the candidate is showing his/her own code? Even if they are, most likely the code for show will be polished to perfection over however long that takes, and probably not representative of their code while working on a deadline. Far better to give a test during the interview and have your best engineers present to evaluate the candidate
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Funny, but it's a good point. How do the employers know that the candidate is showing his/her own code? Even if they are, most likely the code for show will be polished to perfection over however long that takes, and probably not representative of their code while working on a deadline. Far better to give a test during the interview and have your best engineers present to evaluate the candidate There would still be value in this. It's understood that your code would be better than your average code in this case but that's ok. If the code submitted is good, it will mean one or more of the following: 1. You know what good code looks like. 2. You understand that the job application process is important and took the time to make code good. 3. You possibly gave it to someone else to review. Trust me, it's rare enough that someone would be good enough to do that. Most people would submit crap even given all the time in the world to polish it off. The ones who manage to submit a good sample would still form a better candidate pool, no matter what technique they used.
http://ed.markovich.googlepages.com
How do you know that those other sites had not copied your interviewees code?
The correctness of the code you write in an interview on a whiteboard isn't what you are being judged on. Rather, the interviewer is trying to gather insight into your problem solving skills (or at least that's what I'm looking for when I interview someone).
In a problem solving exercise like this, I don't care if you miss a semicolon, put a bracket in the wrong place, or can't remember the exact name/argument list for a function (though depending on what the problem is I'll probably end up telling you the function isn't available). I can teach a smart person how to write better code, but I can't teach someone to be smart.
Some of the basic things I ask myself about the whiteboard question after the interview is over include:
- did you ask questions about the requirements?
- what did you do if I give you a requirement that contradicts an assumption or previously defined requirement?
- did you just start writing some code or did you take some time to consider multiple solutions?
- if I asked you to come up with an alternative/better way to solve the problem, were you able to?
- if not, and I describe an alternate way to solve the problem, are you able to implement it?
- did your solution consider boundary conditions?
- does your solution scale?
- do you show a fundamental understanding of programming theory?
- can you communicate your ideas and solution effectively?
The next time you get a whiteboard question, remember that correctness isn't necessarily the most important criteria -- it's the problem solving that matters. The best way to succeed with this type of problem is to think out loud and interact with the interviewer.
As a side note, getting a good back and forth going with the interviewer is also the easiest way to "forget" that you are nervious, and you might relax enough to have a bit of fun...