Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:24 AM
To: cs-ugrads – Mailing List
Subject: [cs-ugrads] Have you recently interviewed with a tech company?
Eric Engleman from TechFlash asks about interview questions, below. (My response to him also is appended.) If you choose to respond to Eric, please remember:
– Don’t say anything to associate a specific question with a specific company.
– Try to be positive.
Subject: Question
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From: Eric Engleman <eengleman@bizjournals.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 9:31 AM
To: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Hi, question for you. I’m working on a feature about job interviews at big tech companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and others where people get asked perplexing curve ball questions just to see how they can think and sort through problems (for example Calculate the weight of a Boeing 747 or How would you move Mt. Fuji?). Do you know anyone who’s encountered such questions and/or can you yourself provide some detail on this trend — how often any of your current/former students encounter these questions when entering the tech industry?
More on the trend:
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/12/top_25_odd_job_interview_questions_of_the_year.html
Thanks,
Eric.
Eric Engleman
TechFlash.com
(o) (206) 876-5430
(m) (206) 669-9814
eengleman@bizjournals.com
twitter.com/ericengleman
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From: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 9:54 AM
To: Eric Engleman <eengleman@bizjournals.com>
Cc: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Eric,
This is nothing new. It goes back decades in the tech industry. Computer science is all about creative problem solving. There are certain tools that we use as part of implementing the solutions to problems — tools such as C#, .NET, Java, Ruby on Rails, C++. These tools come and go — they change with time. The really critical element — the part that doesn’t change — is how you go about solving problems: how logically you think, how creatively you think, how you interact with others in tackling intellectually challenging problems and achieving good solutions. That’s what we have always taught, and that’s what the savvy companies have always tried to assess.
To caricature things, “computer science” is about creatively and collaboratively solving problems, “programming” is about writing code. That’s definitely a caricature — there is lots of crossover. But, by analogy: engineers design aircraft, machinists build them; architects design buildings, engineers translate those designs into something that can be built, contractors build them.
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From: Eric Engleman <eengleman@bizjournals.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 9:57 AM
To: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Do you know anyone who has recently done the rounds of interviews and encountered some of these questions – would love to get a flavor of what they’re being asked and how they handle it.
Also, do these creative problem solving questions mostly come from the big tech companies, or are they used by mid- and small sized companies as well during the interview process.
From: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:54:49 -0800
To: Eric Engleman <eengleman@bizjournals.com>
Cc: Ed Lazowska <lazowska@cs.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Question
eengleman@bizjournals.com <http://eengleman@bizjournals.com>
twitter.com/ericengleman <http://twitter.com/ericengleman>