How to interview a developer
Posted by Sajith M on Jul 11th, 2006
2006
Jul 11
Having interviewed many candidates for developer position at Stylus Systems Pvt Ltd, I think its probably worthwhile to discuss the questions I use to evaluate a candidate. Someone might find it useful, or you may be able to give me tips on how to do things better.
- How many languages do you know? Which is your favorite?
The more languages the candidate knows, the better. There usually are always a few that both of us know and I tend to quiz the candidate about it – what you like, what you don’t etc.
The favorite is usually C#/Java/C++ (95% or more time), and I tend to focus on this and see how well the candidate knows his favorite language. - Which was the project, you learned the most from? Or Which was your toughest project?
In both cases, a description of the project is asked for and also why it was a learning experience or why it was tough. While explaining the project, I tend to interrupt and ask specific questions about the project (exactly how or why was a particular functionality implemented) and the answer tells if the candidate knows what he is talking about. - When would you call a function too big? How big a function is really big?
Anything more than a page of print is way too big and should possible be broken down.
These are some of the questions I ask to gauge the candidate. I would love to hear from you about your favorite questions.
Posted under: Technology , Software Development
December 28th, 2006 at 21:50:14
… Hmmm.. some questions that i can think of is Templates in C++, if a fresher then C++ STL, is he even aware such a of it.? , is it good to have a very very large if else ladder written into switch statement… (both not good choice, in embedded u come across such situations).. a empty loop for timer.. again in embedded … n the existence static class in .Net 1.0 of course.. some of that i could think of.. i’ll post some more as n when i remember..