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by lpsz 3703 days ago
I may be misreading. With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?

As a hiring manager, I would be concerned that a candidate with such short exposure to the field and no real projects under their belt would just be too green to carry their weight.

2 comments

Sounds like he knows how to invert binary trees [1]. So the rest will come later...

[1] - https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

> With only a year of instruction and no coding background previously, he was able to get a position at Google? Is this the norm?

That depends on your definition of "norm". The average person could probably spend their entire life preparing for a Google interview and never get an offer. Others could enter any field of their choosing and reach a very high level of competency in just a matter of months. Seems like the OP falls in the latter category.

No matter how academically bright someone is, practical coding experience is still highly desirable.
It has nothing to do with academics - some people can pick up practical skills much more quickly than others.