[vparikh]

I have been in the software industry for 30 years as of this month. I have never had a gap of longer then 6 months and the shortest time with a company was 4 years 8 months and the longest time was 16 years. I have worked on the following technoclogies. Companies range from on of the Big 3 consulting firms to startups. Here are the technologies I have worked on

- C/C++ on Win16/Win32

- Assembly language development with Z80/8051/ARM on embedded microcontrollers

- Java (core java, Servlets, J2EE)

- Ruby on Rails

- NodeJS / Javascript

- Worked with AWS tech (the full stack)

- Relational DB (MsSQL, PostGres, MySql), NoSQL db (MonoDB)

- Coded for Linux/Unix, MacOS, Windows 16/32, PalmOS, iOS

I can provide reference for each of those skillsets form my past colleagues.

You know what - I probably couldn't pass half of the insane coding puzzles these interviewers throw out. Not because I can't solve them, I just don't remember enough of the syntax or library semantics of the top of my head.

At my experience can we just assume that I am a competent coder (maybe not the top 1%, but at least in the top %20) and talk about the job and how I can contribute ? I mean its almost insulting if you ask me to make a linked list/reverse a binary tree or other such nonsense looking over my shoulder me with a time limit.

[edanm]

> At my experience can we just assume that I am a competent coder (maybe not the top 1%, but at least in the top %20) and talk about the job and how I can contribute ? I mean its almost insulting if you ask me to make a linked list/reverse a binary tree or other such nonsense looking over my shoulder me with a time limit.

If there was a way to verify what you say reliably, then of course that would be better. But there isn't, and writing down that list is extremely easy - in fact, half of the CVs I've ever seen look very similar in terms of the length of the list, amount of technologies mentioned, etc. Even for people with far less experience.

There has to be some way to check whether someone actually knows what they're doing. For sure some of the time a strong reference is enough proof. That's why people in the industry a long time with many contacts will often go from job to job without even interviewing anywhere - they just move to places with former colleagues that already know them.

But for a new place that doesn't know you, thinking it's insulting to show what you know is... weird. Is it going to be insulting on day one when you actually have to do the work?

[dieselgate]

Makes me think of the quip along the lines “the expert has forgotten more than the beginner knows”

[emodendroket]

I don't get what's insulting about it and I'm glad I had the chance to prove it instead of people just binning my resume with experience the were obviously skeptical of.

[CogitoCogito]

Maybe it's not insulting, but it sure as shit is pointless.

[emodendroket]

Based on my experience interviewing people I don't agree with that either.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

Yeah there's plenty of people who would get badly hurt if they fell from the level they show in the CV (or the level of their ego) to the level of skills they can actually show.

[proveitdude]

> Relational DB (MsSQL, PostGres, MySql), NoSQL db (MonoDB)

> At my experience can we just assume that I am a competent coder and talk about the job and how I can contribute ? I mean its almost insulting if you ask me to make a linked list/reverse a binary tree or other such nonsense looking over my shoulder me with a time limit.

I might inclined to agree had you not gotten all the names of the databases in your list wrong.

[vparikh]

Ha! You are right - I still can't type :)

[citrin_ru]

Try to look on a hiring problem from another side. Companies getting a lot of applications and at least some either stretch the truth on their CV or just lie, so trusting CV is not something a company can rely upon. Instead a company need an universal for all applicants way to filter out ones who likely cannot write code and then spend time only on candidates who've passed this test. Unless difficulty of this coding interview is miscalculated any experienced developer should be able to pass it, may be with a few days of coding interview practice. And if you are not ready to spend a few days preparing for interviews it's also a bad sign in eyes of an employer.