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Comment by yodsanklai | Hacker News Reader

I recently interviewed at a big tech company (phone interview). I spent quite some time practicing on leetcode (completed at least 150 problems). During the interview, it took me a few minutes of thinking before completing the assignments with what I think was the expected solution. We discussed the complexity and a few possible variations. The interview sounded satisfied and I really had the feeling that I had nailed these assignments.

I wasn't rejected but I've been asked to retake a phone interview. Apparently, the interviewer had very good feelings about me, but found that I was "out of practice" as far as coding goes.

I wonder if my age is an issue (40+) or if they have a really high level of expectation. Are most other candidates super fast at solving these kinds of problems. I'm a bit disappointed because I'm not sure that I've got much room for improvement at that stage.

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found that I was "out of practice" as far as coding goes.

They want 23 year olds who just did their finals. You know, real stallions.

And who don’t care that they’re going to get paid less than minimum wage, and work over 120 hours per week.

You know, real pegacorns.

I wonder if my age is an issue (40+)

The answer to that is almost always yes.

I really wonder how age is taken into account. If it were really an issue, they could have rejected my application from the start and not bother with an interview.

Maybe the interviewer was biased and led to think I was "out of practice" because he knew I was on the older side. But I'll give them the benefice of the doubt. I believe it's a competitive position and I simply wasn't in the right percentile to qualify.

Now, would my former self 20 years ago be more competitive for this kind of interviews? slightly faster perhaps, but I don't feel I'm at a disadvantage compared to younger candidates.

As someone that does lots of coding phone interviews I can say that yes, time is a factor. But it's relative, ie I'm comparing you to the time it took other candidates to solve the same problem. After all, we have to evaluate you, over the phone, in the course of less than an hour. If 2 candidates arrive to the optimal solution, the one that did it much faster is the better candidate.

It sounds to me like you did pretty well so don't give up.

> the one that did it much faster is the better candidate.

From my perspective that is only about 3% of what I expect from a software engineer. Writing readable, easy to maintain code that is well tested, collaborating with product and other developers for how a feature should work, influencing technical designs, giving good feedback are things I value much higher than how quickly someone can write a snippet of code that works.

If 2 candidates arrive to the optimal solution, the one that did it much faster is the better candidate.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? Is it based on data or does it "feel" right based on an easily-measured metric?

> If 2 candidates arrive to the optimal solution, the one that did it much faster is the better candidate.

This is _a_ metric but I wouldn't bet too much on it. I know lots of people that come to optimal solutions to "algorithm type" _much_ faster than I do. I'm pretty slow at that type of stuff. But... its just such a small part of what makes someone a good programmer. Building out a medium to large application requires balancing a lot of trade offs and figuring out how to keep things simple. I know seasoned, quality algorithm solvers who honestly just repeatedly churn out garbage applications. And they can tank the productivity of an entire team of developers in their wake. I don't know how you test for that, but I can promise phone screening for problem solution time isn't it.

the one that did it much faster is the better candidate

Translated: "the one that did it much faster is a more recent graduate and exploitable for 100-hour weeks at below-par pay, hire that one".

Congratulations, now you know how to hire at a tech company!

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