92 karma · joined August 21, 2013
The trick to use C++, is to use less of it. C with classes and namespaces. Oh and smart pointers.
We hire people we believe we will be able to work with. It's not a popularity contest, we evaluate problem solving, analytical thinking and communication skills, such as the ability to explain complex topics in easy terms.
I'll give you an example, usually we are interviewing people straight out of the university, but this can be applied to any candidate.
I'll start by asking the candidate to talk about his master's project. As he talks about it, I'll guide the conversation towards these topics : -What was the problem -How was it defined? -How did you tackle it? -Explain your solution -support your decisions -Was there a cost/benefit analysis? -How was the problem decomposed?
This will give me an initial picture of the candidate's ability to address a problem, and is far more important to me than wether he knows "the number after F in hexadecimal" or some other nonsense.
To this day it's probably the best CS book I have ever read.
Case in point. Major companies like roche and abaxis have had point-of-care medical devices that perform blood testing for various parameters that use a drop of blood.
Theranos's problem was that they said they could do pretty much every parameter under the sun, and they used an FDA loophole to operate their lab. It was later discovered that 90% of the tests were not being processed with their supposed technology.
In my opinion, computer science and engineering is not about just making the code you're told, it's about questioning whether that code needs to be done in the first place, and if so, how.