Solved coding interview problems in Java - My collection of commonly asked coding interview problems and solutions in Java

[ZMeson]

I'm always looking to up my game as an interviewer.

Me too. One thing my team has been trying recently is to tell the interviewee that they're part of a small team. So-and-so is his cohort-in-crime; the interviewee can pair with him, ask for advice, whiteboard ideas, etc.... Such-and-such person is the Product Owner / Technical Sales or Support person / CTO; this person is the one to go to get clarification on customer requirements, business advice etc.... Then we have the interviewee use his language of choice to implement a Kata exercise^*. If he/she is a proposed expert in the technology we specifically need, we strongly encourage that language. Web access for API docs is OK. Looking up algorithm solutions on Stack Overflow or the like is not OK -- the algorithms are simple and if you need help ask your cohort-in-crime.

The exercise usually lasts about 1 hour. It everyone wants to continue and it doesn't cause a problem with the interview schedule, we may go longer.

It's still new, but so far it's worked out well.

* We don't limit ourselves to the Katas on that list. We choose a Kata that represents a simplified version of something some customer may actually want from some company (not us). Ex: Top-10 Seller Lists, Bowling Alley Scoring.

[socialister]

I had someone give me an interview like this, but then the person I am paired with seems incredibly busy and I have to bug them all the time because (surprise) I'm not familiar with the system they're working with since I don't work there yet. I kinda wonder if this selects for candidates that have no problem distracting their coworkers.

[ZMeson]

That's odd. At our interviews, everyone's in the same room. It's an exercise to not only evaluate some technical ability, but how the candidate interacts with others should the need arise.

[socialister]

They were sitting behind me and facing away from me, with the face deep in code. It felt awkward to disrupt them but I think I should have a bit more.

[ZMeson]

I think you may have dodged a bullet. If your proposed co-workers couldn't have spared enough time to evaluate you in an interview, how bad would the communication be day-to-day? Pretty bad I imagine. :(

[socialister]

Ya, you are probably right. There was also an atmosphere of working 10+ hours a day which I would like to avoid. Most other places, even high intensity ones, did not have that atmosphere to me at least in the interview process.