> graduating without programming skills is impossible
I’ve encountered many who graduated from bachelor and even PhD programs without programming skills (even from European universities), so your statement is false.
It also seems pretty weird to assume that a degree or certificate is foolproof for demonstrating programming skills. That seems like a lack of critical thinking skills.
I can only speak for myself, but I've never met a (CS) candidate from an accredited Scandinavian university / college that simply could not write code.
There are obviously candidates that struggle with performing under pressure - even those that have gone completely blank, but through some simple guiding have bounced back.
To be frank, at the schools I studied at, it would be impossible to fake your way through a whole degree, unless you either got someone to impersonate you and take your exams, or you cheated your way through every single exam...but even then, your grades would be a big red flag.
Sure, there are bad programmers out there - but not being able to punch out a line of valid code, after obtaining a whole degree in the subject...seems extremely unlikely - sans the extreme edge cases.
Even the straight E / D students I've worked with managed to cobble together working stuff, without the aid of search engines or stack exchange.
I suppose you’re very fortunate, but I wouldn’t generalize anything from your experience. Just like I wouldn’t generalize from mine.
I’ve worked with programmers from Scandinavian university degrees and some sucked. Not sure how they passed, but the degree was 15 years old and this was the early 00s.
Maybe Scandinavian countries have more rigorous degree programs. If so they are fairly unique in that regard. I don't see how we can use that during hiring thought. What are tech companies supposed to do: only hire from these universities? That seems less fair than the current process.
how so? you are rewarding students for working hard to get their degree? the current process basically tells them: we don’t care you worked crazy hard, it’s back to square 1. they might just as well gone straight into an internship after high school…
also: this is not just the case for scandinavian universities but also the case for universities in most of western europe especially if they are non-private.
I believe you that this is the level of talent at western European universities but what about all the other universities outside of Western Europe that aren't like this. Should companies exempt you from a grueling interview process only if you are from one of these schools?
sure, why not? companies collect info about what school you graduated from and your grades anyway already. they can associate that data with who they fired to decide if they want to hire out of that school.
i don’t see how that would skew the stats as it would affect only a few courses you take and you can still do decent and self study if the professor is crap.
well, where i graduated, people DID have those skills. so you are wrong.
besides, companies already ask what university you went to and could get your records and individual class grades and use that combined with number of people fired that had the same degree to figure out if they want to hire you or not. after all, we are in the era of data science?
and instead of paying recruiters lots of money for shuffling word documents around, they can use that money to pay prospective candidates for a month. it will be cheaper.
the real reason for coding interviews is to wear you out so they can pay you less. the problem is that people go along with this clown show instead of simply walking away and doing something else.
You end up with a far less merit based hiring pipeline. I work at a top tech company and don't have any degree at all. The current process gives people like me a chance, yours wouldn't.
the current process rewards people who memorize and grind leetcode answers, rather than those with an actual education and skills, which is a problem. so no, the current process is not merit based but rather measures to what extent you are willing to exhaust yourself to get a job.
I did maybe 5-10 hours of preparation for my current job's interview and most of my colleagues didn't grind either. I'm skeptical of this idea that the only people who work at FAANG are Leetcode machines that have sacrificed their lives to grind questions.
then maybe you are an outlier and were asked the exact questions you prepared for. most people here mentioned 2-3 months of grinding and that is what i also experienced firsthand.
the interview process does not optimize for great people with relevant experience but for those who repeatedly grind leetcode problems irrelevant to the job.
i interviewed a while ago at a FAANG where they had a long standing problem related to their OS. i knew the solution because i recently brought a product to market built on top of a similar OS and had to address the same problem.
but it was more important to them i passed their coding test within a few minutes, and that i choose the optimum solution, which can only be found if you can spend an hour thinking about it. i bombed the interview due to not being used to coding interviews and having to talk while i think, and having to do all this in a few minutes.
they are probably still wondering how to fix their problem.
I’ve encountered many who graduated from bachelor and even PhD programs without programming skills (even from European universities), so your statement is false.
It also seems pretty weird to assume that a degree or certificate is foolproof for demonstrating programming skills. That seems like a lack of critical thinking skills.