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>2a. people who _actually_ can code are scarce, even in the tech industry. Source: conducted over 300 interviews

As a young person with an interest in software programming (currently studying chemical engineering but still write C code now and then), what do you look for when trying to find out people who can _actually_ code?



Literally the ability to write working code. You'd be amazed how few interviewees can even put together a working for... loop.


This absolutely blows my mind. I have a hard time even believing it. But having never conducted interviews, I just don't know.


I've heard this story before, but it sounds absolutely insane and I can't begin to imagine (let alone expect!) that such a thing occurs. Is it really true?


yes, exactly this


a somewhat serious answer: simple things should be easy to you, and hard things possible

examples of simple things: DFS/BFS walks; simple Project Euler problems; or "write a simple game in terminal, maybe with some form of minimax search" (a bit harder), or maybe a parser for simple arithmetic expressions




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