[Medium] I just failed a coding exercise (2020)

This post was originally published on Medium in 2020 and has been imported to my personal blog archive.

Hey, folks. It’s Ty, back at it with another steamy romance fan-fic about coding.

I’ve been programming and making web apps for almost a decade now. I started in early 2012, so more like 8 years.

In the last 8 years, I’ve crushed every interview I’ve ever had. Even on a couple of interviews where my whiteboarding or code exercises didn’t go perfectly, my charisma and passion always got me through. Until today that is.

I just had a coding interview with a contracting company that I won’t name. Their time slots were weird, and the next few weeks are busy for me. I ended up choosing a slot at 3 A.M. on a Saturday morning (this happened 10 minutes before writing this). That was my first mistake I guess, though, if I’m being honest, I can’t really blame that for the problems with the coding exercise. I’m wide awake. Here’s the real issue:

I didn’t read the problem all the way through

I know what you’re thinking, amateur mistake. And it totally is. I got halfway through reading the problem and my brain told me “Oh man I know this one.” I did not know this one. There were a couple of nuances and I was so ready to get started that I didn’t bother to fully digest the details of the issue.

After all, it’s been about 4 years since I had to sit down and do a coding exercise like this, and the last time I did anything like this for pleasure was when I worked through some of Euler’s problems with Rust and Clojure.

The worst part is that it wasn’t even pride or arrogance. I just legitimately was not in the right mindset for doing something like this, and it’s been so long that I forgot what it was like.

It’s not a big deal, though. My pride isn’t hurting, and as soon as I got off of the interview I joked about it with my fiancee. I’m honestly a fairly competent engineer, and I don’t think coding exercise performance necessarily exposes someone’s ability to make solid/secure applications or test their dedication, timeliness, consistency, adaptability, or any of the other number of key qualities that a software engineer should have.

So don’t be too hard on yourself

If you are just coming out of a failed interview, or are dreading something that’s coming up, take a minute and breath. We all make mistakes. One failed coding exercise does not reflect your competency or the amount of work you’ve put into your craft.

If you are desperate for a job, just get back out there. In fact, maybe drop me a line, I know more than a few remote companies that are currently hiring. I was only interviewing with this consultancy because I wanted to get some side work going and maybe be exposed to some new technologies. It was also slightly different than interviewing for a company that you would be working with directly.

I conducted over 20 interviews at my last company, and we always made the process more of a discussion. If we had noticed someone veering off course from the problem, we would have been sure to give them a heads up.

Just remember to practice. Don’t forget to pace yourself, and don’t forget to follow all the basics. And definitely don’t forget:

Read the damn question

P.S. If you’re interested in hearing more truths of the industry, please check out my new podcast, The Virtual World. You can find it on Anchor and Spotify, and a ton of other services. https://anchor.fm/the-virtual-world