The author's real issue is failing the first coding exercise then apparently not hitting the books to solve for problems being presented. They aren't testing if you're a good software engineer, they're making sure you studied for the test and retained enough to pass it. Them not course correcting to study for the test being given is a pretty bad signal.
Coding exercises are dumb, but going on pedigree and resume without a practical test is also error prone. So you work with the system you have. If you want the cheese you go through the maze and press the lever.
Alternatively, complaining about it to a large enough audience may work as well. That's 10x outside the box thinking.
> The author's real issue is failing the first coding exercise then apparently not hitting the books to solve for problems being presented. They aren't testing if you're a good software engineer, they're making sure you studied for the test and retained enough to pass it.
Note that the author of the anecdote isn’t the owner of the blog.
The blog owner is the author of books about cracking the coding interview.
This anecdote is carefully chosen to make her book sound more important. It’s “don’t end up like this person, buy my book so you can understand the coding interview!”
The anecdote’s problem is likely the fact that they quit a contract job after 3 months and then took a sabbatical going into a tech recession with 100,000s of laid off tech workers competing for every job. If your primary experience in the preceding 8 months was a short job that you separated from early, you’re not going to be at the top of the hiring list no matter how good you are at coding exercises on whiteboards.
Coding exercises are dumb, but going on pedigree and resume without a practical test is also error prone. So you work with the system you have. If you want the cheese you go through the maze and press the lever.
Alternatively, complaining about it to a large enough audience may work as well. That's 10x outside the box thinking.