I have a degree in ECE but I haven't written any code in about 4 years. I have an exam for an embedded systems role I applied for, but it doesn't have any rules listed.

Would I typically be allowed to google things during this test? That's pretty much how I've always coded because I always get syntax and functions mixed up between languages. I definitely couldn't answer the sample question without googling C documentation.

The webapp tracks a lot of stuff - including a play-by-play video of what you type in. It maps out when you're on the pad, when you're out of the pad, when you paste something, when you're looking at an external source, etc. [They go into pretty great detail outlining their tracking and assessment features here] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUbtr35YfAg).

It never crossed my mind that these interviewing tools were any different than a live collaborative editor until today. This is all spurred by a rejection (today) from a tech screen that had pretty simple questions and couldn't figure out why they had rejected me outright and so early without any feedback. Admittedly - it could have been for anything and realistically, I absolutely could have done something wrong in their eyes. But - determined to figure out what the problem could have been (having now garnered mild imposter syndrome), I showed my S.O. the take home code project and they pointed out that the reviewer may be unnecessarily cold and vague because I copied the code out to write it in VIM. From their perspective, it looks like I was searching the internet for 40 minutes and then copied some code over that worked the first time.

Again - they absolutely may have cut me for a plethora of other reasons. But at a minimum this experience has opened up a new world of potential pitfalls related to the web editor itself (especially if you do most of your work outside of their editor). In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't think about this (slightly embarrassed) but I figured that there might be others who thought/do the same.

Anyways - know that interview code pads aren't all the same - some track a ton of stuff - even live video. If you're like me and like to copy the code out and into your own environment to use your own custom tools - just know that you might look pretty suspicious from the reviewer's point of view.

Today I had my first CoderPad technical assessment, which the recruiter gave me another chance after I argued that I did not use AI to cheat the code refactoring take home test.

I looked up some practice interview questions online before taking the test, seems ok. 41 questions to be done in 1 hour and 32 minutes. I reckon each question takes around 2-3 minutes. Then I was wrong.

The first few questions involve SQL queries modification. Not too bad if you have basic SQL knowledge.

Coming up next is TypeScript .Net type multichoice and problem-solving questions. Some questions I don't even know what the problem is talking about. There is one you need to like add protons and neutrons to the atom by using x and y axis. I was like huh. I don't even know to implement the function because of the type checking and pre-written methods. Whatever I wrote the test cases just never work. 18 minutes was given and I did nothing to the code.

Then the test continues with C#, Vue.js, HTML. Big and small questions. I eventually became so mentally tired due to the complexity of the test, the time limit for each question, and the long marathon of answering 41 questions.

After the test, I can only say that I feel like a failure and this is all I can do during the six-month job hunting (FYI the test is for a junior software engineer). I wrote an email to the recruiter that I gave my best shot to the test and hopefully can keep in touch regardless of the outcome.

I just don't know what to do right now. The technical tests always haunt me and make me feels I am not good enough for the position. Do I need to know how to solve every leetcode problem in order to be a competent junior software developer. I don't know anymore...

A company I applied to made me do a CoderPad test. The whole thing was nothing but esoterica about various languages. Stuff actual engineers rarely deal with and when they do they look it up in the docs. Stuff like “What’s the second parameter to API function X?” “Which of call() or apply() take an array for parameters?”, “What’s it called when you mix asynchronous and synchronous functions”?, shit like that. It was an hour test of nothing but that for Java, Node, GoLang and C++. I totally failed even though I have well over 10 years of experience with each, building real stuff.

Anyway… I thought it was over. I got the results back and I failed hard on every part. I was pissed that I wasted my time on rote learning bullshit likely put together by some Indian engineer who’s used to that shit No! The company was “impressed” and wants to schedule panel interviews. WTF?

Clearly it’s some hazing thing and I told the company to fuck off…

Took the test - it was ridiculous.

They gave you ~72 minutes to complete 12 questions, 4 of them were MCQ, the others were "Simple Algorithms or DSA based".

Each question had its own timer, but when combined it was roughly 72 minutes.

The questions ranged from LC Hard, Medium and Easy, with a heavy emphasis on "medium". I would consider each of them to be more "story problems / narrative driven than traditional LC problems.

Questions included - Given an array of checksum data, find and return checksums. Question based on Math addition, where you had to check if addition of two numbers was valid, if not return the index of the number that went wrong in the addition (Given 110 + 130 = 230 - issue here is at index 1, the "tenths").

I find this test absolutely ridiculous. I somehow got >= 70%, but my God.... Solving 7-8 Coding questions in an hour is astronomical. Who are the coding Gods actually doing this ?

Is this how high the bar is ? Do you need to be an absolute DSA Wizard ? No outside resources were allowed.

Before you interview, please practice with your IDEs and other tools on your computer. Chances are, you are using a different IDE with a slightly different configuration, different autocomplete settings than work, and a fresh project with a more constrained environment than you are used to.

Additionally, practice without auto-complete on, or expect auto-complete to give you something you aren't expecting. We all have LLM enabled auto-complete available these days, even LC has basic autocomplete, but the unfortunate reality is that you can't use LLMs during an interview, and the further your IDE is from your regular set up, the bigger adjustment it will be.

From the interviewer perspective: your hands are really tied to strictly documenting what happened when you are assessing the interview. You often don't decide if they pass or fail (just make a suggestion), and write it all up in a report hiring committee to make the final call. What sucks, is when someone you want to pass, that otherwise says all the right things and has a great attitude, just struggles needlessly.

So please, practice with your interviewer IDE set up. Take a couple LC problems, or a basic FE skeleton, and play around with it for an afternoon. Even a single hour will make a difference, and several hours to get really comfortable is better than a couple hundred LC questions.

I have an upcoming hour long take home assessment via CoderPad for an internship.

I want to use all resources at my disposal. Google, S/O…CoderPad seems to encourage it. But I want to make sure to not accidentally trip any cheating alerts.

Any experience with that platform or similar?

I have a 60-minute CoderPad interview coming up with Apple for a cloud automation/devops-style engineering role. Wondering what kind of questions they typically ask.

Is it mostly Python/DSA-style coding, scripting/infra-focused problems, or a mix?
Any experience from folks who’ve done Apple CoderPad interviews would be really appreciated.

Has anyone taken this coderpad assessment from shopify which is due in 4 days of receiving the link? Whats the difficulty level? Where should i be focusing in to prepare for this assessment in 2 remaining days?

Hi all,

I’ve got a CoderPad SQL interview coming up soon and was given the CoderPad link ahead of time. When I opened the SQL tab, I saw a preloaded schema, which was like a basic sandbox with four tables.

Does this mean I'll be tested on the same schema during the CodePad interview?

Many thanks in advance.

Recently took a coderpad OA for a company and scored an 89% (310/350). Is this a good score? Will I be auto-rejected for being under 90%?

Curious to hear about other experiences with coderpad and if the scores hold any real merit.

Once the interviewer pastes the question in the Coderpad or whatever, you should know how to code up the solution immediately. Even if you know what the correct approach might be (e.g. backtracking), but don't know exactly how to implement it, you're on the way to failure. Solving the problem in real time (what the coding interview is actually supposed to be or what many people think it is) will inevitably be filled with awkward pauses and corrections, which is natural for any problem solving but throws off your interviewer.

And the only way to prepare for this is to code up solutions to a wide variety of problems beforehand. The best use of your time would be to go to each problem on Leetcode, not try to solve it yourself (unless you know how to already) and read the solution directly. Do your best to understand it (and even here, don't spend too much time - this time would be more valuable for looking at other problems) and memorize the solution.

The coding interviews are posed as "solve this equation" exam problems but they are more of "prove this theorem" exam problems. You either know the proof or you don't. You can't do it flawlessly in the allocated time, no matter how good you are at problem solving.

P.S. This is more relevant for FAANGs and T1 companies. Many of other companies don't even have coding interviews anymore, and for the good reason.

Hey guys,

i have a small problem. I got an coding task sent on coderpad after applying for a summer internship, which i solved with the help of chatgpt, and i got invited for an interview onsite (first round, no interview before) I feel so stupid, bc i now googled how the cheating mechanism works, and found out, they can track when i left the window, which i basically did all the time, as i copied the solution.

It‘s pretty obvious what i did, so know i am wondering why the heck did they invite me. I am thinking about not attending and simply telling them that i found something else, probably they just invited me to let me suffer by asking too hard questions and testing me?

Just fyi, i am a master student in computer science and i have software engineering experience, i just cheated bc i forget to solve the coding tasks and when i found out, that i only have 2 hours to solve the tasks bc the link expires i was just attending a in person lecture at my uni so i was already stressed. I really regret cheating and feel like the dumpest person ever.

What would u do? Still prepare and try to do the interview? Do you think i‘ll be able to succeed or do they only invite me to „teach me a lesson“?

Hey

It’s been a while since I have given tech interviews, like the last time I interviewed was for the role I am currently in(since 3 yrs 😅)

I have recently begun looking out for new roles and a Goldman recruiter reached out to me via Linkedin, they set up an OA and later on moved me to the Coderpad round

Coderpad round experience:

The interviewer arrived 5 mins late (typical 🙄) Began with introduction and format of the interview. Then he asked some questions regarding my resume experience points I had mentioned as he was curious of some things I had mentioned (I last updated that resume 6 months ago). He was not impressed with the explanation I gave, I got a feeling that he thought I faked it there. We spent a good 10 mins there later on moved to the question, it was a DP easy question I knew it the moment I saw it but it was a slightly different format.

Here is where I feel I f*ed up I spent a lot of time trying to explain my solution abstractly instead of going in a direct manner, I felt it took a long time for me to explain my solution approach because of the abstract part, later on when he agreed with the solution we proceeded to code, here as well I was blocked in some places but he helped me out, finally I was able to run the code passing all test cases.

He refused any feedback and told HR would get back and later on told that he his looking people for his own team.

Final opinion:

-> I feel the first place it failed was during the resume questioning stage, I didn’t revise my resume and I got the feeling that he was thinking that I faked it.

-> It was an easy DP shouldn’t have taken a long time and should completed faster wasted time trying to be abstract. He planned for 2 questions but was only able to go with one.

-> Got assist on some pretty basic stuff during the coding part.

I feel he wasn’t impressed with my skills as at some points I appeared less confident in my approach even tough I knew the question 😞

Frankly I have only been preparing DP concepts for the past 4-5 days I had done some long ago but did not do it completely so wasn’t so excited about this interview anyways.

TL;DR Had a GS Coderpad round experience felt like interviewer wasn’t impressed, f*ed in basic places appeared less confident, Not Hopeful on a selection.

Any thoughts/suggestions on where I could improve.?

Hey guys can you tell what to expect in such a round. I have never given any interview like this before. My profile is Springboot+angular 1.5 yoe

Hey guys,

I'm here to share my interview experience with Goldman Sachs which happened last month. Although I didn't get selected, I'm happy to share my experience.

Duration : 60 mins
This was more of a debugging task, unlike a typical coding problem. I prepped myself with the coding problems for the interview, but this was totally a new experience to me. In the interview, I wasn't fully focused because I was nervous, and it took me 15 mins to settle down and understand the question.

Problem Statement:

Given a string which consists of content of a document, return the distance between mid points of two words from the document. [given in input]

Test case:
"I love football and tennis"
and
tennis

Output:
6.5

Explanation: The mid point for the word "and" is at 17.0 and the midpoint for tennis is 22.5. So, the difference would be (5.5 + 1) for the space.

I was given the code for it, which contains errors, and asked to correct it through step by step debugging while conveying my thought process. The code has some minor bugs which would get resolved by adding (dist + 1) for space, and converting the input to lowercase.
I did pass all the test cases in the end. Maybe I didn't explain my thought process clearly.

Well, I got this interview after 2 months of applying jobs, and I screwed up. But, I will get back to the speed soon!

Hope this helps someone out there.

Any thoughts/resources/suggestions for how to prepare?

Hello!

I have an upcoming technical interview of 90 mins for a Senior Devops position.

This includes 45mins for coding challenge, and 45 mins of DevOps questions. The recruiter mentioned that they will use coderpad.

1. ⁠Has anyone experienced coderpad interview for DevOps questions? Does the platform support it?

2. ⁠In the past, I have been asked for leetcode easy for DevOps interviews (even for one of the FAANGs). Has anyone faced leetcode medium/hard questions in such interviews?

Thank you in advance!