alt Hacker NewsHow would you prepare for the coding problem as a senior? What are the assumptions that underpin this?
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honestly, for a senior, the coding challenge is just a checkbox -- because they can use llms, the main thing is making sure whatever code they accept, they can explain from top to bottom.
the coding challenge itself is just a way to make sure that people can understand a request within an existing codebase. as an example, i pay attention to the questions the candidate asks -- questions asked always mean something.
my general assumption with seniors are "they can think high level", which means i "mark them" with that assumption, so for me, the architecture talk is much more important.
at the end of the day, you need to understand what your org needs and adapt.
Not GP.
The trick is to get a good sense of the algorithms associated with basic data structures (list, stack, queue, graph, hashmap,...). They are primitives and almost any standard problem can be solved with those.
What you need to train most is the capability to break down problems: Like I have this input (and associated metadata), I have this context (may be null), I have those constraints (values, ranges, memory space, time, both, or neither), and I need these outputs. Then it's just a puzzle.
I no longer prepare for coding problems other than a quick refresh of the syntax of the main language. And if it's a whiteboard type of things, I go with pseudocode.