Friday, July 8, 2011

software engineer interview questions to ask the company

1. How is your source code organized?
2. Do you have regularly scheduled builds?
3. How do you measure quality?
4. How do you measure individual productivity?
5. What is ant?
6. What is a makefile?
7. What source code control system do you use?
8. What is your process for bringing new people up to speed?
9. Do you see any barriers to your company's growth potential?
10. Are there any processes now that you think may fail if you take on more business?
11. How do you define "full time job?"
12. If you define "full time" by hours, how many hours do you equate with full time?
13. If you define "full time" by work load, how do you measure work load? And what work load do you equate with full time?

Sunday, July 3, 2011

This is a test blog

Ha

software engineer interview questions

1. I got asked this question at Gooogle. Given a tree data structure that can only traversed in one direction, i.e. from root to leaf, write a function that will take two nodes and find the lowest common ancestor. Somehow it took the guy asking the question about 10 minutes to say the question; but, there's nothing more to it.

This question assumes you have access to the tree root.

Start at the root and traverse through the entire tree until you find both nodes.
Along the way keep track of the path at all times. ( You can use a stack to push/pop nodes as you traverse up and down the tree.) When you find a node, inspect the stack to see the path.
Once you have both paths, you can start at the root of each path and move down until they branch off in different directions.

2. In Java, what's the difference between an abstract class and an interface? I get this question a lot in pre-interview phone screens.

If you can't answer this you don't deserve a job.

3. What's new in Java 5?

Generic's.

4. What is the jquery selector for this html element?
<type="button" value="Input Button"/>


"input [type=button]" ?

5. In Java, what's the difference between HashMap and HashTable?

One is thread safe.

6. What is polymorphism? I actually don't think people really understand what is the exact definition of this term. Anyway, if you get asked this question, they're testing if you know the rules for how/when methods in derived classes override methods in the parent classes.

Every class has a class hierarchy. If a class does not explicitly declare a parent class, it automatically derives from the class java.lang.Object.

Classes may declare methods with the same name as methods defined in classes above them in their class hierarchy. If they have different parameters, they will not override their parent counter parts. If they have different return types, they will generate a compile error. If at some point in the class hierarchy a method is declared final, it can not be declared in any class below it in the class hierarchy.

Given a method is declared with the same signature in two places in the class hierarchy, the method from the lowest class in the class hierarchy will be invoked, unless the method is invoked through reflection or other technique.

The end result is that given a piece of code that knows that an object is of a certain type, and given that the actual type of the object is one of any number of subtypes, when a method is invoked that is defined in each of the subtypes, the method that gets invoked will be the method defined in each subtype.

Did you catch all that?

Friday, May 6, 2011

brevity is the soul of wit.

One extremem frustration I have with software engineering, is finding good books.

Software engineering books are too wordy. They ramble.

I wish they were more like Math text books.

GET TO THE POINT.

Most software engineering books are an inch think or more. Mostly they are filled with examples. I really just need the facts. Most of us are smart enough to understand the facts without examples.

high school conf track meet

It was ungodly hot, in the 90's at least.

Neel finished the 1600 in 5:15, missing his PR by 2 seconds.

Neel was pretty angry at the end of the race.

In his words, he was not angry about not being able to beat his PR.

He was angry about not beating his PR (this time.)

In other words, he knows he will continue to improve and keep posting new PR's.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Diamondbacks vs Giants @ Mon May 2 5pm - 7pm (LALL Minor AA Giants)

Jason had 3 at-bats; and he reached base safely all 3 times.
He scored 1 run.
Also, he caught a pop fly for 1 out.

So, 3 hits, 1 run, no errs.

Linkedin Recommendations

These are my recommendations that are posted on Linkedin.

Recommendations For Carl
Sr. Software Engineer - Solutions Lead Align Technology
“I worked with Carl on coming up with a global supply-chain system pilot. He was in-charge of solution and I was heading definition. He put together a robust solution which served as a foundational basis for succeeding projects. It was fun working with Carl.” September 7, 2007

1st Ram Sreenivasan, Business Analyst, Invisalign
worked directly with Carl at Align Technology

Advisory Software Engineer Datasweep
“I worked with Carl at Datasweep - Carl was very familiar with the latest J2EE standards and was tasked with porting a Microsoft technologies based data warehouse product to open source J2EE standards. He was a pleasure to discuss and work with.” August 23, 2007

1st Baltej Singh, Advisory Software Engineer, Datasweep Inc.
worked directly with Carl at Datasweep

“Carl is a dedicated, experienced, software professional with a vast experience in all aspects of software engineering. He is also an excellent team player, with high integrity and work ethics. Carl can make great contributions to a company and help build excellent products. He is fun to work with!” August 21, 2007

1st Alvina Bortnikova, QA, Datasweep
worked with Carl at Datasweep

Software Architect / Cofounder Conductive
“Great asset to any team.Strong technical skills, always eager to learn something new. Very experienced, and a great communicator.Strongly desires architect role. Definitely would want to work with him again.” August 27, 2007

1st Bill Breck, Founder, ECommmerce Startup
managed Carl at Conductive

Sr. Staff Software Engineer / Team Lead BroadVision
“Carl is very bright and capable. I would say that he was one of the top engineers at broadvision.” October 31, 2007

1st Hai Nguyen, e-business consultant, self
worked indirectly for Carl at BroadVision

“Carl exhibits the rare combination of being bright and having excellent software instincts with strong interpersonal skills. It was great having him as a colleague.” August 28, 2007

1st Jeffrey Stutz, Staff Engineer, BroadVision
worked with Carl at BroadVision

“Carl is a very smart and dedicated engineer. He could always find innovative ways to solve problems. He showed his excellent problem analysis skill when we worked on some tough bugs found on customers' live web sites. Carl is also an obliging person and a great team player. When I was new in BroadVision core team, Carl helped me a lot on learning the code and tools that were brand new to me. It was really a pleasure to work with him.” August 27, 2007

1st Eman Fu, Senior Staff Engineer, BroadVision
worked directly with Carl at BroadVision

“Carl's an extremely thorough engineer who explored multiple solutions to an engineering problem to ensure the right solution was being implemented.” August 23, 2007

1st Bala Kannikeswaran, Software Engr, BroadVision
worked directly with Carl at BroadVision

“Carl is a intelligent worker. He has broad knowledge in many technical areas. He always has brilliant ideas and never hesitate to put them into action.” August 21, 2007

3rd June Huang, staff engineer, BroadVision
worked with Carl at BroadVision

Sr. Software Engineer / Project Lead Symantec
“Carl is a pleasure to work with. He has a great sense of humor, is very intelligent and competent, and is cool under pressure. He worked with me to create accurate, complete documentation for his product.” November 20, 2007

1st Cheryl Potter, Technical writing consultant, Symantec
worked with Carl at Symantec

“Carl brilliantly associates three of the major qualities an engineer has to have, curiosity, concentration and open mindness. Working with him has been a real occasion to share and learn.

Carl is one of the few Engineers I know that are able to come up with very creative ideas and actually get the job done.” September 11, 2007

1st Federico Benincasa, Java Software engineer, SYMANTEC Corp. (California)
worked directly with Carl at Symantec

“I have worked with Carl at Symantec - Carl is technically strong, an excellent communicator and a great person to work with.
He was always willing to help everybody on the team. I have really enjoyed working with him.” August 23, 2007

1st Vrinda Bangari, Sr. Engineer, Symantec
worked directly with Carl at Symantec

“Carl was a team player who would take time to understand issues raised by QA and tech support. He had a deep understanding of complex Java issue. It was a pleasure to work with Carl.” August 21, 2007

1st Asha Giridharan, QA Manager, Symantec
worked directly with Carl at Symantec

“Carl is a great technologist and pleasure to work with! Carl has a unique ability to understand customer needs and deliver superior technical solutions to meet/exceed customer requirements in record time, while being a great team player. He is a pleasure to work with and I would be delighted to have the opportunity to work with him again.” August 21, 2007

1st Allen Bannon, Business Development/Marketing Executive, Symantec
worked directly with Carl at Symantec