EBoard 07: Brainstorming

Approximate overview

• Administrivia
• Visitor talk(s)
• Visitor practice interview.
• Reflections on practice (or non-practice) behavioral interviews, if there were any
• Brainstorming strategies (if time)

Administrivia

Visitor Talk

• Welcome to our visitor!
• Sam has permission to take notes. But only if he uses vim.
• Graduated in 2017.
• Took old 151. In the old 151, students scripted the Gimp (an open-source version of photoshop).
• Built a DormsDB program. “A Yelp for dorms.”
  • No, PHP is not a good language.
  • JavaScript and MySQL are pretty good things to learn.
• Was part of AppDev, an organization that built applications for campus. Menu, other stuff.
• Did some other stuff.
• Summer research: a functional language for building images.
  • Learned Full Stack development and Node.js
• Like many alums, has trouble remembering some things.
• Managed to get an internship at Google because they knew how to parse a Scheme-like language and how to compute from that. (Magic of getting a question on just that topic.)
  • Worked on a single-sign-on app, just like DUO.
• Did Grinnell in London, with an internship.
• Like many alums, has trouble remembering some things.
• Another internship, this time at Nest.
• Followed SO to LA, got a position at Amazon Studios. Learned React.
• Amazon is everything they say. Read this as you may.
• Recruited to Riot Games.
• Built a game server deployment tool (e.g., deploy with Kubernetes or Docker).
• Got PIPped. It’s on your permanent record.
• Joined high-touch consulting company in 2019. The benefit of knowing people. 0260 (it’s almost a zip code).
• Returned to Iowa in Fall of 2019. Lots of different kinds of consulting. Modernization: Cloud and serverless technology.
• The danger of consulting: Clients sometimes stop paying. If you don’t have enough clients, you’re screwed.
• It is still a rough tech time.

More on the consulting company

• There were lots of doors (and windows?) that opened.
• How do you choose which to do? Analysis paralysis.
• If you are going into business for yourself, you need to understand business (or you have to work with someone who really understands business).
• Understand the value of what you’re doing; something you can.

AppDev

• A student group on campus that built iOS and Chrome apps.
• Deep organizational infrastructure.

Things recommended:

• Work on projects for yourself.
  • You end up touching every part for yourself.
  • Searching for data can be interesting. At least if you’re that kind of person. Figure out where the hurt is.
• Learn MySQL.
• Learn JavaScript, Learn Node.js, Learn React.
• Learn about the organizational culture of the place that’s hiring you.
• Figure out what matters to you.
• Learn how to suck up to faculty while faculty are in the room.
• Watch Silicon Valley on TV. It’s more realistic than you’d think. Can help to understand how companies are organized and their value proposition.

What was the interview process like?

• Once you get an internship at one of the big companies, people treat you differently.
• Most internships are designed as “path to job”.

How do you find customers?

• Fancy gyms.

How do you determine the tech needs of random clients?

• It was often data analysis as a starting point.
• The other co-founder had built a data analysis tool.
• Tried to democratize the tool (more clients, lighter touch).
• Timing issue: Generative AI threw a fork into the plan.
• “It’s all fancy stats, but no one understands the stats.”
• “You should post THIS TYPE OF CONTENT at THIS TIME because THIS REASON.”

Mock interview

Write a function that takes a string, s, and an integer, k, that produces all the strings of length k that contains only characters from s.

Questions

• Is “aa” part of the result if the input is fun("abc", 2)?
  • Interviewer says “yes”, Sam says “no”.
• Can I return an array of strings?
  • Interviewer says “yes”, Sam says “I’d assume you could come up with something better than that.”

Ideation

• Since it doesn’t matter how many times a letter appears in the string we’ll set up an array that keeps track of which letters appear.
  • Or maybe a set (hashset?).
• It may be helpful to write a helper function.

Time complexity?

• \(len(s)^k\)?

Space complexity?

Reflections

• Some good early questions to set the stage. [+1]
• Moved to code fairly early. Are there better ways to talk through your ideas?

Reflections on Behavioral Interviews

Brainstorming Strategies

If there’s time.