A Bit Of A Personal Programming Question

One of my first real jobs was data entry and the company I worked for had a small team of programmers developing the client and server programs that were used across the entire company. Only catch was the programmers were completely incompetent. The software crashed multiple times a day.

Asking questions of the interviewer may be seen as rude but I believe it's important to know if the company you are applying for is one you actually want to work for. I wouldn't want to be stuck with an incompetent team.

 

//opinion
You won't be stuck, because you can quit. Two weeks notice and all that stuff.

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The question I was referring to spoke specifically about "interviewing the interviewer" and was written in somewhat arrogant manner. While this kind of stunt may work in rare cases, it will greatly reduce candidate's chances of getting a job with competent team. Mostly because interviewer has other candidates to interview and might not be the guy/girl you'll be working with. So, the moment a candidate says anything that sounds like, "No, how much do YOU know?", I'd expect them to be shown a door, if the company is competent and people there know what they're doing.

If I were the interviewer, I personally wouldn't be hiring a person trying to "interview" ME, if the question sounds like the candidate has too much attitude to their own good or is full of himself/herself. That's because that person is likely to be a future troublemaker, and if they were hired, then the company would be stuck with their nonsense for quite some time.

 

Yes, but that's additional headache that could have been handled at the interview. I do have a friend who did that once and the unfortunate side effect was that unemployment stopped their payments.

 

Yeah I've worked with genius a***** more than a few times, and they suck. I wasn't suggesting to grill the interviewer, but when they ask a question such as "how many bits is an integer", there's not just a simple answer so you have to either ask probing questions or give 6 answers.

 

Suddenly I'm envisioning an interviewer asking this, not for an actual answer giving the number of bits, but to see you ask the necessary questions needed to give the correct answer (ie platform, compiler, language, etc).

 

//opinion
I'd give 6 answers. "N bits in language X, if compiler is Y, unlimited precision in language Z, except for implementation ....". Give them few paragraphs of info and ask if they want you to continue.

Asking question back, by the way, is part of a known tactic which can be employed in order to give yourself some time and appear more knowledgeable than you really are. There were few people that were really good at this back in high school/institute. Works like this: you don't know the answer, but have a tiny drop of information that is sorta related to it, so you throw that bit of information, add lots of filler to it, and engage interviewer into discussion. While they're busy talking with you you derail the question into area you know, remember some pieces of information (based on drops of information they accidentally mentioned in dialogue), overwhelm with "sorta-related" information or generally continue talking their ears off them till they get tired and assume that, hey, this dude must know the material because he was talking last 15 minutes non-stop and, there was a lot of impressive knowledge there, though it was in no way related to the initial question.

Here's the thing. People that know their stuff really well and "interview" a lot of people, they instantly spot those kind of tricks and cut those attempts short and then start really "grilling" you regarding the stuff they actually wanted you to tell them in the first place.

So, I'd just give them long answer.

 

Having passed and failed numerous interviews, my experience says you have it backwards. It is never a good idea to say "I don't know, can we go to the next question?" If you don't know the answer, but have something relevant to say, your best bet is to engage the interviewer in conversation about what you DO know. A lot of times the conversation will lead to a valid answer, and you will get credit for showing that you know how to think, even if you needed hints.

And yes, of course, the more knowledge you share, even if only tangentially related, the more attractive a candidate you are.

 

Well, this is not what my post was about.

More or less the idea was:
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1. Don't waste time (yours or interviewer's)
2. Don't be full of yourself.
3. Get to the point.
4. Don't be a jerk.
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Depending on questions, circumstance and attitude, trying to interview the interviewer may fall into at least 3 of those categories.

 

Not having a degree (drop-out from an engineering course), am currently in a horribly low-paid dev / organizing job in insurance and not getting any decent alternatives simply because I have nothing formal to show for my knowledge (and, being self-taught, my knowledge includes lots of holes I'm not even fully aware of). So I've taken up a CS university course - that will at least show I'm serious about learning, and hopefully allow me to take the next step soon.

Though I might be horribly frustrated already if I studied full-time. This way, the clinically precise approach to describe or do anything university teaches is nicely contrasted by the smoking ruins that are our legacy systems.

 

Do you at least have an extensive portfolio? Or is that game in your signature the extent of your examples?

What's stopping you from determining those holes and filling them yourself? It isn't like college textbooks are not available outside of the courses. One of the books we frequently recommended to beginners is actually used in universities.

Question and answer sites like Stack Overflow are great places to start with because they often have entries that list highly recommended books for both practical application and coding theory. Just be aware that their communities tend to be rough at times if you do decide to ask questions.

 

There is a possibility that not having a degree will hold you back at specific companies. My current company for instance has decided that we only hire from ivy league schools and they started associating degrees with ranks in the company(bachelors for manager/lead, masters for senior manager/chief, phd's preferred for architects etc.)

That being said, I think our managers are especially dilbertesque and clueless so I don't think this is the norm as I talk to a lot of different folks elsewhere. I dropped out of college halfway through to take a programming job so never finished mine but am already above the rank I am supposed to have a degree for with our new rules...

 

I think school is important, but more important is the passion!

 

Nah, I don't have anything like a portfolio. Games stuff is just a hobby for me, I've spent much more time messing around with database stuff, server-side web apps and whatever I found interesting at the time. Of course, applying for a job in a creative industry with a portfolio is a whole other beast than applying for a job in corporate IT.

Nothing really "stopping" me, but you're just far more likely to actually realize the gaps in your knowledge when confronted with systematic approaches, or when working on a team with other, far more experienced people.

But what does knowledge help you if you have a hard time even getting job interviews for lack of a degree? So I decided university is probably my best bet.

Of course, people with different paths of life and talents living in other countries might have vastly different experiences - but MV10 asked so I answered. I can't make a decision for anybody else but me, and if you want to know if my decision even was right for ME, you'll have to wait a couple of years!

 

It can. It can also alienate someone completely, like it did for me.

To the OP, as was said previously, it doesn't matter much, both ways can lead to success and failure. Taking a long time to decide and doing nothing is most definitely the worst option. Decide and get on with it.

 

That's a pretty risky approach to take. Especially if taking a new job involves walking away from your existing one. You do have a right to probe potential employers to figure out if you would fit.

But your general point about not being a jerk is valid. Interview processes are often as much about the cultural fit as they are about technical ability. Regardless of how you do it, you need to show that you will bring value to the company. And often that means fitting in and playing nice with the other kids.

 

You guys were talking about the interviewing. So I did post some interviewing notes here.

My good interviewing tips that I have find is…
-- Remember to welcome the interviewer by saying Hello, good morning, my name is..., say thanking for inviting me into your interview at the end.
-- Stay on topic by saying only why they should hire you and nothing else.
-- Bring your downloaded portfolio image and demo reel video inside your cell phone to show the interviewer in case the interviewer forgot to bring your portfolio in the interview.
-- Tell your good example and facts to proof your qualifications.
-- First 3 beginning minute of the interview is the most important all else they will stop you from interviewing.
-- Tell the interviewer that you are a quick learner when you have a beginner entry level, saying you will increase your beginner level to a advance level soon.
-- Must be an initiative person to help others without asking.

 

That's what I immediately thought. It's perfectly valid to Unity development even if it isn't specific to it. When I hire people one of the things I'm looking for is solid background and foundation understanding, and problem solving ability. When I ask questions like that one I'm not looking for a description of how to do it in Unity. I'm looking for the approach they use in problem solving.

That said, that question still gives you a bunch of opportunities to show some domain specific (ie: Unity specific) knowledge and experience. As someone already mentioned you can have million poly models in Unity - it splits them into smaller models. Knowing that means you can enhance the problem solving, which you should already be demonstrating, with some Unity specific knowledge.

There is a simple answer, though: "It depends on the language, tools and platform, but in my experience it's commonly 32 bits." You're giving a commonly practical answer at the same time as acknowledging the complexities. It shows basic familiarity with the systems you claim to have experience with, without spending a lot of time going over caveats. Remember, the interviewer can always ask a follow up question if he wants to see if you can go into detail. "Ok, can you give an example of a system where it isn't 32 bits?" or "If you started work with an unfamiliar system, what would you do?"

 

This was for an iPhone company startup. One million poly single objects you shoot bullets at on an iPhone? As well...it is a collection of arrays and not an array. it can be solved by combining all arrays and doing a sort and then doing a binary search..but seriously...I do not want to work for such people. I like complexity but not ridiculousness and compsci male appendage waving..which seems quite popular and entirely useless IMHO.. Carry on.

 

Without knowing the context of the question I can't draw any real conclusions. Perhaps they were seeing if you'd pick up on a million polys being unrealistic in that scenario? Perhaps it was purely a problem solving exercise and not something they were talking about actually doing? Or, indeed, it's quite possible that they didn't know what they were doing (but, on that note, perhaps they were trying to hire someone with more experience than them!).

Certainly when I'm looking at proposed solutions to problems I often ask things like "So what's going to happen if there's tens of thousands of entries in the database instead of just a few hundred?" Throwing a "million" in there could just have been a trigger to make sure that you're thinking about optimised approaches rather than simple ones. Anyone can find the poly, but can the interviewee do it with an abnormally complex data set, on a mobile device, while retaining real-time interactivity and not causing GC? And if they can't fully answer that it's probably ok, but are they at least familiar with the issues they're going to have to overcome along the way?

You're getting to that question and assuming that the interviewer is stupid or that they're "appendage waving". Both of those things are possibilities, and if you get those impressions and lost interest in the job then I honestly don't blame you, but in and of itself I still think that's a pretty solid question to be asking.

 

Judging by the other questions they were not asking Unity questions but compsci questions. (edit:Note that this was through GlassDoor research I found out the questions). The poster was as perplexed as I was as to what it had to do with Unity iPhone dev including the microprocessor question that were close to machine code in structure.The question was basically as I phrased it and they were from the corporate computer industry and wanted to do a game startup. I pride myself on my knowledge of the Unity API and my abilities to find the answers to any development conundrum placed on my desk through use of that API, as well as handle all aspects of the game creation pipeline with the notable exception of multiplayer networking. I could have written them much better screening questions.

On work and its location and culture. As well..the company was in the area where the Miami spring break students rioted a few weeks later. No thanks. I like the tree frogs rioting at sundown much better than 100+ pound bipeds on alcohol and hormones rioting to the grating bass thump of rap music. Seems all these companies contacting me are in areas i will not live and the cost of living is outrageous. The politics of a company is also what i take into account. I will not work in an office full of feminazis, white knights or social justice warriors. I would go stark raving mad and would bite through my tongue the first week or offend everybody in sight with my sardonic and sharp witted sense of humor.. Or like when a well known company wanted me to run their new studio in Hamburg Germany and touted free lunch and a swimming pool and group activities. I am there to work..not play romper room. Howzabout up my pay grade and can the "freebies".. These are all considerations one should concern themselves with IMO. Does it fit your personal paradigm and will the workday be enjoyable, distracting or a nightmare. I would not relish moving everything a few thousand miles just to find I do not enjoy their "corporate culture".

 

I have do some 3d modelling before. No one really does use and need one a million poly in a single object at all. So, no one should ever think of doing that, because it will be a pointless high quality effect that is not needed real badly. Most high poly object will only have up to around 30000 poly, I think.
Beside even though the 15 million poly scene like Albion Online in the tablet will might still works, I think. Albion Online is still planning to make like around 15 million poly scene inside a iPhone and Android phone. Therefore, a 15 million poly scene might still work inside a phone game, I think.

@ippdev to be honest I think you are thinking too much inside your new post and some of your other post. You should take it more easy. Your wording may sound a bit confusing when you are thinking too much. Your thinking inside your post is like going everywhere, I think.

 

I don't know, maybe they wanted a really good programmer. The question doesn't sound weird to me.

Speaking of which, this been bugging me for a while.

How are you going to do a "raycast vs polysoup" query with binary search in 3d?

See, normally this would require a tree (sphere tree, aabb tree, kd tree, obb tree, etc - space partitioning).
It IS also possible to perform binary search-like query if you have 3 lists of objects sorted by their upper/lower bounds (Sort and Sweep), but I'm not sure if that will work very well in case of ray query, because an unbound ray is going to have a HUGE bounding box, which will grab most of the mesh, if not all of it. This WILL work if mesh is significantly larger than ray and has big polys, though....

So, care to elaborate on "binary search" part? I pretty much want to know if you were talking about an algorithm I'm not aware of or not.

 

Ah! A corporate IT position. I thought you meant you couldn't get a game developer job.

 

Ha ha. You know there are probably a lot of young people reading that and thinking OMG are you crazy? That sounds like a dream job!

I am basically the same way as you when it comes to this stuff. I don't mind hanging out a bit here and there with co-workers but instead of a day spent in some kind of play-time I'd much prefer to just be off work. I have lots of other things I'd like to do in my free time. And in my mind I go to a job to work. Work hard. Play hard. But not both at the job. Just give the day off or I'd just prefer to work. Sometimes I just work instead of going to the annual company-wide picnic. Sometimes I go. If it was a vacation day then I'd definitely take it off.

 

That is an important point. A company culture that doesn't work for @ippdev will work perfectly fine for others. And there are many that would hate his lifestyle.

Choosing one that works for you is more important then using some arbitrary characteristics of ideal.

 

Speaking of choosing one that works for you, Microsoft had scantily-clad women dancing at their GDC after-party. That's yet another reason why you want to inquire into the culture surrounding a company. You may find the working conditions are not too good for you.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/18/sexism-is-still-a-thing-at-microsofts-gdc-party/

 

Another good example of a practice that may be seen as a positive or negative by different people.

** Runs and ducks for cover **

 

I thought the same thing. That was why I was talking mesh colliders and UV maps to solve it rapidly in real time and apply the decal..that would have been my recommendation..and optimize the object. Why solve a problem that does not need to be a problem when you can take a different approach. I can change my spark plugs with vise grips and large tweezers or use a spark plug socket. However.. One can take the path of the ray and it's entrance and exit points on a bounding box and get an approximation of the XYZ coords to begin a binary search. Take those likely polys and do another recursive search through the smaller set to identify the closest to the origin of the raycast to find the individual polys barymetric center with the normal facing towards the raycast..then find out where its has it's coords on the UV map..pain in the arse to me... and basically a similar approach as you outlined.

 

A rather strong statement that word "hate" is pal. Adjust your attitude as yer arse is showing. .. My lifestyle is work at home when I want., eat organic and live in a cabin in the best tourist area in the southeast for trout fishing, kayaking and canoeing, hiking and camping. There are a dozen metropolitan areas iwithin a two hour drive.

 

I'm sure you've met precious city slickers that live in high rise apartment buildings that couldn't handle your life. And I'm going to guess you would hate their life.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. I spent a few years as a teenager building an earth ship, eating all our own vegetables, killing my own meat. It's a good lifestyle.

I'm just saying that different people enjoy different things.

 

Trust me. I know I am guilty of that My father used to say to me at the age of 4 I am too smart for my own good. At the age of 58 I am unlikely to change internal dynamics but I can adjust the outward expression. I come here when I am bored or need a break from stress..probably a key factor. I am not here 24/7 like some..

 

That word hate is a very strong word and dynamic and not in my emotional vocabulary. I have lived everywhere from mansions to the ghetto in the Bronx and dealt with it.. This the area people come to when the cosmopolitan ways get stressful to relieve said stress, go on a honeymoon, have a romantic weekend in front of a fireplace and fish. We get tourists from everywhere, including NZ and Australia, China, India.

 

I was meaning that you sometime go a bit off topic in the Unity game forum. Beside you were talking about the bad corporate culture and your loving natural background. To be honest some of the corporate culture is just as normal as loving the nature environment, because it might be just a different human background only. Beside most game company is not really a big corporate company, they are only trying to work for interest and they rarely do any bad business practices. The unity's job is not to convince this things. Therefore, we should not really type this things in the unity forum even.

 

Understood. It was in context of choosing a place of employment that met personal standards. One can spend their whole career at the wrong place and end up going to their grave with regrets. Every situation has an up and downside. Sometimes I wish I never got into this industry and others times I am elated. The balance is more towards the elation side. The issue with my posts is that i have a tendency to never view things in isolation which is a good thing in game dev when you handle the whole pipeline but perhaps not optimal when replying to posts. I am who i am though and that I will take to my grave.

 

I'm Batman.. When I'm not doing that though, I've worked at good places / bad places and everywhere in between. It's all experience, glad I did it so I know what to look for..

Apart from that, just keep chugging away.. I know, it's a little indifferent sounding but end of the day you do stuff and stuff happens.. The end.!

 

I think I have decided to go to a university too like @Taschenschieber , because I am not really a A graded student who can self taught myself so fast. I did tried self taught in calculus and it took me like a bit over than one month to take up three chapters only, which it is kind of too slow for me. I think my learning curve is kind of like Taschenschieber. I think I will need to be self taught and mixing with the school lessons in case I am learning too slow all by myself. Also, I already got accepted to a game programming university where they teach a pretty advance programming skills with some 3rd year computer science levels. I believe that university is one of the best game development school from around my region.

 

It's worth noting that in 99% of cases no one in the game industry will care about the degree you have. It's really important that you work on a strong portfolio.
What you do outside of University is far more important than in Uni, to be honest most people use like one or two things from Uni in a folio... and generally they are things they did and then extended in there spare time.

 

Yep, I got welcomed with open arms into the games industry based on my prior experience in simulation/training games/small business, despite the fact that I was very open about never having finished my degree. It just wasn't even a consideration.

That's not going to be the same with all industries, companies or cultures, of course. Sometimes the paper will matter, sometimes it won't. That said, I agree with @TylerPerry - what matters is that you take maximum advantage of the opportunity to learn.

On the topic of portfolios, though, one thing I hear from local industry people is to make sure you've got non-assignment work in there. They see a lot of graduates come through with "cookie cutter" portfolios showing variations on the same or similar work, practically a whole class at a time. If you want to be the one who gets hired then you need to stand out from the crowd, and you don't do that by doing the same thing as everyone else. Figure out what your strength or passion is and then make sure your portfolio makes the most of it.

 

Yep, I agree.

Some push for entirely not school work but IMO(I don't hire people) having some schoolwork that is clearly above and beyond what was expected can be good. Shows that you can work with constraints and excel.

 

I have hired people, generally straight out of university, and a huge factor in my selections was the strength of their own projects that they demonstrated to me, ie: portfolio work. First, it demonstrated that they were willing and able to learn on their own, not just follow instructions from more experienced people. Second, it showed the ability to complete things. Third, it showed a degree of passion and/or initiative - they weren't just doing stuff they were told to, they were also doing their own things on top of that. Fourth, it gave us some concrete stuff to discuss. I could ask them about how they did certain things in what they were showing me, and they had opportunities to not just talk about but demonstrate their areas of interest or strength. Not "Oh yeah, I'd love to do some work with AI" but "yeah, I love AI, here's one I've already made".

Not surprisingly, they also happened to have a significantly higher degree of technical expertise to demonstrate, because they were getting more practice than people who were just doing what their university told them to do.

 

My school is not a computer science program, it is a game programming degree, so my school will create a class teamwork portfolio and showcasing our project to the Level Up Showcase. The Level Up Showcase is where graduate student present their game project.
https://levelupshowcase.com