On Secretly Terrible Engineers

They lurk, unnoticed in the great halls of engineering that are the office strips along Highway 101. “Programmers” not programmers, people who have cheated, stolen, and lied their way through engineering careers without anyone realizing they can’t code. They are among us, incompetent Cylons secretly plotting to undermine us at a crucial time.

Secretly terrible engineers (STEs) are everywhere, and they may be on your very team as we speak.

There is only one way to stop this scourge, one interview to defeat them all. Well, more like a dozen interviews with white boards, but that doesn’t sound nearly as cool. But I digress. One interview to rat these jackals out, to prove just once that no matter how much you did in the past, you will be discovered as the Person Who Doesn’t Know The Big-O Of Trie Insertion.

The interviewer, preparing for this moment for years while waiting for git pushes, stands up and stabs his finger at the interviewee. “I’ve got you!”

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Kiran Upadhyay

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