Viraj's Weblog

Congrats man... Details, Details!!

I was recently contacted by Z-Kat in regards to my resume posting on monster.com.

I'm curious why VirajAlankar and PrashantChopra are leaving.

Also, What can you tell me about the Tcl/Tk coding assignment that they require prior to the interview.

Thanks
Presley (presley@cfl.rr.com)

Ahhh... the Tcl/Tk coding assignment. I see my legacy lives on :)

I wonder if I could convince Z-Kat to give me royalties on that thing ;-)

asking someone to crete a tcl/tk graphics script in 48 hours is a bit much if you ask me. I'm sure that someone with several years under their belt could knock this off in that time, but I haven't had much exposure, and I haven't had any hands-on in over 2 years. THats why I've been searching the web, hoping that someone would have posted it somewhere.

haha.. I doubt it's posted anywhere.. only 20-30 people have taken it.

When I wrote it, I specifically designed it so that most people wouldn't finish it. My grading emphasized mostly how far someone could get, how the accompanying documentation & algorithm explanations looked, and if what they were trying to do was actually what I asked for. I also was interested to see if someone would try to "roll their own" algorithm, use a widely-known but flawed algorithm, or go for the only true solution (which would be known to anyone who's taken a basic computer graphics programming course: Bresenham)

Now, I obviously don't analyze those anymore so I don't know what they're looking for now :) I meant it to be only a basic analysis of programming knowledge, but more of an analysis of a person's problem-solving strategy.

In reality, the test is quite simple. 20-30 lines of TCL is all it takes to do either part.

In the 2 years that I looked at that test's results, only 2 people of the 30 or so that took it, actually completed the entire test on time and correctly. Several came up with solutions that worked in ideal cases, but not on unusual cases. And most simply gave up, turned it in late, or went off on totally unrelated tangents.

Perhaps you could have figured this out if you would have spent 10 minutes talkiing to the candidate first.

This approach tell a lot about a company. It shows that they are willing to waste peoples time, that they are unable to communicate to their empoyees, and that theyhave a huge chip on their shoulder.

I now understand why the 2 engineers left the company.

well, perhaps THEY could have figured it out if THEY spent 10 minutes with them.. I don't work at Z-Kat anymore either :)

The test was written, at Rony's request, when we were deluged with ~1000 Monster submissions from Web Designers who thought they would write Medical Software. It was an easy way to make sure people weren't lying on their resume. Viraj can attest to all the "Perl Experts" who can't explain "split".

I am glad Z-Kat Inc. were interested in Presley's resume, congrats!

As far as the 2 engineers that left, from what I remember, they had better career opportunities mixed with personal reasons.

I was one of them..and without any hesitations, I can say I am proud of what I saw in that company in terms of technical strength...and in what I contributed.

I do not wish to judge, but it is unprofessional to be commenting on a company's policies just because one finds their interviewing procedure inconvenient.

As far as I remember, the programming test was designed to test one's approach to solving a very unique problem..and not to test one's memory for a particular language's syntax structure. I knew NOTHING about tcl when I attempted it, and I think I did ok if not exceptional, since I was hired. Yes I googled when I was taking the test...but not for a solution,..rather for tcl links...about how it differs from other 4th generation languages, about how implementing some data structures in there is different...about how to efficiently implement standard computer graphics algorithms.

Keep up your spirits and believe in your skills... interviewing strategies would then come secondary to how you shine. No offenses, and good luck!!