Cracking the code Meet-Up

[Adrian Novischi]

Hi,

Tonight I attended the Buffalo Ruby programers meet-up and both presentations (Amanda and Mark) were very inspirational.

While there are some people interested to learn how to code, I was also thinking about more seasoned and professional programmers to give them a something interesting to think about:

What would you think about a meetup to discuss Google Interviews type programming questions, discrete mathematics and in general algorithmic tricks and some interesting and challenging programming problems? This meetup would assume that you are already familiar with data structures and algorithms that are taught at undergraduate level in the Computer Science Department at colleges and universities (or you have read CLR book) and you are looking for more advanced algorithmic problems.


There will be multiple benefits of attending such a meetup:

1. You will do better at the interviews when you will be asked to solve programming questions and it will be easier for you to find a job.
2. Your programming skills will improve and  either you will be more productive or your life will be easier.
3. You will be challenged to solve interesting problems.

So I have the following questions:

Who would be interested to attend this meet-up ?
How often should it happen  (once a month) ?
What would be a good day (in the week/month) to meet?

Please let me know your opinion if interested.

I was thinking to call this meet-up "Cracking the code", but I am opened to any other name.

I already talked with some people who expressed their interest and I would like to thank Dan Magnuszewski and Nick Quaranto for their support.

Thank you,
Adrian Novischi

[Steve Poland]

Sounds cool and like the initiative. Localized spin could also take into account Synacor's hiring exams for programmers and other companies. 360PSG probably has programming exams. Ditto on CampusLabs, etc.

This is a side note but I have heard there is a disconnect from what skills UB CS students get to what someone like Synacor is seeking, in terms of languages and such... This is likely some different type of meetup, but it'd be great for Synacor engineers to help educate what real world tech they are using behind the scenes so applicants for even internships there can be better prepared.

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Steve Poland 
http://stevepoland.com/about

[Nick DiRienzo]

Yeah I think it comes to learning outside the classroom. I mean the data structures course I took last fall covered everything I've been asked in technical interviews.

Sean has thrown together mock technical interview events for the psst two years with a decent showing from students (although not as much as I expected). This year we had EY, Synacor, IVR and other local companies to facilitate the interviews.

As for the meetup, sounds awesome! I'd love to see it come together. GreSt idea, Adrian!

Nick

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