The API Interview



  • I had an interview with a mobile gaming company. The interviewer was a software engineer, but he seemed a little bit buzzword obsessed. Here is one example with API questions.

    Him: Do you have any experience with API development?
    Me: Yes, at our company we build webservice APIs for our partners to use for billing and user registration.
    Him: Cool, but do you have any experience with calling APIs? What is your favorite API?
    Me: As far as webservice APIs go, we mostly build our own, but any library we use can be called an API.
    Me: I personally like Apache Commons because it gives me a lot of common functions that I wouldn't have to develop myself.
    Him: That's nice, but do you have any experience with calling APIs?
    Me: Well, we do call our own in-house webservices. Those are APIs too.
    Him: No, I'm looking for third party APIs that you use.
    Me: Like Apache Commons?
    Him: No, not quite... I'm just going to write that you have no API experience.
    

    I had a feeling he was looking for Facebook or Twitter APIs, which I don't use. I also got the feeling he was just too caught up in the buzzword definition of API. Either way, I didn't get the job.



  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    Him: Cool, but do you have any experience with calling APIs?
    Him: That's nice, but do you have any experience with calling APIs?
    Red flag right there.

    @OhNoDevelopment said:

    I didn't get the job
    Count your blessings!



  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    I like to write my posts in very long non-wrappable ‹pre› tags so that nobody with a narrow screen like Ben L. can read the entire post without viewing source code and we all know how bad Community Server source code is I mean it makes your eyes bleed and then file a lawsuit against you for making them look at that shit I mean really.



  • Do you have any experience with word wrap?

     



  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    Him: Cool, but do you have any experience with calling APIs? What is your favorite API?
     

    "While we're at it, you'll be writing a fair amount of user documentation.  What are some of your favorite fonts?  And if you could be any punctuation mark, which would you choose and why?"



  • I wish job interviews were that creative...


    Font: A tie between Wingdings and Ransom.

    Punctuation: The interrobang, for when you want to express simultaneous surprise and confusion (hmm, sounds familiar): <font size=20>‽</font>



  • Facebook makes sweeping changes every couple months :/

    Any experience with FB older than 6 months is as if you never worked with it anyway. 



  • @Ben L. said:

    @OhNoDevelopment said:
    I like to write my posts in very long non-wrappable ‹pre› tags so that nobody with a narrow screen like Ben L. can read the entire post without viewing source code and we all know how bad Community Server source code is I mean it makes your eyes bleed and then file a lawsuit against you for making them look at that shit I mean really.
    Or you can do what I do which is highlight -> copy -> open notepad -> paste.


  • Looks like I need to brush up on my html. It won't let me edit my original post?



  • @OhNoDevelopment said:

    It won't let me edit my original post?

    Edits are only allowed within a short while of posting.



  • This one belongs on the front page. Alex? :)



  • I had an agency ask me "do I have experience with APIs" followed by "how many years of experience" and all the nonsense of asking when I had last used or whatever and I just hung up on him saying I don't deal with idiots.

     


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