If you don't know yet, there's a blog written by an unknown internal Microsoft Redmond employee called Mini Microsoft (http://minimsft.blogspot.com). It's full of critiques for the company and has a mission to tell the bigheads: Microsoft's getting too big, the way to make it great again is to slim it down.
So, anyway, he seems like a technical guy. And he still does technical interview. You know when you go to Redmond, they give you a marker and a whiteboard to scribble your solutions down in any programming language you know.... so while you're writing them down, look at Mini and understand what he's expecting to see on your codes:
"Plus, my personal dev-focused bugbear: more and more candidates who
can lay down the smack with Java and script can't manipulate memory and
discuss deep operating system constructs just-in-time at all. I need
you to be able to write a GC, not be in an unhealthy co-dependent
relationship with one.
So, there I was with another interview
candidate, getting ready to review their work on the whiteboard. Smart.
Self motivated. Passionate. Great potential. Resume? Accomplished. I
studied their whiteboard results and their thinking around a simple
coding problem. Sigh. No hire. It's not always that easy,
though, as you try to reconcile the whiteboard results with a smart
accomplished person. Once again, ABBA echoed in the back of my mind
singing "Take a Chance on Me" (hopefully I didn't hum that while busying myself as the candidate reviewed their later work).
Nope. Yet another candidate who, metaphorically speaking, knows how to
drive a car but doesn't know how the engine and transmission works."
Ouch, did I hear that right? "I need you to be able to write a Garbage Collector?" (btw, a simple one would be reference counting).
It may be true that nowadays computer schools just teach programming... ya mungkin core foundations cuman jadi hapalan aja, bukan di-praktik-kan (I know what front-end and back-end is in a compiler, but never really create something in the front-end like a simple parser) :P
So what's Mini suggesting? Something called Microsoft Academy, where new hires who are great potentials but lack foundations can catch up (matrikulasi). And after training they still lack the knowledge, then it's a no hire.
Read all about it on his blog http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/11/microsoft-academy.html