Putting together a core team is as much of an art as it is a science. Common sense says that everyone wants to hire the best-of-the-best: the smartest scientist, the most creative designer, the most experienced manager, and the hungriest sales executive. Learning from my success as well as from my failures has taught me that a core team embodies more than the individual talent; it embodies the spirit of innovation.
As a fresh CS college graduate, you have the energy to work long hours, the hunger to acquire real-world programming experience, and the uncanny attitude to say "why not?"It is the requisite for innovation, and it is the same for a high tech startup company.
Swiftbot is a mobile application company. We are at the nexus of mobile computing and social equality. There are new technologies and business opportunities yet to be discovered. We do not have the means to hire all of the brilliant college graduates but we are looking to hire a few that are passionate about computer science.”
Duc Haba
Founder & CEO
November-11-2011
WHY choose Swiftbot Inc.?
But as a wise man once said, "What you learn on the journey is more rewarding than what the destination can bring."
Swiftbot has monthly salary employees, however, we cannot match the big salary, the benefits or the stability provided by a big tech company such as Apple, Microsoft or Oracle. If you are a recent CS college graduate and you are lucky enough to have an offer from a big company with the salary that you want then take it.
However, if you are hard-working, self-disciplined, have a passion for computer science, and you are not a big corporate type of person, then you are a perfect candidate for Swiftbot Inc.”
Allan Locke
Co-founder & COO
QUESTIONS for CS graduates. Please use the above form and answer the following simple CS questions.
- You already passed the first level :-) by scrolling down and reading these questions before sending us your info. As a reward, you can also email the answer to "college [at] swiftbot [dot] com".
-
A double linked list with each element is a letter in the alphabet, i.e. "A ↔ B ↔ C ↔ .... ↔ X ↔ Y ↔ Z" --
Write a pseudo code for insert node "3" between the 3rd and 4th element, node "7" between the 7th and 8th element, node "13" between the 13th and 14th element, node "19" between the 19th and 20th element, and node "24" after the last element.
Hint: if you are choosing to write a method then all new inserted nodes are numbered nodes, i.e. "1", "2", "3", etc. -
Write a CSS3 transformation key frame for this effect:
Move a pure CSS3 red circle to the upper right by 300x300 pixels,
Enlarge the circle by trippling its size,
And make the "last" frame stay after running the animation, i.e. the circle is at upper right corner when finished. - Write a PHP code for generating a unique, daily hash key with "$inputString" and "$secreteKey" as the input.
- Write Java code for doing a binary-tree-sort on a Vector object, Vector<String>.
-
Write a javascript code for reversing the text for element id="xtrans". For example:
Before:
<div id="xtrans" > abc 123 </div>
After:
<div id="xtrans" > 321 cba </div> -
The above questions are too simple for many of our candidates, so here's a more challenging logic problem.
- Imagine yourself in the European Middle Ages [or in Asia before China's First Emperor - Qin Shi Huang, or in Central America during the late post-classic period of Mesoamerica, or in Africa before Shaka kaSenzangakhona united the Zulu Kingdom].
- The land and the people are ravaged by war but your small kingdom has enjoyed relative peace and prosperity for the past 4 years.
- A young king [or emperor or chieftain] recently inherented the kingdom from his father. He is eager to establish his legacy and desperate to be loved by his people. Unfortunately, he is neither brave nor wise.
- In this kingdom, there is a beautiful, graceful, virgin maiden. She grew up with the young king, but she doesn't particularly like him. She loves her simple life of working at her family restaurant and the freedom and independence it affords her.
- The situation.
The king [or lord or chieftain] would love to take the lovely maiden as his queen. As the king, he has the right to take any subject to be his wife or concubine, but he wants to be known as a fair king. So, he devised a plan to make her his queen and establish his legacy as the greatest and fairest king of all time.
The king taxed the maiden's father's restaurant to the point where they could no longer pay. The king's guards then threw the father into jail for not paying these taxes. The fair maiden beseeched the king to hear her grievances and he agreed to meet her in the town market.
The king and the maiden meet at the large open market space. The king and the maiden are surrounded by guards, town merchants, and peasants as they begin to speak. Every word and gesture is watched by hundreds of eyes.
After hearing the maiden's passionate plea, the king walks in silence for a moment; he then turns to the maiden and proclaims loudly, "We shall pray to god [or heaven or the spirits of the elder council] for I am a fair king."
The people cheer at how they are blessed to have such a fair and great king.
Walking over to one of the nearby market stalls, the king picks up two seeds, turns to the people and says, "In my hand are a red seed and a green seed. My fair maiden: pick one and show it to the people, and if you choose the red seed, I will forgive your father's debt and free him from jail, and if you choose the green seed, you willingly become my queen."
The people cheer even louder than before. How great and fair a king to offer "freedom" or "queen"! Both are great choices.
The king holds out his closed fists. Beside the king, only the maiden saw that he had picked up two green seeds.
- What should the maiden do?
Hint: Remember fact 1 and fact 2 above. How she said it and what she does is just as important as what she said.