Interview Questions

[Former NI Employee MS]

Hi,

You may want to add a question regarding the way (and the tools he/she uses) your applicant debugs his code. Does he/she knows about adpaters etc...

Regards,

Message Edited by Mathieu Steiner on 05-05-2010 10:48 AM

[Thomas_robertson]

For an entry level position appropriate for a CLAD or maybe certified developer,  I ask them to explain the attached VI.  It's a simple app built around an event driven state machine.  They have to go through it and explain how it works and why things were done the way they are.  One question to ask is what could I have used instead of strings for state names (a typedef enum), what is the advantages/disadvantages of an enum vs strings for state machines.

Given how easily they can explain it all will give you an idea of where their at.  I would say this is appropriate to gauge people who have had maybe 1 year of LV experience.  Past that, this won't be challenging enough.  

The next level might be to have two simultaneous state machines passing messages, maybe some semaphores, some advanced LV1 style 'globals' (can't remember what those are called, the vi's with enums for operation and internal data in shift registers),  etc...

Message Edited by Thomas robertson on 05-06-2010 02:52 PM

Message Edited by Thomas robertson on 05-06-2010 02:53 PM

[Broken_Arrow]

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Thomas robertson wrote:

...., maybe some semaphores, some advanced LV1 style 'globals' (can't remember what those are called, the vi's with enums for operation and internal data in shift registers),  etc...

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They are called LV2 Style Globals, Functional Globals, or (better) Action Engines- AE for short.

BTW, what's up with all the boolean constant shift registers in your VI?

[Thomas_robertson]

Oh.... Right  🙂       Functional globals.  I like that term 'action engine', never seen that before.  What's scary is that I couldn't remember the name but I used to have to teach that when I was teaching LabVIEW Intermediate.

The boolean shift registers are for expansion of the VI.  If you need more data  local to the VI you just delete the bool initialization, wire up the data type you need, comment the wire, and there it is ready for you in all cases.

Message Edited by Thomas robertson on 05-06-2010 03:37 PM

[LV_Pro]

"What's scary is that I couldn't remember the name but I used to...."  is called aging!

[Broken_Arrow]

Where's our O.P.?

[James_W]

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Broken Arrow wrote:
Where's our O.P.?

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In the Interview!!

[USar]

Thanks for all the repliess. They have been quite helpful. Yes, have been busy with the interviews...not fun.... :---)

[USar]

It looks like we do not have support for private messaging on this forum unless i am looking in the right place...

[USar]

Broken Arrow, The list of questions you mentioned are definitely useful for the initial screening over the phone.

Message Edited by USar on 05-07-2010 05:49 PM