an airbender learning earthbending

to uncomplicate your life, learn neutral jing

Season 2 of Avatar the Last Airbender opens with Aang searching for earthbending master. The movements and philosophy of earthbending prioritize strength and endurance, and predictably a lot of so-called masters simply brute force their attacks and defenses. As Aang says wryly, “Bumi told me to find someone who waits and listens to the earth. That guy’s just listening to his muscles.”

I was thinking about this after doing really really badly on a coding interview. The experience left me reeling because 1) I normally do well on technical rounds 2) I truly had no idea how I could have prepared better. No specific skill or concept was lacking but somehow I managed to hopelessly mix myself up.

Here’s how I usually solve problems: I quickly reason 25-75% of the way through the solution and start implementing, testing and iterating as I go. Usually my intuition is good, but this time it wasn’t. The mistake only became obvious when the interview was almost over, as I ran the code with supreme confidence. As you can imagine I did not finish the exercise, nor did I come across as particularly polished or competent.

Luckily I have friends who are good at perceiving my weaknesses. One of them heard my woes and provided me with a set of problems that all tripped me up in exactly the same way. At the end he looked at me with great disappointment and said, “Divya, I wouldn’t hire you either.”