David,

If you're looking for hardware design expertise as well, one technique
I've found useful is to give an interviewee a circuit diagram of a
completed product along with a brief explanation of what it does
overall, and invite him to critique it and explain how it works.  You
can get a really good feel for someone's level of competence that way.

Good luck in your search,

Dave

David J Binnington wrote...

>You have made some very valid points and particularly about experience =
with
>other processors. I have already expressed most of these myself.  =
However,
>the exercise is just a small part of the overall assessment and was =
never
>going to be used in the final judgement.  The position(s) also requires
>detailed knowledge of hardware as well so the overall package of skills =
is
>important.  We need someone to hit the ground running rather than spend
>precious time retraining.
>
>Thanks for the useful input.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
>> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Dave Dilatush
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 11:45 PM
>> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [PIC]: Programmer
>>
>>
>> David,
>>
>> I would hardly call myself a "PIC guru" (my experience consists of one
>> released commercial product using a PIC16C774, one under development
>> using a PIC18C452, and a few hobby projects with PIC16F877s and
>> PIC16F84s), but it is for precisely that reason that I have to tell =
you
>> that all three sample questions you gave are trivially easy- without =
any
>> reference to a PIC data sheet or the MRRF.
>>
>> I'm sure that others can, and will, give you a large assortment of =
good
>> PIC questions to flesh out your interview questionnaire, but I have to
>> voice some doubt about whether you'll learn anything very significant
>> from the results.  They may even be misleading.
>>
>> Just my opinion--and I may be way off base, I know--but my own
>> experience is that familiarity with a variety of microprocessors other
>> than PICs can be just as valuable as familiarity with PICs themselves;
>> in my own work I found that prior experience with the MC68HC11, =
MC6800,
>> the 6502, CDP1802 and (reaching back a few years, here) the CP1600
>> allowed me to very quickly get up to speed on my first PIC product.  =
If
>> I were out to hire someone to develop PIC assembly language code for =
the
>> application you describe, I would probably give preference to =
candidates
>> with breadth and depth of experience over those with experience only
>> with PICs.
>>
>> In the application you describe, I would cite control theory and user
>> interface design as the two areas most prone to jeopardising =
development
>> progress due to inexperience or lack of knowledge- not familiarity =
with
>> PICs.
>>
>> As I said, the above is pure opinion, so take it for what it's worth.
>>
>> Dave Dilatush
>>

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