What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#1

Post by anshumanravi » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

I have been interviewing programmers for last couple of weeks for full stack developer position,And really disappointed with quality of answers I've got so far .

I figured out a common trait among almost all whom I interviewed , They seems to know 'What it does' but dont know what it is or how it does.

For example, They do not know what database indexing is or how it works(They know what it does though, improve query performance, wow!)

Ask them few intermediate level sql queries to write and they would be like I did it using ORM of framework xyz.

Or at programming language level, I asked what singleton is, they replied correctly about what it does, but failed to answer how it works, and interestingly answer were different from 'experts' of different language or framework, ROR guys said it works probably by installing gem, PHP guy attempted to write class but couldnt , javascript guys usually like 'meh, I dont know'

Asked them about REST and all would correctly recite its verb and full form, but would fail miserably when you want to know from them what is purpose of doctype, Or how http works under the hood or sometimes they dont even know what is GET and POST.

I remember things were different around 10yrs back, People used to write lot of code from scratch and had less tools, I am not blaming tools or framework for it, but new gen programmer seems to be so dependent on tools that they dont even care to know about whats going on under the hood. they would just read few blogs, read tutorial of framework/tools and start calling themselves expert.

EDIT : Formatting

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#2

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:12 PM UTC

I think they aren't being lazy, and they've adapted to a culture that wants things finished quickly at the expense of quality, or anything else really.

Edit: The same culture doesn't recognize that "done" implies a certain level of quality.

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#3

Post by nabla9 » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

First you should look at the job advertisement and the money you offer. You might be missing the people you want and getting what you pay for. I don't think the number of people with deeper knowledge is smaller than 10 years ago. There are more jobs and more people after those jobs while the number of people who know their stuff stays the same.

If you pay less than 75% percentile for programmer job, you can't expect too much.

Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2014 15-1131 Computer Programmers http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#4

Post by brianwawok » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #3

First you should look at the job advertisement and the money you offer. You might be missing the people you want and getting what you pay for. I don't think the number of people with deeper knowledge is smaller than 10 years ago. There are more jobs and more people after those jobs while the number of people who know their stuff stays the same. If you pay less than 75% percentile for programmer job, you can't expect…

Yes, would be curious to see his job posting and what he is paying. If you are paying average wage, you are going to find (at best) the average programmer.

Also you need to be aware of self bias when interviewing. You ask him things YOU think are simple, and are shocked when they don't know it. Of course the only sane way to do A singleton object in Java is to do a double checked lock with a volatile keyword, it says so right in "java concurrency in practice!"... But if a candidate has never needed to write a hand rolled singleton (say always worked in Spring), meh.. I bet they know things that you don't know. Ask a candidate you reject as dumb to ask you 10 hard questions he can prove he knows the answers to, and see how many you get right. If he stumps you on all 10, then you just proved that you each know things the other does not, which may mean you would be a good team working together ;)

P.S. I know how DB indexes work because I find it interesting. Does that actually help me? So far I have never used that knowledge, but hey - I sound cool in interviews!

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#5

Post by sharemywin » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:26 PM UTC

So, your offering a job rewriting the internet...that's pretty cool. Oh, right it's just another CRUD job. Also, why not write all your interview questions down on a piece of paper and leave them for an hour with internet access. If they still can't answer your questions then you have a problem. And, if there a gaps maybe train them a little bit. I think if everyone stopped wasting so much time looking for ninjas, experts, and unicorns and started hiring people the world would be a lot better off.

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#6

Post by xsmasher » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

The people you want are still out there, but either you are not filtering for them, or some filter is keeping them out.

For junior candidates we use a written test followed by a phone screen to avoid inviting time-wasters and resume spammers into the office; We're sometimes flexible on that for candidates who clearly have relevant experience.

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#7

Post by mattkenefick » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #5

So, your offering a job rewriting the internet...that's pretty cool. Oh, right it's just another CRUD job. Also, why not write all your interview questions down on a piece of paper and leave them for an hour with internet access. If they still can't answer your questions then you have a problem. And, if there a gaps maybe train them a little bit. I think if everyone stopped wasting so much time looking for ninjas, ex…

Sounds like you were one of the interviewees.

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#8

Post by mattkenefick » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

Lately, instead of greeting people with "Hello" or "Hey man," I usually start off all my conversations with this speech.

I agree so much so I had to double check that I didn't actually write it.

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#9

Post by confused_cto » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #4

nabla9 wrote: post #3

First you should look at the job advertisement and the money you offer. You might be missing the people you want and getting what you pay for. I don't think the number of people with deeper knowledge is smaller than 10 years ago. There are more jobs and more people after those jobs while the number of people who know their stuff stays the same. If you pay less than 75% percentile for programmer job, you can't expect…

Yes, would be curious to see his job posting and what he is paying. If you are paying average wage, you are going to find (at best) the average programmer. Also you need to be aware of self bias when interviewing. You ask him things YOU think are simple, and are shocked when they don't know it. Of course the only sane way to do A singleton object in Java is to do a double checked lock with a volatile keyword, it says…

I love your reverse interview idea. I am gonna start doing that (:

Re: What is wrong with new generation of programmers?

#10

Post by r2dnb » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #5

So, your offering a job rewriting the internet...that's pretty cool. Oh, right it's just another CRUD job. Also, why not write all your interview questions down on a piece of paper and leave them for an hour with internet access. If they still can't answer your questions then you have a problem. And, if there a gaps maybe train them a little bit. I think if everyone stopped wasting so much time looking for ninjas, ex…

I totally agree with this comment. The questions he asks sound really old school to me. This interview style seems very academic, you should focus on their technical maturity for the role, and wonder if they'll be productive in a real world scenario (with Google). I find this sort of gotcha questions pointless.

I like to gauge the maturity of candidates, but I make sure to never use gotcha questions. I propose them comfortable real world scenarios, and help them show the best of their thought process.

I've interviewed many people who were very good at answering this kind of theoretical questions but were short on delivery when I proposed them the test project supposed to demonstrate how readily they use these concepts in real world situations.

Quite frankly, it looks like the author has the graduate syndrome : http://read.reddy.today/read/10/the-graduate-syndrome