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Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

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Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#211

Post by mikulas_florek »

bovermyer wrote: post #72

We interview people based on their passion for the craft and never use code tests or whiteboard tests. If they have a GitHub account, great, we'll look at what they have available. It's not required. Our team is bright, engaged, and productive. This system seems to work pretty well for us. And yes, we have a pretty diverse group of engineers.

> We interview people based on their passion for the craft

What does that mean?

> never use code tests or whiteboard tests

> If they have a GitHub account

So if they have no open source project, you hire them without seeing any code from them?

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#212

Post by oceanghost »

memracom wrote: post #84

I am a real Software Engineer. I don't remember all the details that are seconds away via Google or other reference documentation. I focus my brain power on thinking about the problem, trying to see it in the wider context, and understanding the needs of the users in my problem domain. I weigh the different solutions, choose a reasonable one, and implement a prototype that I can refactor into shape, step by step. And…

Are you interviewing successfully? I keep getting tripped up by concrete cognitive type in interviews.

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#213

Post by mikulas_florek »

jondubois wrote: post #156

If only interviewers could ask questions that they didn't already know the answer to, they might be surprised to find out that some candidates actually know more than they do.

They could, and I often did ask questions like that, it's a good way to remove any bias.

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#215

Post by riskable »

pavlov wrote: post #114
riskable wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an apt comparison! It appears that you have completely failed to realize that your example from British private schools regarding memorization is used to weed out the "riff raff" as it were. Don't want to hire "brown people", women, or other non-white privately-educated individuals? Institute a British-styled rote memorization test and make claims that it is fair because, "anyone can learn the requisite knowledg…

I assure you, I realize the intent of mock-meritocratic memorization tests that happen to ensure a "cultural fit".

Your use of that phrase is chilling. I will never be able to view it the same way again.

It sounds so innocuous... "Cultural fit." But wow does its meaning become sinister when used in the context of (illegal) discrimination.

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#216

Post by riskable »

memracom wrote: post #120
riskable wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an apt comparison! It appears that you have completely failed to realize that your example from British private schools regarding memorization is used to weed out the "riff raff" as it were. Don't want to hire "brown people", women, or other non-white privately-educated individuals? Institute a British-styled rote memorization test and make claims that it is fair because, "anyone can learn the requisite knowledg…

actually, I think the Greek and Latin text memorization WAS there to weed out the riff raff. If you are going to hire someone young and energetic to do a job that is not exactly taught in school, would you rather have someone who can work hard, even struggle to learn, but ultimately succeed? Or someone whose character is unknown even if they can say all the right things in an interview? And since this is about histor…

You're making a pretty silly claim. We could just as easily claim that the British empire grew to what it was because British schools had uniforms or it happened because the British eat more biscuits or Marmite.

Rote memorization of Greek and Latin texts probably had very little to do with the expansion and maintenance of the British empire.

TL;DR: Seriously?

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#217

Post by WkndTriathlete »

gwbas1c wrote: post #144

I actively interviewed job candidates while my wife went through her licensing process to be a doctor. A doctor's job interview spends no time making sure that a doctor is competent. Why? Because the licensing process does that. The most frustrating part of interviewing a software engineer job candidate is that a degree doesn't show that the candidate is competent. Thus, we need to waste our time on imperfect ways to…

I'm skeptical of licensing as a means of determining ability.

No other engineering discipline uses licensing (with the exception of PE roles, for obvious reasons) to determine ability. Think about how mechanical engineers get hired, for instance. "What were some technical challenges you had in your last project? How did you solve them?" would be a couple of leading questions into technical discussions with a candidate.

Note that those questions are not specific to mechanical engineering: they are applicable to every engineering and software role.

In the interviews I have conducted, asking these types of questions exactly has generally given me a pretty good sense of the technical ability of every candidate, with no whiteboard session or coding homework required. It only takes 30-45 minutes, and I have also found that this amount of time is enough to get a sense of a candidate's culture fit as well.

Whiteboard interviews only test how much of a candidate's memorized corpus overlaps with the question presented; as a result, I find that process is only 5-10% as effective as a technical discussion. I want to know if and how (and how well) a given candidate thinks, not if they know the same things I do.

Code homework is only marginally better. Most (better) companies have a 90-day probation period anyway. After hire, if a developer is not performing up to expectations for a given role, they can be let go. This is exactly how it happens in every other engineering profession.

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#218

Post by bovermyer »

mikulas_florek wrote: post #211
bovermyer wrote: post #72

We interview people based on their passion for the craft and never use code tests or whiteboard tests. If they have a GitHub account, great, we'll look at what they have available. It's not required. Our team is bright, engaged, and productive. This system seems to work pretty well for us. And yes, we have a pretty diverse group of engineers.

> We interview people based on their passion for the craft What does that mean? > never use code tests or whiteboard tests > If they have a GitHub account So if they have no open source project, you hire them without seeing any code from them?

"Passion for the craft" refers to a general set of attributes, most often typified by an excitement for development, a desire to tinker, curiosity on how things work, and demonstration of sustained levels of these traits over a long period of time (e.g., years or decades). It's pretty easy to tell the difference between a candidate who genuinely loves coding and a candidate who just wants a job.

And yes, we sometimes hire without even seeing any code from a given candidate. We have yet to be disappointed.

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#219

Post by digler999 »

Izmaki wrote: post #206
hackinthebochs wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like someone who doesn't realize this isn't 2006 anymore and people stopped pretending to change the world with every new job.

You don't need to change the world, you need to make a difference. Without making a difference, you're no better than the next person of equal skill who wants a bigger TV and a fancy car.

To make some tech company rich ? Is that what "making a difference" means to you ? To help fund the CEO's golden parachute ?

Re: Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

#220

Post by mdinstuhl »

jghn wrote: post #171
canadian_voter wrote: post #34

Hello, my name is Tim. I'm a lead at Google with over 30 years coding experience and I need to look up how to get length of a python string. The problem with Python is the arcane, arbitrary and nonsensical syntax. It sure as hell isn't anything as obvious as length(str) or string.length like any reasonable language. And god help you if you want to do something complicated like define a function. But seriously: I have…

As someone who has worked with a lot of languages over the years I can never remember which one is `length(x)`, `len(x)`, `x.length`, `x.len`, and so on. For me the answer is "never", apparently. Then again I tend to struggle with basic syntax no matter what language I'm using or how frequently I use it.

You forgot sizeOf()!

If it makes you feel any better, I am in the same boat.

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