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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

#231

Post by GFischer »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #155

What I don't get is why interviews arent 4x 30 minute sessions, an hour of research time, lunch, an hour with a manager, another hour of research time, and then 4x 30 minute sessions answering questions and presenting solutions? It still fits in an 8 hour day, but it has a lot more in common with how Id actually interact with the team and do the work than the contrived 1 hour sessions.

At least one large company I interviewed at does structure their interviews kind of that way (minus the hour of research time, but they do have some take-home stuff to compensate), and it is much more pleasant having smaller chunks of sessions.

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

#232

Post by GFischer »

jackmott wrote: post #14
ebbv wrote: post #5

Asking developers to program in front of strangers is primarily testing for ability to perform in front of strangers and developer skills secondarily (if at all.) I never ask people to code in front of me. I ask them questions to get a feel for where their areas of expertise are, and to get to know them. I wrote a post about my feelings on it last year: https://medium.com/@ebbv/my-case-against-coding-tests-6b15c1...

there is experimental evidence suggests that the ad hoc approach is the worst approach. why not have them write code, not in front of people. give them a laptop and some time alone?

The job I actually landed had the technical part of the job interview just like that - a laptop, a set of requirements (fixing an existing application), internet access, and some time.

I did a lot better than I do on whiteboard style interviews, so I'm definitely biased to preferring this :) .

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

#233

Post by dlwdlw »

My theory is that many immigrants, mainly Chinese and Indian, study very hard to get into these companies. So they expect the same level of effort from everyone else. It's not even expectation, it may be that someone who has obviously studied a lot resonates better.

There is also a subculture of nepotism or low standards that is allowing in people who don't care or can even code at all and may even cheat by saying they did some large complex project.

So this problem and solution combination creates this other problem.

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

#234

Post by dlwdlw »

A lot of these bad practices come not from a broken process but from the programmers themselves. There are many people who have an ego to protect or some concept of fairness to enforce.

Some examples:

(1) successful startup lead engineer who isnt that good but still the lead b/c of early faith in the company being unable to out ego aside.

(2) chinese/indian h1b who studied algorithms for hundreds if hours to get a position believing it is fair to expect the same from others.

Easy interviews:

Main programmer left/is-leaving so a body is needed to maintain technical debt.

Startup founder needs anyone at all to make a PoC before funding runs out.

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

#235

Post by kafkaesq »

dagw wrote: post #229
kafkaesq wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising kids is doubtlessly even less relevant. Right. But if done successfully (or even just satisfactorily -- given how difficult of a job it truly is), at least has some correlation with character, and general cognitive fortitude. And hence -- unlike the ability to withstand repeating whiteboarding sessions -- has at least some correlation with actual fitness vis-a-vis the role being applied for.

"So you seem to have the experience we're looking for and our engineers seem impressed with your interview. Just one small final thing, a formality really, could you bring your daughter in tomorrow so we can talk to her and see if she's been brought up right?" If whiteboard testing is frowned upon, I imagine testing a candidates kids would be doubly frowned upon.

No worries; I was responding rhetorically to a rhetorical questions. I wasn't suggestion that it actually be used as a hiring filter.

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

#236

Post by bovermyer »

NTDF9 wrote: post #227
bovermyer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Are you hiring and are based in SF bay area?

We were hiring up until about a week ago, but we're staffed up now. We're based in Minneapolis.

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

#237

Post by willhslade »

Never change, Hacker News.

Just to play devil's advocate, just imagine you are in the seat of a software engineering manager, probably an engineer who got his MBA. Doesn't code professionally, and hasn't for a while.

He's got to hire someone that, due to the nature of the work, he cannot effectively micromanage. Even a moderately complicated piece of software, with best practices, a robust code review process, and experienced hires, can go off the rails, and very quickly. Due to no fault of the developer, mind you; sometimes, PMs and BAs suck. We've also all seen what happens when you have to maintain the mess a rookie software dev has made.

So, you need to hire someone experienced, and competent. You are looking for non-falsifiable indicators of both. Ideally, since new grads are both cheaper from a salary and health insurance perspective, you'd like to get a good, new grad, and ride him for a while until he gets paid market rates for experienced devs.

So what do you do with new grads? You ask them computer science brain teasers, to test if they were paying attention in class. It's hard to fake, it's a quick conversation in terms of time, and it's biased against older hires. Win win win from the pointy headed guys.

My 2 cents. Not saying it's right, but if you want a better system, invent something that can accurately rate software engineering experience. It's a gold mine.

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

#238

Post by willhslade »

Never change, Hacker News.

Just to play devil's advocate, just imagine you are in the seat of a software engineering manager, probably an engineer who got his MBA. Doesn't code professionally, and hasn't for a while.

He's got to hire someone that, due to the nature of the work, he cannot effectively micromanage. Even a moderately complicated piece of software, with best practices, a robust code review process, and experienced hires, can go off the rails, and very quickly. Due to no fault of the developer, mind you; sometimes, PMs and BAs suck. We've also all seen what happens when you have to maintain the mess a rookie software dev has made.

So, you need to hire someone experienced, and competent. You are looking for non-falsifiable indicators of both. Ideally, since new grads are both cheaper from a salary and health insurance perspective, you'd like to get a good, new grad, and ride him for a while until he gets paid market rates for experienced devs.

So what do you do with new grads? You ask them computer science brain teasers, to test if they were paying attention in class. It's hard to fake, it's a quick conversation in terms of time, and it's biased against older hires. Win win win from the pointy headed guys.

My 2 cents. Not saying it's right, but if you want a better system, invent something that can accurately rate software engineering experience. It's a gold mine.

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