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What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

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Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#61

Post by sidlls »

stcredzero wrote: post #57
lovich wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. Unless you have a super targeted problem space that interviewing employees know about, then you are doing about as well as drawing a rand…

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. A programmer worth his salt should retain enough 1st principles knowledge to not create a O(n^3) bottleneck in production or otherwise st…

Yes, and regurgitation is what tech interviews these days optimize for in selecting candidates. Regurgitation is not simply repeating the technical components verbatim, by the way. It includes rote rehearsal of a believable way to present (i.e. fake) working it out from scratch.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#62

Post by pkamb »

elvinyung wrote: post #2

I was at a talk by Emily Chang about her new book Brotopia , and she raised a really good question: why frame it in terms of culture fit , as if culture is something pristine to be preserved? Why not think of it as culture addition , that is, in terms of trying to assess how much one can bring to the table?

Because we're already the Best Place To Work and we only hire The Best People, why would we possibly want to change?

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#63

Post by watwut »

stcredzero wrote: post #57
lovich wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. Unless you have a super targeted problem space that interviewing employees know about, then you are doing about as well as drawing a rand…

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. A programmer worth his salt should retain enough 1st principles knowledge to not create a O(n^3) bottleneck in production or otherwise st…

The task was not about probable n^3 bottleneck. It was about proving probability distribution.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#64

Post by sampleinajar »

harryh wrote: post #32
theorique wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, culture fit is exactly that - a nice way of saying that the candidate was "a huge asshole or complete weirdo." It's shorthand for "I think they could probably do the work, but I don't think that I/we could actually stand working with this particular candidate".

Ya. Are you a sports loving bro? I don't care. Are you an arty hipster? I don't care. Are you a birkenstock wearing vegan nature lover? I don't care. Do you yell at people when you get upset over minor disagreements? Well that's gonna be a problem....

How do you reliably and accurately select for that in an interview? Try to constantly trigger them?

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#65

Post by stcredzero »

watwut wrote: post #63
stcredzero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. A programmer worth his salt should retain enough 1st principles knowledge to not create a O(n^3) bottleneck in production or otherwise st…

The task was not about probable n^3 bottleneck. It was about proving probability distribution.

In that sentence, I was talking generally about people debugging CRUD apps, not about the specific example. You will note that the parent comment to mine is talking in general terms, not about the example.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#66

Post by watwut »

tomjen3 wrote: post #22
elvinyung wrote: post #2

I was at a talk by Emily Chang about her new book Brotopia , and she raised a really good question: why frame it in terms of culture fit , as if culture is something pristine to be preserved? Why not think of it as culture addition , that is, in terms of trying to assess how much one can bring to the table?

Because you don't add to a team which is highly dynamic by adding a person who expects a straightforward top-down decision-making process, and the same is the case in the reverse situation. This is not about pristine or not, but simply about the average. You do add to a team of programmers by adding a marketing person, salesperson, technical support or test person.

If that highly dynamic team is disorganized, you do add by adding more organized people - despite there being some conflicts as a result.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#68

Post by stcredzero »

sidlls wrote: post #61
stcredzero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. A programmer worth his salt should retain enough 1st principles knowledge to not create a O(n^3) bottleneck in production or otherwise st…

Yes, and regurgitation is what tech interviews these days optimize for in selecting candidates. Regurgitation is not simply repeating the technical components verbatim, by the way. It includes rote rehearsal of a believable way to present (i.e. fake) working it out from scratch.

Hell, if an interviewee understands enough to be able to convincingly fake working things out, they're already way ahead of a lot of other candidates. I've seen people faking such things badly. In general, they can spout off about the "happy path," but they can't tell you how the implementation can go wrong and what to do about it.

When I was a grad student TA, I told people not to cheat. If you don't know enough to answer the questions, you don't have enough knowledge to cheat. That turned out to be quite true.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#69

Post by [deleted] »

grandmczeb wrote: post #54
kgilpin wrote: post #37

I'm in agreement with other commenters here that "culture fit" usually feels like a euphemism for something else. I think what it's really about is explained here in the article: "A single toxic employee who is a bad fit for the existing culture can tank the morale and productivity of an entire team. " So, is there really more to "culture fit" than the No Asshole Rule (1)? If not, can we start calling it what it is:…

Having been a mediator for many peer/co-worker conflicts, I've come to believe that "true" assholes (in the sense of someone who is fundamentally mean and entitled) are way more rare than people admit. On the other hand, it's not rare at all that a person can be considered an asshole by one group but work well in another. A large part of culture fit is about minimizing these personality conflicts.

[deleted]

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#70

Post by elvinyung »

anon743987 wrote: post #53
tvanantwerp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a person can add to a culture, then a person could also subtract from a culture. Getting the wrong people on the bus can be very damaging to a company. This is not to say that companies always do a good job at selecting people for addition rather than subtraction. Any place that could be deemed a "brotopia" is likely bad at building positive culture--I know I wouldn't want to work there. But still, different peopl…

I moved from "brotopia" to "non-brotopia" and I felt that it was a step down culturally.

Why?
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