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Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

businessinsider.fr

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Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#251

Post by rvp-x »

whack wrote: post #65

Here's what they are doing, from the linked blog post: > Our dev teams had taken to working with candidates to solve a bug or feature as part of the interview process. It was a collaborative effort with the candidate and the team working together to solve a real problem. Sounds like a great idea. Except it's so variable. What if you get lucky and you get a easy bug, whereas someone else gets something much harder. Le…

Why is being biased in favour someone with domain knowledge a bad thing? I assume that is the domain you are hiring them to do.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#252

Post by denzil_correa »

solatic wrote: post #243

Dogfooding their process is going to give them adverse results here: Microsoft is paying them to take all the time they want, but good candidates won't be so willing to spend so much time. Already, they're up to a full day of interviews, which is ridiculous. One of the worst parts of current FAANG interviewing is how long it takes to get to the day of interviews, needing to take off from work to attend the interview…

One company wanted approached to interview me for the position of a "scientist". Their initial step of the interview process was to spend 4-6h on some "challenge" they designed. I told them, I can't spend 4h of my time on the 1st step where I have no clue what my hiring manager even does! I made a counter to their proposal as all my research projects are publicly available. My counter was similar to your proposition. I asked them to pick any of my research projects and talk about it, I told them I just need a 5 minute heads up. Of course, they didn't take me up on it because they required "commitment from the candidate". I chuckled on the irony in that last phrase. Interview is a 2-way process and it seems a lot of people have bought into some of the kool aid.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#253

Post by sgustard »

kronin wrote: post #124
mancerayder wrote: post #39

Great, now can Netflix, Google and Facebook do this, too? Not because I want to work in these places, but because they influence everyone else and as a senior engineer in the systems space I feel I shouldn't need to study days or weeks for fizzbuzz sorting algorithms questions that are designed to test comp sci recent grads. I have a proven career, and was never suddenly stumped in a project due to not being able to.…

I've interviewed and been interviewing for over a decade. I have had the displeasure of interviewing many people who have very impressive resumes yet when asked how they would judge their skillset in an area, and being told from them that they would say "expert", being shown exactly the opposite when it came time to answer some questions in that area. One data point... Senior engineer that founded the local java user…

As a hiring manager, I agree 100%. These people are everywhere. I've also given someone the benefit of the doubt -- he wrote a Java book! once we hire him, I'm sure it will work out -- only to find, nope, he can't code on the job either.

Other hand, I'd suggest instead of "lying" that people are just myopic about their skill sets. I'd been writing JavaScript code for years, for example, but on an interview learned about a whole world of "modern" JavaScript that I didn't know existed. Clearly they thought I was a fraud. But I'd just been living on the 3rd floor without ever visiting the basement where all the pipes and boilers were.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#254

Post by jen20 »

throwawaymath wrote: post #193
baursak wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times in your job did you have to implement reversing a string without calling a library?

I understand the class of rebuttal you're invoking here, but reversing a string is extremely easy - with or without a library. This is not an academic problem designed to see if a person can study prior to an interview. This is a first pass question designed to see if a person is even acquainted with basic programming. Any such question you could devise would be similarly patronizing or orthogonal to the exact work d…

> iterate through the string backwards

What about multi-byte characters?

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#255

Post by em-bee »

vijucat wrote: post #172
grumpydba wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We french have an expression for that: "l'esprit de l'escalier", literally "staircase spirit". It's meant to characterize people who think about what they should have said/answered only when on their way out, in the staircases. I think I work this way. Maybe it's a way to ignore my lack of wit, my slow paced brain, and to maintain some self esteem.

Ha, wonderful expression, thanks. Given that many people report that their best thinking is done while walking or taking a jog, it might not be too wild to try out interviews which allow the candidate to take a walk before they give an answer.

that's an interesting idea. how can we implement that without it becoming awkward?

the problem i see is this:

it is unexpected, so the interviewee doesn't know what to make of that offer.

i don't know how much time to give them, and they don't know how much time they need. they also don't know how much time they should take.

i don't even know if they are the type that likes to take a quiet time to think. if they aren't then that offer could come across as a suggestion that their answer is wrong and they should think about it more.

at best it would be some institutionalized coffee-break, like we do the interview in two parts, first we are doing a bunch of exercises, then we take a break and after the break we do something else, but the interviewee is offered to add thoughts on the exercises that they may have come up with during the break.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#256

Post by sgustard »

baursak wrote: post #177
kronin wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the start of the coding interview. It moves on from there. This candidate didn't even ask if he could use Apache commons, and I hadn't yet specified that he couldn't use a 3rd party library. So yes. He failed on many counts. 1) not asking clarifying questions 2) not being familiar with some well-known libraries 3) not being able to implement a basic reverse string 4) not being able to explain whether or not a si…

How many times in your job did you have to implement reversing a string without calling a library?

Can you traverse an array? Do you know that a string is an array? Do you know how the end or length of a string is represented in your language of choise? Do you know how each character is represented? Do you understand Unicode? Do you understand memory allocation? Is the string being reversed in place or you allocating a new string? What are the space and performance trade-offs between those approaches? I mean, you can fill a whole interview with just this topic. So yes if your answer is string.reverse() then expect some follow-up questions.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#257

Post by em-bee »

vaststag wrote: post #238
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #14

> But the aha moment for me was that not everyone does well in those fast-paced brainstorming sessions. A lot of people (including me) prefer to sit with a cup of coffee and some data and try to think things through. This is me. Hard to get that across in an interview, but once people work with me, they're cool with me coming back an hour later in an email with some thoughts on the last meeting topic. They know and r…

i’m like this but admittedly, in some cases, you’re interviewing for roles where it’s critical you identify that candidate can think on their feet (eg devs that might need to serve in 24/7 ops roles), where “let me get back to you” isn’t a feasible option

in a situation like that i'd like to see both happening. start the emergency procedure, and while it's running think through if you missed anything or if there is an alternate approach.

just had that happen. we had an overloaded server, and while we tried to figure out how to make the server faster, after some thinking we realized that the better long term solution was to change some of the architecture so that the server would get less load to begin with.

that was definitely not what came to mind first.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#258

Post by simonswords82 »

bicubic wrote: post #154
TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little bit of unpaid labor is honestly fine. Especially since I can’t imagine this being easy to exploit in a way that really impacts a company’s bottom line. It’s like getting a free sample of food at the store, before committing to a full purchase

Imagine being a carpenter applying for a job and being asked to make a small bedside table for free. So the employer can sample your skills before committing to a full purchase. Absurd.

If you ever sat on the hiring side and had just one new hire not work out, you would understand your throw away statement is actually more absurd than asking for free work. Let's flip the scenario and go your way instead...

Imagine being a programmer applying for a job and not being asked to demonstrate your skills at interview. The interview goes well, and you're offered the job.

You give your 4 weeks notice on your existing job, and turn up to your new role. You sit down, it's day one, and you're presented with a small sprint of bugs to work through to get warmed up on the project you're assigned.

Your heart sinks.

You realise that you are totally out of your depth. The solution you're working on is hard, the documentation insanely complex, and you feel more and more despondent as the week goes on.

By the end of the week your colleagues and managers have started to pick up on your struggles. Despite their effort to help you can't make meaningful progress. To cut a long story short you're let go, and now you're unemployed.

-THE END-

As an employer and owner of a software company, it's my job to assess the skills of somebody as quickly and efficiently as possible. If getting them to "build a small bedside table for free" gets both me, my colleagues, and the candidate attending the interview comfortable that we're offering a job to somebody who can succeed at my company, then so be it.

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#259

Post by elcomet »

kluyg wrote: post #246
solatic wrote: post #243

Dogfooding their process is going to give them adverse results here: Microsoft is paying them to take all the time they want, but good candidates won't be so willing to spend so much time. Already, they're up to a full day of interviews, which is ridiculous. One of the worst parts of current FAANG interviewing is how long it takes to get to the day of interviews, needing to take off from work to attend the interview…

Yeah, if only it was all unicorns and rainbows. What you describe is how I imagine they interview for director / VP positions. With hundreds (thousands?) of applications per day for software engineering positions, all with perfect resumes, what you describe just doesn’t scale. Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evening…

Why would you work on evenings? Interviews can and should happen during the day

Re: Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers

#260

Post by em-bee »

kluyg wrote: post #246
solatic wrote: post #243

Dogfooding their process is going to give them adverse results here: Microsoft is paying them to take all the time they want, but good candidates won't be so willing to spend so much time. Already, they're up to a full day of interviews, which is ridiculous. One of the worst parts of current FAANG interviewing is how long it takes to get to the day of interviews, needing to take off from work to attend the interview…

Yeah, if only it was all unicorns and rainbows. What you describe is how I imagine they interview for director / VP positions. With hundreds (thousands?) of applications per day for software engineering positions, all with perfect resumes, what you describe just doesn’t scale. Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evening…

if i am looking for a different job, i'll not just interview with one company, but several. even more so if i still have a job and i really need to weigh the options to decide if the new offer is really better.

there is only so many days i can take off. with two weeks holidays, i might spend all of my holiday budget for this year.

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