When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling • Hacker News Board

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#641

Post by dunpeal » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

candybar wrote: post #638

mattsfrey wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems extremely off to me - from my POV who the hell has time to study algorithms and implementing data structures every time they need to find a job? Trying to make sure I can whiteboard a random CS problem from a massive set of potentials on the fly in front of observers is drastically more involved and requires much more time that serves no other purpose than facilitating interviewing, versus just spending an…

Most of the top employers in the market have similar types of interviews so you have to study anyway unless you want to rule out all of them and any time spent preparing for such interviews amortizes across all of them. Meanwhile, a take-home test is almost always a one-off and takes much longer on a marginal basis and rarely is even used to make the final decision - every time I've done a take-home, I've also had to…

> The only time I've done a real take-home in less than 10 hours, it was rejected for not being polished enough.

Because you were competing with folks who were unemployed and probably invested 30+ hours in it.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#642

Post by bigiain » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #478

trh88 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people that say that a CS education doesn't make you a better programmer are people without a CS education.

CS is not programming just like 99% of musicians don't have music theory degree.

Interesting analogy.

I bet there's scope to twist it beyond all sensible bounds, and compare the ability of the 99% to the 1%.

I suspect there's top level classical, jazz, and session musicians - who're the industry equivalent of 10x programmers. (And all the other stereotypes probably exist too, I bet there are occasional untrained but gifted musicians who can produce 10x output, but who're amazingly difficult to collaborate with compared to degree level music theory trained musicians... And I bet there are "10 year" musicians with one years experience repeated ten times over.)

The other interesting point there is that probably 99% (or more for, five, perhaps six nines) of "programming" doesn't actually require that much hard-core CS theory. You can get paid well playing covers in bars with a good ear and not being able to read a single note from a chart, just by listening to the originals and copying them over and over in your bedroom. Same as you can make a decent living building basic CRUD websites/apps without having written your own compiler that can compile itself or defended a phd that advances humanities start of the art understanding of something fundamental.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#643

Post by mancerayder » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #614

mancerayder wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the statement "they cost money for both parties" but I disagree with "in that sense it's fair." Individual consultant: loses 5 hours of interview time (and commute time) or take-home exam. Let's call it $800 for the sake of argument. Company: loses 5 hours of interview time, plus the time it takes to "quiz" the exam. Individual loses money that he / she uses to pay their mortgage. Company loses profit be…

Consultants also do not get paid vacation, or paid sick leave. They also don't get any of the benefits that a lot of regular employees get. But that's part of the game, they have to account for all of that which is why they earn much more per hour. A lot of those "customer acquisition" tasks cost time and may not necessarily yield a return, but that's part of the extra risk consultants have to assume and why not ever…

Maybe all true with regards to cost considerations, but it doesn't support the notion above that a candidate's wasted time and money (vacation time and sick time costs money for an FTE) and a company's wasted time are somehow .. 'equal'.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#644

Post by throwawaymath » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 11:20 PM UTC

WWLink wrote: post #580

sheikheddy wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I feel like I'm the sort of person this comment is calling out. What advice would you give me so I can be the real McCoy? The only solution I can think of is to keep writing as much code as I can, so I can get real experience instead of just hot air.

Turn off your internet when doing work. Buy a stack of Postgre books. Memorize them. Never, ever, ever use stack overflow. EVER. Don't use google. Memorize everything. That's what that asshole is looking for. :) Though to be fair, if you come up with that strategy and can't do -anything- at a sql console, I'm going to ask how you normally interface with the database, because that's like a Linux expert not knowing how…

> That's what that asshole is looking for. :)

Do you suppose you could have made this point without calling me a name?

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#645

Post by throwawaymath » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 11:24 PM UTC

kd0amg wrote: post #606

throwawaymath wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, let me give a specific example. Imagine you're interviewing a candidate and they're talking through how to design an analytics service. They begin talking about e.g. database architecture, and how this type of data is most appropriate for a star schema. They start talking about the tradeoffs of row versus column orientation. They mention they'll need to do indexing for performance and talk about the index space v…

> If they understand their friend's work deeply, doesn't that imply they've done something comparable themselves? Imagine you're interviewing a candidate and they're talking through how to design an analytics service. They begin talking about e.g. database architecture, and how this type of data is most appropriate for a star schema. They start talking about the tradeoffs of row versus column orientation. They mentio…

Well, do you think my comment demonstrates deep understanding of database design? I don't feel I have deep understanding of databases, but I can certainly talk to you about very basic things like indices and joins.

Basically it's like someone else said. They read a book and know a lot of answers, but they can't do the most basic implementation of a solution.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#646

Post by throwawaymath » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 11:30 PM UTC

sheikheddy wrote: post #544

throwawaymath wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, let me give a specific example. Imagine you're interviewing a candidate and they're talking through how to design an analytics service. They begin talking about e.g. database architecture, and how this type of data is most appropriate for a star schema. They start talking about the tradeoffs of row versus column orientation. They mention they'll need to do indexing for performance and talk about the index space v…

Wow, I feel like I'm the sort of person this comment is calling out. What advice would you give me so I can be the real McCoy? The only solution I can think of is to keep writing as much code as I can, so I can get real experience instead of just hot air.

I don't really intend to call out anyone, so please don't feel that way. Keep in mind what I'm trying to construe is someone who has a lot of broad (not deep) book knowledge, but who can't do even basic practical implementation.

If you can explain how to design a system and you can do it, but don't know the exact commands off the top of your head, my comment isn't describing you. I don't expect people to e.g. know awk like the back of their hand, or to write perfectly compiling code on their first try.

But even if you don't have perfect recall of the commands, it should be pretty clear whether or not you've ever opened an editor and done basic implementation. If the GUI is your thing that's fine. But your knowledge must have some practical foundation which demonstrates you can actually walk the walk.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#647

Post by EpicEng » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #518

EpicEng wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course that happens, but you're taking a real risk in hiring someone who can't get through the interview. I'd rather miss out on a good hire than make a bad one. You only have so many ways to determine whether or not someone is competent.

The only time people face the specific pressure of an interview is in an interview. I promise you, whatever generalization you're making doesn't hold.

My point is that you can't easily discern why they are performing poorly. All things being equal I'll take the person who could answer the questions.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#648

Post by thedufer » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #516

thedufer wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing here is that cities are a better deal if you can command a top salary, and worse in most other situations. For example, talking about FANG, a senior position at Google (the lowest terminal level) comes with an average salary of $360k. Whereas someone who can get a senior position at Google is looking at your $135k (I get the feeling you're quite senior) or maybe a bit more in lower CoL areas. Even a…

How much would it cost to get a five bedroom, 3-1/2 bath newly built house in a top rated school system in Silicon Valley? That’s easily affordable with one income, with a family making the median software developer wage. Any competent developer can pick up the phone, call a few local recruiters and have three or four offers in three weeks. Of course the pickings get slimmer the further to the right of the bell curve…

I've never lived in SV, so I'm probably the wrong person to answer that. But your real question seems to be "how can I live exactly the same life as now, but in an expensive city", which - sure, that's probably not possible. But neither can someone in a cheaper area live within half an hour of, say, a major international airport and several world-class museums, and within a 5 minute walk of a dozen high-quality restaurants. It's not really a function of cost or CoL or whatever; in both cases you're trying to find something that doesn't exist at any price in the given area.

Which is to say - the finances are only one part of it! Living in a large city is qualitatively different from living in a small city which is different from living in a rural area. If you have a strong preference, giving up the best financial situation to live the life you want is super reasonable. I know plenty of people who could live more comfortably in a cheaper area, but some people just want to be in a big city. I'm sure the reverse is true as well.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#649

Post by blihp » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #631

blihp wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there often is a formal probationary period at larger companies which mainly accomplishes one thing: reduce the HR red tape if a new hire isn't working out. During the probationary period it's generally easier to make a case (i.e. little or no documentation needed) that 'they're not working out' and HR will be OK with it vs. after the probationary period, you typically have to 'document' them out of the com…

I'm in the USA, and this (probationary period) has been the case with every job I've had in the past 30 years. I've never heard of a company not doing this in fact.

Same here. Though many mid-size / smaller companies might not advertise this fact (their HR policies are often a bit more ad hoc than larger companies if they haven't been involved in as many labor lawsuits)... but pretty much if there's an HR department, the probationary period exists.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#650

Post by bradleyjg » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

LaserToy wrote: post #583

bradleyjg wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are yo saying most of candidates commit fraud? Nope.

If majority doesn’t, why create a process that punishes everyone? People are lying on the resumes is a very common argument made by creators of insane interview processes. It feels weird to start a relationship with a company with assumption that I’m a cheater.

Who said anything about punishing anyone? 1) tptacek advocated for a specific kind of interviewing, 2) I asked him if he had ever seen a problem that I thought might be an issue with that method, 3) he explained that he wasn't worried about it because of X, Y, Z but acknowledged that for other companies it could be a problem, 4) I thought his answer was very reasonable. Also wool_gather and swish_bob added some useful ideas.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to come out guns blazing.