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How not to hire a software engineer

tonsky.me

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Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#201

Post by westoncb »

kristopolous wrote: post #188
TallGuyShort wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview quite a lot, and one of the things I try to do in an interview is work through a problem that I almost certainly understand more deeply than any of the candidates (both because it's my niche and because I've worked through the exact problem with hundreds of candidates before). There's a certain minimum bar that I expect any educated and intelligent individual to achieve if they're a good match for the job…

If I smell any bs then I immediately change tactics and make sure I put them deep over their head. For example, "what are the strengths and weaknesses of classifying grammars via the Chomsky hierarchy?" There's 3 ways to answer these kinds of questions and it exposes you as either a genius (or in this case a linguist), a non-genius (real geniuses are as common as 7.5 ft tall people) or a bullshitter trying to look li…

I'm curious about the question here if anyone wants to chime in (this is just an area in CS that I'm interested in but don't have exhaustive knowledge of or anything).

> what are the strengths and weaknesses of classifying grammars via the Chomsky hierarchy?

Are there alternative classification schemes for grammars? I haven't come across any personally—not for formal languages anyway.

Or was something else meant by the question?

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#202

Post by TallGuyShort »

mjevans wrote: post #195
therealx wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea because it allows me to figure out if they have one of the most important skills: being able to say "I don't know" without wasting a lot of time. IMO anyone else saying you should tell them the solutions might not have answers are dancing around needing to have that skill.

Then problem is that getting to "I don't know" can take a LONG time for someone who's actually a good fit. A generalist (jack of all trades, willing to become a master in some that are used often in a local time domain) might actually know a lot of that information. A good way of approaching this might be to provide problem feedback during the mock, stating that there's a given problem reported with the results or so…

Getting to an absolute "I don't know" does indeed take too long, but doesn't really do much for me as an interviewer anyway. My goal in these questions is to get to "I don't know, but I think... and I would verify by...", "I don't know, but one could try..." or "I don't know but I would Google for..." are all excellent places to end up. You're not BS'ing me, but you're not stumped either. You know sensible next steps. We all have to look stuff up regularly or test the unknown.

Can be a problem trying to out-generalist a generalist, but if you pick something in your niche (I ask them lots of other questions relating to their background, so this question doesn't have to cover the exact job requirements) and practice the problem with dozens of interviewers, it'll be pretty hard to have someone who can genuinely out-think you in the depth of that problem. And missing out on the "I don't know" is a small price to pay to find a candidate that does that well on the problem!

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#203

Post by quickthrower2 »

dzonga wrote: post #199
quickthrower2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly I’m yet to meet an employer who thinks like this. Especially in Australia. I’m a C# developer not because I was born with C# DNA but because to use any other language in suddenly looking at junior wages. Even though I could do a great job in any programmming language. It’s insane.

out of curiosity how high / low relatively are the aussie wages compared to us ones ?

They are lower, but better than continental Europe.

I here that SF people are getting $130k out of uni. That would be a rare high salary here (180k Aud).

Probably a manager of 100 people or a good cider working in trading, or a smart employer who doesn’t want to play the market rates game.

Salary is total comp here pretty much.

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#205

Post by bitL »

FussyZeus wrote: post #168
bitL wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 hour code test - you are an optimist! :D Recent trend in Silicon Valley is 1 week to 1 month (MVP) coding test in a hot area (e.g. Deep Learning), preferably coming with unique world-class solutions during that time :DDD And you get a phone interview only when you went to a Top 10 school.

In this market? I'd laugh in the interviewer's face. Like hell I'm doing a month of unpaid work for your "prestigious" opportunity.

Yes, if you are competing for high-end salaries/share %.

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#206

Post by quickthrower2 »

wryun wrote: post #27
quickthrower2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly I’m yet to meet an employer who thinks like this. Especially in Australia. I’m a C# developer not because I was born with C# DNA but because to use any other language in suddenly looking at junior wages. Even though I could do a great job in any programmming language. It’s insane.

I've worked at 4 software companies in Australia so far and none have been concerned about which programming languages I know (admittedly not for super high wages, but still...)

So how did they do the code test? Did they say you can do it in any language?

I interviewed for atlassian a few years ago. They gave me a tricky Java test, the kind that you’d only pass if you’ve been battling Java for years and know the gotchas. So that was a fail. I could have studied Java harder, but I’ve only got so much time and so many opportunities.

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#207

Post by mjcohen »

kristopolous wrote: post #188
TallGuyShort wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview quite a lot, and one of the things I try to do in an interview is work through a problem that I almost certainly understand more deeply than any of the candidates (both because it's my niche and because I've worked through the exact problem with hundreds of candidates before). There's a certain minimum bar that I expect any educated and intelligent individual to achieve if they're a good match for the job…

If I smell any bs then I immediately change tactics and make sure I put them deep over their head. For example, "what are the strengths and weaknesses of classifying grammars via the Chomsky hierarchy?" There's 3 ways to answer these kinds of questions and it exposes you as either a genius (or in this case a linguist), a non-genius (real geniuses are as common as 7.5 ft tall people) or a bullshitter trying to look li…

For Chomsky, I would hazard finite state automata, BNF systems, and Turing machines. I might then mumble about number of tapes and time to recognize, and then stop.

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#208

Post by r_smart »

watwut wrote: post #172
r_smart wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last employer, I sat in on an interview for a co-op with my boss. After asking the interviewee some questions the conversation went basically like this: Boss: Do you have any questions for me? Co-op: No Boss: Would you like to know about the company? What we do? Co-op: No I couldn't help myself from laughing. I know he's just a student, but he's still a 20 something adult. No interest at all, just looking to ch…

I just don't really get this attitude. What exactly you want me to ask assuming I know salary and position? General information about company is usually right there on the website. I am really not sure what exactly the hiring manager is supposed to be asked at that moment, especially by someone young who does not have enough experience to distinguish between lying hiring manager and the one that tells the truth. I co…

He didn't even want to know what we make. He had no idea. And no interest. Hopefully he was just showing up for practice or something and not actually expecting a good outcome.

Being inexperienced can excuse a lot, but not a total lack of basic curiosity. And I'd say it's useful to know what a company is producing so you can know if you have any interest in helping produce it.

|I just don't really get this attitude.

Hopefully you just weren't understanding just how bad this was. If not, then try harder I guess?

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#209

Post by r_smart »

avemg wrote: post #190
watwut wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't really get this attitude. What exactly you want me to ask assuming I know salary and position? General information about company is usually right there on the website. I am really not sure what exactly the hiring manager is supposed to be asked at that moment, especially by someone young who does not have enough experience to distinguish between lying hiring manager and the one that tells the truth. I co…

- Tell me about your software development methodology. - How are requirements communicated to developers? - How is work by developers tracked? - What VCS do you use? - What bug tracker, etc? - Do you practice devops? - What's your build process look like? Automated? Continuous deployment? - How big is the team? - Do you do sprints? how long typically? How do you decide what to work on in a sprint? - How do you determ…

I would call those good questions from someone experienced or savvy. The guy I'm talking about didn't even care to know what we make.

It's not like we were Facebook or something where he'd already know.

Re: How not to hire a software engineer

#210

Post by [deleted] »

mjcohen wrote: post #207
kristopolous wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I smell any bs then I immediately change tactics and make sure I put them deep over their head. For example, "what are the strengths and weaknesses of classifying grammars via the Chomsky hierarchy?" There's 3 ways to answer these kinds of questions and it exposes you as either a genius (or in this case a linguist), a non-genius (real geniuses are as common as 7.5 ft tall people) or a bullshitter trying to look li…

For Chomsky, I would hazard finite state automata, BNF systems, and Turing machines. I might then mumble about number of tapes and time to recognize, and then stop.

[deleted]
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