Hiring Is Broken?

Anyway, FOSS makes yearly polls about these topics. It is biased toward more involved projects, but again I don't think someone's one weekend demo is what is talked about here.

Assuming you had some way of making comparisons across these different formats (easier said than done, I'm sure) it seems like you would end up with "truer" signals. It also seems like you would get an extra signal based on what the interviewee chooses. For example someone who prefers live coding/pair programming sessions might be someone who leans on and thrives more in ultra-collaborative/brainstorm-ish settings. Whereas someone who prefers take home assignments maybe is more productive being able to sit on a problem and iterate, then collaborating after being able to articulate the specifics in a code review type setting. Neither are wrong, nor are they mutually exclusive within an organization but in terms of team placement or general "culture fit" (whatever that means) it seems like something that's useful to know ahead of time.

Of course you might also allow people to choose which route they think they can hack more but I think that problem is more of an implementation detail of any given method. Asking for a solution to find the perimeter of a group of pixels at a video streaming company is better than asking someone to invert a binary tree at virtually any company. Asking someone to build something real-ish with a hundred valid solutions is better than asking someone to implement a trie with a thin search interface on top. And so on.

Agreed. There's so much more that goes into programming than just knowing a programming language or two, so even if someone does know basic coding or has medium understanding of a former coworker's acxonolishments, there's so much more in the domain that (in my experience) liars, fakers, and overhypers are exposed very quickly after hiring. Granted, understanding this doesn't help weed them out before the fact, but still I think most interviewees know this and are wary of spinning their stories too far out of control.

Why would they? You’re making assumptions. Being in standup doesn’t mean you understand so well you can talk about it. Knowing why good decisions were made and actively making good decisions are two completely separate things.

Do you think you’d be prepared to be the lead singer or guitar player for a band if you memorized every note of every song of your favorite band? Would it help if you listened to all their podcasts, read all their books, studied their history? Would it help if you were their roadie or even their manager or producer? The answer is no, being near them and witnessing their output does not equip you to mimic their creative process, or to even understand it. Same goes for programming.

> Being able to walk through someone else’s though process is a lot easier than doing the actual work.

I’d say that’s true, and is exactly why you’d catch a liar in the unlikely event they made it through the interview process.

> All you need to get a good career [...] is just to job hop a lot

Yeah, it’s so easy. So do it! You have to keep lying and continue to convince every single company. You’d have to avoid people ever finding out and/or avoid companies calling each other for references. This takes so much effort, it’s literally easier to go to grad school and become an amazing programmer. What is making you think a lot of people are doing all this lying? Are there people around you that you suspect are lying?

> I bet a no small fraction of CEO’s went that route, and I think it is a pattern we should avoid since it is so easy to test actual coding skills in tech.

Multiple enormous problems with that sentence. CEOs don’t need coding skills, they need organizational skills, sales skill, communication skills and a host of other things, none of which are writing code unless you’re in a startup. (And then CEO is a goofy term anyway.)

You’re speculating. If a huge number of CEOs are faking it, then it should be easily demonstrable, so find some evidence. When CEOs fake it, the result is the company goes out of business.

It turns out we do avoid this “pattern” because it’s not really a pattern, it by and large isn’t happening, and there are many forces preventing it from happening that you’re not acknowledging.

Last but not least, coding skills in tech aren’t the most important. They’re very important, but not the most important. Teamwork, communication, attitude, and goals are all more important than actual coding skills.