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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

danluu.com

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#361

Post by justincredible »

scottlamb wrote: post #183
hyperpape wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may enjoy a tweet of Dan's, where he says his open source code has been completely irrelevant in most of his interviews: https://twitter.com/danluu/status/806222862663053312 . Lest you think he's just a superstar who doesn't care about interviews, he says he's quite bad at them https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1058029337923014656

From later in that second twitter thread: > I was at a party tonight and someone asked me what my favorite book was. Couldn't answer. They relaxed the constraint and asked about "a good book". Couldn't answer. They relaxed the constraint again and asked me about "any book, good or bad". Couldn't answer. From his blog, Dan is obviously a great engineer. I'd love to say as an interviewer I'd recognize this and say "str…

The obvious conclusion is that Dan doesn't read books. All the knowledge he has acquired has been through posts (forum, blog, etc.) and experience.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#362

Post by ufmace »

tptacek wrote: post #201

Last night on Twitter, someone said "Nearly every entrepreneur I talk so says hiring is their biggest challenge. The world is starving for competent people with a strong work-ethic." This is of course false. The world is not starving for competent people. It's starving for high-status resumes. If those resumes are attached to people who are competent or hard workers, that's a bonus. The high-status resumes without th…

The thing about talks of taking down the elite... based on previous attempts to do just that in various places, it seems like it's human nature that people really want there to be an elite. Previous attempts to take down the elite, when successful, tend to lead to a new elite forming and taking power, which may or may not be any better than the last.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#363

Post by akvadrako »

ufmace wrote: post #362
tptacek wrote: post #201

Last night on Twitter, someone said "Nearly every entrepreneur I talk so says hiring is their biggest challenge. The world is starving for competent people with a strong work-ethic." This is of course false. The world is not starving for competent people. It's starving for high-status resumes. If those resumes are attached to people who are competent or hard workers, that's a bonus. The high-status resumes without th…

The thing about talks of taking down the elite... based on previous attempts to do just that in various places, it seems like it's human nature that people really want there to be an elite. Previous attempts to take down the elite, when successful, tend to lead to a new elite forming and taking power, which may or may not be any better than the last.

So, basically you're saying Animal Farm was accurate.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#364

Post by Gibbon1 »

neilparikh wrote: post #358
MS90 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James Hetfield talked about that as a reason he left. "I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit. They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs." https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-james-hetf…

I don't understand why that's a form of bigotry. If someone legitimately thinks that hunting is unethical, it seems reasonable to look down upon someone who hunts. Replace hunting with some act you find unethical, and you'll see why this doesn't make sense.

Maybe it's the my personal bay area bubble, no one cares about hunting and fishing.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#365

Post by tomnipotent »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #242
fzeroracer wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you afford an attorney to defend yourself in court if a company decided to push the issue? As I will keep saying it does not matter if companies follow up on their threat or not. It still has a chilling effect on people doing side projects which is the intended behavior. And a lot of people can't afford a legal battle even if they had a high chance of winning.

Have you considered doing it anonymously or not informing anyone of the projects you're working on? Just like you can't necessarily afford to engage in the legal system, the legal system can't be engaged if they don't have a signal that there's anything there to engage with. And in interviews you can still use the experience and talk about your contributions without releasing the product/ identity to your current emp…

> not informing anyone of the projects you're working on?

This is the exact opposite of what you should do. As soon as you start working on a side project that doesn't overlap with your day job, you need to tell your company to get it added to your contract's list of excluded projects (meaning they've verified it has nothing to do with them, and you're free to do whatever you want with it).

Issues happen when you leave your job and launch a side project not long after, creating a bit of a surprise. But if you had disclosed it previously, your previous employer is shit-out-of-luck.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#366

Post by davidwitt415 »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #157
rb808 wrote: post #7

I worked on a big C# system with hundreds of windows servers, developed on Visual Studio etc. It was an awesome project and everything worked like clockwork. However there are very few projects using that technology so when I wanted to move I had trouble getting interviews. I'm now working with a very fashionable tech stack, its horrible, infrastructure is regularly broken, people can't trace problems easily, our fun…

C# is still the #6 most popular programming language: https://skilldime.com/app.php And it ranks particularly high in Atlanta, Austin and Houston: https://skilldime.com/app.php?LeftHorizontalBarChart1=c%23 But, yes windows is not asked for frequently. You may want to de-emphasize that skillset on your resume.

C# is also the language behind Unity, which beyond games now powers 70% of all AR applications. Since Unity is now expanding into Automotive, Architecture and other verticals, there is a ton of demand for non-game C# devs for Unity.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#367

Post by solveit »

ritchiea wrote: post #357
csa wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Harvard could admit sufficiently qualified students from it's applicants several times over the actual count of its freshman class The key word there being "sufficiently". The academics at Harvard are not unusually difficult (relatively easy in some majors), and I would argue that the content in the coursework is distinctly not what makes Harvard what it is. If Harvard only accepted their third-tier of admits (i.e.…

As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students. There are still plenty of directionless Harvard kids that end up back in their parents's basements after graduation. Also have you ever stopped to ask yourself who reads and evaluates these admission packets? How often do we complain about hiring h…

> As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students.

This is a (despicable) feature. Harvard isn't trying to find the most capable students, they're trying to find the students that will most succeed. And they deny that they know there's a difference.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#369

Post by dragonwriter »

solveit wrote: post #367
ritchiea wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students. There are still plenty of directionless Harvard kids that end up back in their parents's basements after graduation. Also have you ever stopped to ask yourself who reads and evaluates these admission packets? How often do we complain about hiring h…

> As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students. This is a (despicable) feature. Harvard isn't trying to find the most capable students, they're trying to find the students that will most succeed. And they deny that they know there's a difference.

If you are talking about the most capable of success, there is no difference. The fact that the rules of the game which determine success isn't what you'd prefer (or what I'd prefer!) is, well, not principally Harvard's doing.

I think the problem is that you want Harvard to favor those who would be most capable of success, if the rest of society other than the individual and Harvard were (your version of) ideal.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#370

Post by mcguire »

closeparen wrote: post #250
mcguire wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: public code, don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic, but honestly there are very few ways to separate a good programmer from a good bullshitter. The alternative is interview coding tests; suggest that and see how much love you get. (And some don't even know they're bullshitting. They honestly think that being marginally associated with a project means they did the work.) As for suits? Yeah, those are the same people…

>The alternative is interview coding tests There are many more ways of organizing hiring, all working fine in other industries (with tradeoffs, of course). To name a few: - Guilds with an an entry filter that guarantees competence, often associated with apprenticeship. - Wide open hiring for short term engagements, retention of only those who fit best. - Hiring directly based on referral from other known-competent pr…

"- Guilds with an an entry filter that guarantees competence, often associated with apprenticeship."

You mean the "union shop" approach? I could see it, but it is a significant structural change. Also, it probably wouldn't satisfy many.

"- Wide open hiring for short term engagements, retention of only those who fit best."

"But," I can hear them saying, "what happens when you move across country and are then told, 'sorry, it's not working out'?"

"- Hiring directly based on referral from other known-competent professionals who can vouch, with no or minimal interview stage."

I've gotten a significant number of my jobs this way. And I've had people ask for a referral and told them no, I wasn't comfortable doing it. That's not much fun.

"- Work sample tests."

On the whiteboard (Ick! Horrors!) or take-home (Ick! Horrors!)?

Ok, so I admit to being pathologically incapable of trust. But I'm that way because the universe keeps burning me. I'm sorry.

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