Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

jarednelsen.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 538 posts

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#71

Post by jorblumesea »

I wonder how much lost productivity exists in the industry of people who could be spending their time working on side businesses, or actual work, and are instead grinding leetcode. I've caught numerous coworkers grinding LC and working through problems with each other, at work. While obviously unethical, it's gotten to the point where to get a job, you need to be studying 6 months out and spend significant time to do so. To the point where you feel so much pressure that you cut into work and other time to get there.

This is almost certainly to the detriment of employers.

I think if employers understood the true cost of their actions, they might radically change the interview process. Everyone wants the best talent, until you consider that your talent is actively studying to become someone else's "best talent".

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#72

Post by vsareto »

LordFast wrote: post #61

I've personally seen no correlation between people who can solve problems and program when watched by another person versus people who can solve problems and program when left alone with a real problem, and ample of time to noodle on and resolve it on their own. The same is true for writers: most are likely not to be interested and/or able to do their best work when watched over the shoulder by another person. The /r…

>The /real/ question is this: should software be a factory job?

It has all of it: creative jobs, theoretical jobs, and factory-like jobs. White collar and blue collar jobs at the same time.

What we suck at is admitting which jobs are which types and assigning the labor accordingly (as well as setting targets).

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#73

Post by choppaface »

ipnon wrote: post #66

What is tragic here is the amount of effort that is now expended by young computer scientists into the game of algorithms. Whereas a young programmer in the past may have spent their extra days writing games in Basic or static web pages, hackers these days seem to do Leetcode until the wheels come off. We are failing to bring certain softwares into existence by effectively requiring programmers to their effort into t…

Not to mention the huge gap between supply and demand with respect to CS graduates and jobs. It’s really frustrating to hear so many new grads are struggling to get hired despite the gigantic investment in CSE. Articles like these point to the failure of the evaluation process as a bottleneck versus the common understanding that supply is limited.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#74

Post by pfranz »

username90 wrote: post #36

> There were quite a few admissions by hiring managers at surprisingly well known companies that the ability to pass algorithm challenges does not correlate with success on the job. There are a lot of anecdotes like that, but the statistics I've seen has clear correlation between performance on algorithm interviews and performance on the job. I don't think there are any public studies done on this though so if you do…

> There are a lot of anecdotes like that, but the statistics I've seen has clear correlation between performance on algorithm interviews and performance on the job.

I can only claim to have personal anecdotes, but the critiques I hear and have are things like asking you to write Bash on a whiteboard an focusing on minor syntax errors (Bash was not the primary language for the job and the candidate was obviously familiar with the language). Or asking about details from compiled languages when the job exclusively dealt an interpreted language. I'm not saying these interviews shouldn't touch on these topics. I do like to see how deep a candidates knowledge goes (sometimes it can mean they're over qualified and would be bored).

I'm not sure if it's interviewers showing off, because they've "always done it this way," or what, but I often see both job posting criteria and interviews focus too much on things well beyond what the job requires.

Of course, I'm biased and think my way is better. Outside of the minimum requirements for the job I never really care if a candidate has an answer to most questions. In fact, when they get it too quickly it seems rehearsed and I don't think it reflects their skill. For me, the technical questions are a starting point to see them talk through how they approach the problem.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#75

Post by LordFast »

scarface74 wrote: post #30
rekabis wrote: post #23

The “hopeless list”, no. 3: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” This pretty much sums up my impression of these hiring managers that crank the bar sky-high: they are assholes through-and-through, and are full of shit to boot. If you crank the bar sky-high, all you will get are two kinds of people: those that interview/test well, b…

But while they are getting guidance and mentorship, they are not being a productive member of the team, taking time away from experienced developers and as soon as they level up they will change companies and the next company didn’t have to invest training time. I know everyone has to start somewhere but from the company’s perspective, hiring a junior developer doesn’t make sense.

Another perspective to consider as well: while you are spending the time investing into and training people who needs the training and investment, your competitors are throwing money luring away the ones you have already trained, and leaving you in the dust in terms of velocity.

Turtles all the way down. Once a game shifts into zero-sum, it's not gonna stop getting played until it collapses.

Normally, I would say to avoid entering into any zero-sum games. But the world has made a sharp turn towards zero-sum over the past 5 years, so that advice has rapidly become impractical in today's climate.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#76

Post by chad_strategic »

I have always hated software engineering interviews. This is a popular topic on this site, but nothing ever changes. Not sure as I would call them dystopian, I generally thought they were a chance for a senior dev to parade his ego. I could tell stories... (As I'm sure everybody else...)

I used to take interviews and I always knew the outcome. "Sorry you are self taught, we only want people with CS degrees." "Or you don't know how to reverse a list." "You don't know what a bubble algorithm is" Why did I keep punching myself in the face?

Well I decided to make a change in the last 6 months, I wanted off the hill, the ski lift or what ever ski metaphors your want to use. It's summer and I'm going surfing. (also we both live in Colorado, it's getting little crowded on the hill and the traffic to the slope is bad.)

I changed my attack, why was I interviewing for these horrible jobs that I really didn't want anyway. So I changed my pitch.

I now write algorithms for futures/stocks/options, I work for a company that have a ownership stake in. My code is good, but it might not perfect. No ego or code reviews. Because the true worth of my code is not how many classes I use it whether it returns profits. I didn't get into coding to so I could debate OOP structure or MVC models. I write code so I can make a ridiculous amount of money. Nothing more or nothing less. The code is just means to make more money.

Enjoy the lift ride, but I'm going to Hawaii.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#77

Post by scarface74 »

irq11 wrote: post #57
scarface74 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But while they are getting guidance and mentorship, they are not being a productive member of the team, taking time away from experienced developers and as soon as they level up they will change companies and the next company didn’t have to invest training time. I know everyone has to start somewhere but from the company’s perspective, hiring a junior developer doesn’t make sense.

” I know everyone has to start somewhere but from the company’s perspective, hiring a junior developer doesn’t make sense.” When did “not able to solve leetcode-nuclear puzzles while singing and tapdancing backwards” , become “junior developer” ? The OP is talking about “sky-high” levels of (interview) competency, and you immediately jumped to the conclusion that anything less must be juniors who need training to wip…

Seeing that in over 20 years and very successful track record of getting jobs quickly that I’ve never done leetCode or had an algorithm interview - how did you get that out of anything that I said?

I’ve met “junior developers” who couldn’t translate simple business requirements into code.

The stereotypical “developer” who couldn’t do FizzBuzz.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#78

Post by dehrmann »

wojciii wrote: post #34
dehrmann wrote: post #20

> I am completely depressed because I can’t get a job”, “I will never succeed in this industry I thought there was a shortage of software engineers right now? Although I just got an email from Glassdoor with estimated salary (in the Bay Area) being 5-10k lower than the last email, so who knows.

There is a shortage where I live. It has been like this for last decade. Perhaps you should stop flocking to one location in the states and go somewhere else?

There's been a shortage in the Bay Area, too.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#79

Post by vsareto »

matz1 wrote: post #69
sjc33 wrote: post #17

Honestly having an interview process that is highly standardized and teachable + learnable is a good thing, so I'm not sure why people complain. You know exactly what sort of questions you will be asked from company to company, and can spend nights and weekends over a couple weeks studying for it. Most jobs are not like that, and then you get extreme variance in expectation with little communication on how to prepare…

>Honestly having an interview process that is highly standardized and teachable + learnable is a good thing Yes I agree but the current way we have is not even close to that. He touch that issue in the article. So you spend a lot of time and effort to learn about binary tree, great, you pass with flying colors with company A, then you interview with company B, they ask you trie tree ...fuck.

The closest to a standard (and only for FAANG) is Cracking the Coding Interview, but even that is a large pool of questions to keep in one's head far above what you're likely to do on the job.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#80

Post by sjc33 »

matz1 wrote: post #69
sjc33 wrote: post #17

Honestly having an interview process that is highly standardized and teachable + learnable is a good thing, so I'm not sure why people complain. You know exactly what sort of questions you will be asked from company to company, and can spend nights and weekends over a couple weeks studying for it. Most jobs are not like that, and then you get extreme variance in expectation with little communication on how to prepare…

>Honestly having an interview process that is highly standardized and teachable + learnable is a good thing Yes I agree but the current way we have is not even close to that. He touch that issue in the article. So you spend a lot of time and effort to learn about binary tree, great, you pass with flying colors with company A, then you interview with company B, they ask you trie tree ...fuck.

It's pretty standardized. 99% of the questions you could possibly be asked are on leetcode for most large companies.
Post reply on HN