Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews” • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #43

winrid wrote: post #14

When I interviewed at Google for a front end position they didn't ask me a single CSS question. It was all algorithms and easy JavaScript questions. It was just really weird, like at least ask me how to center something. They bothered to ask me how I'd deal with diversity issues if I was in HR, though. I probably didn't get the job because of my answers there...

> They bothered to ask me how I'd deal with diversity issues if I was in HR, though. I probably didn't get the job because of my answers there... Strange postscript that suggests you hold some problematic opinions that indicate you can't play nicely with others? Did you fail to get the job because you didn't have the tech chops or is it because you said something wildly inappropriate on the behavioural questions? Wha…

The way the (very briefly described) question was asked does sound like a clever way of getting some ideas about candidate views and beliefs.

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

#82

Post by NoOneNew » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

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…

Except programming and engineering is about overcoming the unexpected. Adapt and improvise. Not everything is textbook and, at least this is my opinion, the better engineer is the one that can solve unexpected problems. You can really only judge that utilizing past experience. Canned, standardized questions similar to Mensa intelligence questions or any type of "brain-twister" puzzle are pretty crappy. Once you know the tricks they're applying to the question, they're easy to solve. But that's not the same as actually "figuring out" a real world problem.

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

#83

Post by no_wizard » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

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.

In my experience a great way to hire and train juniors is to have them do tasks that need to be done but you can’t over allocate or reallocate an existing engineer for it. Like refactoring existing code.

Why? The only guidance then a more senior engineer would need to give is during code review and where they may have questions. It’s a great way to get them familiar with the code base and train them up. I haven’t seen this be a productivity killer.

Also, with the shocking frequency I’ve seen, code based need more tests. Have them write tests! That’s a fast way to get up to speed.

One other point: senior engineers in one code base may have an uptick if a “junior” in another depending on existing quality, circumstances etc.

I think organizations are lying to themselves that they can only hire seniors. It’s a myth. Just like 10x developers.

I need hard data to be convinced otherwise not anecdotal evidence. All the hard data I’ve seen points in the opposite direction of any anecdotal information I’ve come across.

There are so many volumes of books devoted to these topics alone that I think most ideas around developer productivity without the firm backing of numbers are mostly hand wavy and myths we tell our selves to feel better

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

#84

Post by ericd » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #53

aerovistae wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, let's start with the obvious one-- why do you believe focusing on excruciatingly difficult algorithmic problems totally unrelated to the work you do is a good way of finding people?

Not OP, but it's often not about seeing you get a perfect solution straight away, they're judging your problem solving skills - how do you approach something you've probably never seen before. Do you choke? Do you break the problem up into smaller sub-problems?

I understand the idea behind it, I just don't think "not choking when asked to code in a stressful situation" correlates well to "being able to design and write functional and maintainable software that maps well to customer and company needs".

If the devs at your company need to put out fires constantly, then maybe it's a good test of whether they'll be able to do that.

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

#85

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #52

christiansakai wrote: post #38

There is no other sane and effective way to filter the insane amount of FAANG applicants, only DS&A. Other non FAANG/Unicorns that don’t pay as well as FAANG can drop the practice of asking DS&A questions. But for those companies that pay really really well, there will be insane amount of people that are willing to get a job there, and DS&A is a “May the strongest win” filter (although luck play a very strong role as…

But there is a way to filter the amount of FAANG applicants! It is as follows: Offer ridiculously low pay, such that only basic expenses could be paid for, like basic housing... Then, see who shows up. Whoever shows up... really wants a job. You don't hire them yet. You implement your own corporate bootcamp, where you give then coding assignments. These start easy, but progress, over a number of weeks, to those that…

That sounds like a lot of work to oppress a few programmers.

If you want to be a dick and systematically screw people, just hire an army of agency contractors in some out of the way place.

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

#86

Post by pvg » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

throwawaytousan wrote: post #67

deanCommie wrote: post #35

I got to the last thread too late for a comment to make a difference, but I'm exactly the person most of you want to talk to or hate. I'm an interviewer at a FAANG company with >500 interviews in the last 5 years, I teach multiple internal courses on interviewing, and I think the system makes a lot of sense for companies at our scale. Ask Me Anything :) I currently have a toddler on my lap, but I'll edit this post la…

I’m a former interviewer for a FAANG competitor that had a successful IPO. I had to do over 1,000 interviews in 5 years. The VP of Eng told me I was “highly accurate.” We used leetcode-like programming questions. I don’t think the FAANG-style coding puzzles have anything new to add to the conversation here. The reason big companies do that is because the questions are prompts are simple to write explain (hence interv…

Do you maybe have an extra zero typo in that number?

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

#87

Post by sjc33 » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

NoOneNew wrote: post #82

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…

Except programming and engineering is about overcoming the unexpected. Adapt and improvise. Not everything is textbook and, at least this is my opinion, the better engineer is the one that can solve unexpected problems. You can really only judge that utilizing past experience. Canned, standardized questions similar to Mensa intelligence questions or any type of "brain-twister" puzzle are pretty crappy. Once you know…

Ok, but why is that a bad thing for engineers that are interviewing?

If the interview process is largely memorizing 200 or so commonly asked algorithm questions and that is the gateway to a $200k+ job then it's a good thing for applicants, not "dystopian" at all.

Again, it would be much, much more painful and time consuming for the interviewee if they were asked to code up some fullstack project for every interview. That is far more time consuming, and in my opinion more "dystopian" to expect those interviewing to do dozens of hours of work specific to one interview for free.

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

#88

Post by watwut » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #51

mikaraento wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure: I work for Google and like it I left Google in 2009, quite unhappy about the difference between a startup and corporate politics. After that I worked at 3 startups (5 years), 1 telco (1 year) and at McKinsey (3 years). I ended up interviewing at Google again in 2018, after deciding that a) I liked programming more than management consulting and b) my comparative advantage was in programming. I defini…

You missed a big one - giving them an idea of how you approach a problem and work through it. That's the biggest take away. If someone just spits out an optimal solution straight away that's not actually a great sign. It doesn't matter if you struggle a little, or need a few hints, but showing you know how to break a problem down into smaller sub-problems and work your way up is an invaluable signal.

This is incomprehensible for me. If someone happen to see your question before it is bad sign? And also, what exactly about my internal process are people trying to learn from "how I approach a problem and work through it"?

I think I tend to make good impression on these ... but I am aware it is interview skill where I somehow picked up social signals I am supposed to send. I am adjusting what I am saying to how interviewer looks like (happy, annoyed, bored, etc). It is social skill, but not same social skill as pretty much anything I do in actual work. In actual work, people are not interested to listen to me work out problems in front of them.

It is even more useless if you know the answer and then proceed pretend to split it into smaller problems and then work your way up or down. That neat thought process is neat precisely because I know the answer and I am performing idealized problem solving process.

In case of actual real problem, you don't do that so nicely. You have at least some bad turns, random guesses, break it multiple times badly and so on.

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

#89

Post by username90 » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

protonfish wrote: post #64

deanCommie wrote: post #35

I got to the last thread too late for a comment to make a difference, but I'm exactly the person most of you want to talk to or hate. I'm an interviewer at a FAANG company with >500 interviews in the last 5 years, I teach multiple internal courses on interviewing, and I think the system makes a lot of sense for companies at our scale. Ask Me Anything :) I currently have a toddler on my lap, but I'll edit this post la…

It seems to me that it should be straightforward to objectively measure hiring practices by correlating different interview questions and techniques with subsequent job performance (compared to a control.) Has this been done? If so, I'd love to see the studies, if not, then it would be hard to argue that current techniques aren't voodoo.

It has been done, I've seen the numbers and they work. Other companies have probably done the same. Of course this isn't popular, instead people up-vote anecdotes from people who say that they once had an algorithm wiz who performed badly, or how some stellar performers were rejected by this kind of interview.

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

#90

Post by rm445 » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #16

I think that "apparently very few people actually know how to program a computer" part is more about how many people have "fake it till you make it" attitude or how large ego they have. Or how much they dont bother how they look like during interview and keep trying until they get lucky scoring position. And that actually is how many get to start programming. As in, one of common advice is to be self-learner and abse…

It doesn't seem to be all fakers. The situation as described by advocates of FizzBuzz and the like, is that large minority proportions of people who have already held down jobs in the software development field, actually can barely do things that we think of as basic programming, like implement a very straightforward function. The implication seems to be that there's just too many to all be actual liars; that they're doing some kind of cargo-cult, cut-and-paste, stack-overflow based work to keep themselves in a job, changing things by tweaking them but not actually capable of anything else.

It seems implausible. It's counter-intuitive. But the idea seems pretty persistent.

It's an interesting question for me personally. I'm a mechanical engineer who likes to program a little and I've sometimes wondered whether I could work as a programmer. I haven't got the right qualifications or experience with enough popular technologies, so moving fields would be tough. But I know I can implement basic things from scratch. It doesn't seem like much (and clearly it wouldn't be enough for the prestigious places with really tough computer science interviews) but it would be interesting to know if that actually was enough to clear a certain low bar of competence.