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

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

#91

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

vsareto wrote: post #72

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).

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

Huh, never thought about it that way. That's a very useful perspective. I will start incorporating it going forward.

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

#92

Post by hinkley » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:25 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…

The thing is we want to be surrounded by people who see development as a calling, and not just a safe career.

That cycle has been going on for years. Now, there are so many companies that are essentially writing variants on the same software over and over again that demand is dictating the shape of the field. The shape of the industry. “We” are all industrial designers in a world that just isn’t that enthused.

If we wanted this other world that we keep interviewing for, then it’s not a matter of not enough programmers, but way too many. They’re cheap enough that people everywhere are reinventing wheels instead of assembling off the shelf components designed for that purpose.

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

#93

Post by eternalban » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #26

ipnon wrote: post #25

We have to recognize the status quo as an opportunity to revolutionize the software industry.

Any thoughts about how?

It could be like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_examination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architect_Registration_Examina...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_and_Practice_of_Eng...

We do interviews in this field like casting calls. Come on over and audition for this role. So basically we're saying 'software engineering' is a talent and not a skill.

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

#94

Post by mchisto » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

I have learned from an Amazon recruiter that it was a data-driven decision to focus on algorithms during interviews. Apparently, on average, it has worked the best for them than other ways of interviewing.

I think the state of despair is caused by companies copying practices from FAANGs without understanding the intricacies of why those practices are in place. To the point of asking a UX/UI dev to solve a DP problem.

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

#95

Post by watwut » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #83

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.

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 see…

We would have always seniors who are there already for some time to refactor the code. No reason to have it refactored by someone who does not know how to properly code yet and does not know what problems existing structures have or solve. Otherwise you are just switching one mess to another mess.

We had juniors for easy new features, tests, anything that is small and isolated.

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

#96

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #15

skizm wrote: post #7

Honestly, I think until FAANG start doing something else, the vast majority of tech/semi-tech companies will just copy them. A few smaller companies might branch out and try some other stuff, but most people hiring at mid and large size companies are just trying to minimize risk more than go grab that great diamond in the rough. If the big guys are doing X, the medium guys are gonna keep doing X also.

I'm actually rather unconvinced that these interviews are positively good at minimizing risk (false positives). This whole 'whiteboarding' thing has degenerated into 100% pointless trivia, with many elements of a popularity contest - I just don't see any reason why we should trust this to yield 'safe' candidates. Even sticking to the pure 'trivia' aspect, there's just so much of it that people are missing altogether.…

> This whole 'whiteboarding' thing has degenerated into 100% pointless trivia, with many elements of a popularity contest - I just don't see any reason why we should trust this to yield 'safe' candidates.

People blindly and dumbly implementing any practice is going to yield bad results. I've interviewed for Google, for a small company with a crappy pipeline and a low need for talent, and for my current job, which needs Google-level talent across multiple specialties[1]. Whiteboarding has played a critical role in all of these. The goal isn't to have them answer trivia questions in marker, it's a basic test of their ability to think critically and program. Naturally, the exact questions differ based on the role: for the second job, it was basic processing of data structures, while for the third, I got a question that involves some degree of spatial reasoning. But in general, this is a pretty fundamental way to test a pretty fundamental set of skills.

I even was lucky enough to get a negative example: I ran the tech org for the second company, which had two non-technical founders. We hired a candidate with no engineering experience on my recommendation because he did very well in his coding interview: this guy ended up being the most reliable, clutch engineer in the company. I also rejected a candidate on the basis of failing the simple whiteboard problems, and the founders decided to hire him anyway based on his years of experience. The founder ended up having to bounce him around from task to task, leaving a trail of destruction wherever he went. His code would bring production down, he'd create weeks of work for others in a couple of days, he utterly destroyed devops during his brief tenure there, etc. He was very sweet, hardworking, had a great temperament... But the inescapable fact was that he was just kinda dumb. The whiteboard interview handily caught this, _which is what it's supposed to do_, and all the HN sniveling about whiteboard interviews only being useless trivia contests doesn't erase that fact.

[1] You can imagine how hard hiring is for us right now...

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

#97

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

rm445 wrote: post #90

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…

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

Some of us have direct experience with exactly this situation (see my previous comment). Hell, Jeff Atwood wrote a whole piece on it a long time ago.

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

#98

Post by christiansakai » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:31 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…

Sorry, this won't work. 1. Too arduous for the FAANG company 2. If the end result is $250k/year salary, then absolutely insane amount of people will stick it until the end. I know I do. Heck, I will live at FAANG office 24/7/365 if I need to, and I know a lot of people will do it. See the current state of Leetcode forum and reddit CS career questions to get the feel of the type A people who flock there. It is go big or go home. Bleed and get up again.

Hypothetical scenario, tell the startups/VCs to pay more for software engineers, just a little bit lower than FAANG, then two things will happen: 1. Either FAANG will even increase their salary even more to attract type A types 2. A huge number of applicants of varying quality will flock to CS as an industry lowering the overall quality, forcing companies to do hard DS&A questions to filter applicants.

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

#99

Post by NoOneNew » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

sjc33 wrote: post #87

NoOneNew wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I think you missed the entire point of these articles. The algorithms you're forced to memorize are, 99% of the time, useless. Instead of hiring someone by their track record, managers are choosing to hire those capable of memorizing trivia.

Part 2, paying someone on trivia instead of capabilities is not sustainable. The company ends up suffering in the long term. Other engineers that are actually capable have to pick up the slack. Longer hours, less family time, higher burn out risk. Then comes the firing period because the company is losing revenue due to rampant incompetence. Putting even more pressure on the capable engineers. There's plenty of articles where trendy startups have some brutal layoffs, even though 12-18 months earlier had massive funding rounds and went into "extreme" hiring phases. The chickens come home to roost, no matter the sparkling bling of big paychecks.

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

#100

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

LordFast wrote: post #75

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.

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…

Not every business needs to be aiming for hyper-growth. Perhaps some tech startups can take a breather and reconsider whether they need to be engaged in the same zero-sum game as everyone else. Because grow at all costs doesn’t just harm untrained juniors- it also leads to corner cutting and short-term thinking that could bite the business in the back later on.