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

jarednelsen.dev

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

#161

Post by irq11 »

scarface74 wrote: post #77
irq11 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

” 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.

”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?”

Well, first...you were replying directly to a post that was talking about whitebord/algorithm questions and how they’re out of control. On an article about same. So my answer is: ”because I bothered to read the post to which you were replying.”

Regardless, if you haven’t done an algorithm interview in “over 20 years”, you either haven’t changed jobs, or you’ve had a unicorn career. Either way, you’re clearly not representative of the vast majority of devs. True or exaggerated, your experience is so exceptional that it isn’t worth discussing.

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

#162

Post by FajitaNachos »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #149
chad_strategic wrote: post #76

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…

Can you explain more? How did you find a trading company that hires non formally trained devs? They seem to be the type to only look at Harvard grads etc.

Check their profile. I'm guessing it's the same company.

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

#163

Post by throwawaytousan »

pvg wrote: post #86
throwawaytousan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

fixed! yes it was 1,000 even, or about 200 per year. 10,000 resumes screened.

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

#164

Post by matz1 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #154
matz1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point of this interview style. This style of interview is scalable, predictable, efficient and effective. It is useful in that way.

It's scalable all right, but the other points- especially the latter two- are being debated in this thread.

Right, which misses the point of having this interview style in the first place.

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

#165

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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…

> 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.

At most of my companies, we tried moving exclusively to take-home interview problems for this reason. Short problems that could be solved in 2-4 hours of time, as benchmarked against current employees during daytime hours.

Inevitably, some candidates hated this so vocally that they'd ghost us, or some times even take to social media to lambaste us for trying to take away from their free time. Or we had people refusing to do the toy problem (not real work, same test for all candidates) unless we paid them hundreds of dollars to compensate their time.

It didn't matter how much we tried to explain that the entire purpose of the take-home problem was to grant flexibility to the candidate. A large number of candidates vocally hated any interview technique that didn't involve company employees giving 1:1 interview time to them.

We just filtered those candidates out of the pipeline, but I walked away with a clear understanding that interview practices will never make everyone happy.

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

#166

Post by karatestomp »

ericd wrote: post #84
philjohn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think a good tell is that when I want to practice for interviews, what I do looks very little like what I do to actually get better at my job. The hands-down most effective ways to practice for it don't much resemble legitimate continuing professional education (i.e. drilling leetcode on physical whiteboards) and, if they help me get better at my job, it's only marginally so and essentially by accident.

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

#167

Post by matz1 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #160
matz1 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't leetcode pretty much cover most of the question?

There are thousands of questions on Leetcode.

Yes, which is not impossible to tackle. There is structured and systematic way to attack it. Tons of study guide and materials on the net to help you. Not to mention tons of people successfully get hired.

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

#168

Post by alfiedotwtf »

inertiatic wrote: post #128

I don't know, hiring seems inherently broken. Not just the algorithmic part, even the part leading up to it. You have to impress a recruiter or an HR drone by listing all the buzzwords that are currently trendy. Then, even after the algorithmic questions and interviews where you prove you can DO the job, you get rejected. Every company I've worked for had trouble hiring. I'm working for a company that also has troubl…

Another reason for companies that can’t find people, is to show proof that they’ve been looking for a while so they can apply for overseas worker visas.

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

#169

Post by monoideism »

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…

The problem is twofold:

1. False positives: you get folks who do really well at DS&A yet who are really bad developers. I mean really bad. I wouldn't have believed it if I had not seen their interviews and then subsequent performance. I'd wildly guess that it's about 20-30%.

2. False negatives: you get folks who are really good developers, and yet for whatever reason, perform badly on DS&A algorithms despite practicing. I think this number is higher than false positives, probably around 50% or more.

If you're a FAANG company, you can afford to play these odds. If you're not FAANG, then you're killing yourself by requiring DS&A interviews, almost inevitably.

Both are contributing to destroying the profession for huge numbers of people, IMHO. I mean, that's good for me, because I'm almost certainly sticking around and generally do OK on DS&A interviews with adequate practice (which is a waste of time, since anything beyond a broad knowledge of the performance characteristics of various DS&As is totally unneeded for 99% of us). But it's not right, and I really don't like it.

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

#170

Post by PragmaticPulp »

inertiatic wrote: post #128

I don't know, hiring seems inherently broken. Not just the algorithmic part, even the part leading up to it. You have to impress a recruiter or an HR drone by listing all the buzzwords that are currently trendy. Then, even after the algorithmic questions and interviews where you prove you can DO the job, you get rejected. Every company I've worked for had trouble hiring. I'm working for a company that also has troubl…

> I don't have a better way of doing things

This is my least favorite part about discussing interview techniques.

It's taboo to say anything other than "interviews are broken", as if there is some alternative perfect practice that companies are voluntarily choosing not to use.

If no one, including the author of the linked article, can think of anything better, doesn't that mean that companies are already using optimal practices? At least from our current knowledge of interviewing practices. I always have my eyes open for new research, new suggestions, and new trends, but it's getting old to hear the constant chorus of "interviewing is broken" with zero attempt to suggest improvements.

That doesn't mean current practices are perfect or that we should stop trying to improve them, of course. It does feel a bit like politicians going on record saying that they're "deeply troubled" by something without proposing alternatives, though. It's the safe thing to say.

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