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

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

#211

Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #200

biztos wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." Other than asking about failures (not everyone does) it was just "eh, wing it, tell us what you think." The hiring manager had to then weigh the responses and convince his/her manager if it was a go (we once rejected someone on ethical grounds aft…

> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and struct…

By standardizing the hiring process aren’t you then just optimizing for a very specific perception and/or perceptional ability? Isn’t that at the core of principles relating to diversity in the first place?

I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. It presumes a lot—particularly that one has time and resources to commit to spending time studying enough of the spectrum of CS subjects in order to pass a given question from the rather large field. (By this I’m referring to the classic “white board a sort algorithm purely from memory” process that has become the de-facto standard)

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

#212

Post by christiansakai » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #113

christiansakai wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree, it probably wouldn't work for the FAANG companies... I posted what I said as a note to my future self, if/when I run a software engineering company... if/when that happens, then that's how I'm going to handle hiring...

You'll suck your own resource doing this, with no end goal in sight, or not even better end goal rather than DS&A interviews. And in the end, you will concede and search for a few DS&A interview questions, tell the candidate(s) to solve it, and evaluate them, and call it a day.

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

#213

Post by closeparen » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:25 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.…

There is some minimum level of intelligence and conscientiousness it takes to learn to pass these things. People who have it are at least better positioned than a random selection of the population to learn whatever else is required.

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

#214

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #211

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and struct…

By standardizing the hiring process aren’t you then just optimizing for a very specific perception and/or perceptional ability? Isn’t that at the core of principles relating to diversity in the first place? I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. It presumes a lot—particularly that one has time and resources to c…

> I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test.

What would you propose as an alternative?

I’ve been involved in training new engineering managers how to hire and interview. Everyone starts with the best intentions, but reality quickly forces some compromises.

The bottom line is that you only have a number of hours in which to evaluate the candidate. The longer and more comprehensive you make your interview processes, the stronger signal you get. However, the longer your interview process, the more you’ll find people dropping out of the hiring pipeline due to lack of time or willingness.

I’ve worked with companies that tried to implement week-long paid interviews where candidates pair with employees to solve real problems. It’s great! But only when it works for the candidate. You can’t realistically expect busy professionals to take an entire week off of their current job to spend time with a company that may or may not hire them. Monetary compensation only goes so far when you’re forcing someone to choose between spending a week of their vacation interviewing with your company or spending a week taking their family on vacation.

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

#215

Post by camgunz » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #193

camgunz wrote: post #111

There's significant ladder pulling. Tons of engineers work at places with interview processes they could never pass.

> There's significant ladder pulling. Tons of engineers work at places with interview processes they could never pass. One person's "ladder pulling" is another person's "raising the bar". Over time, companies should continue to raise the bar for both candidates and existing employees. As your company grows, you can and should become better at attracting more talented and ambitious employees. You tend to have more res…

There's a pretty low ceiling on engineering talent, and an even lower ceiling on that talent being an important differentiator for your company. If that's your goal, then it's not hard to see how companies just keep ratcheting up the difficulty with little to negative gains.

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

#216

Post by camgunz » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

omar_a1 wrote: post #124

camgunz wrote: post #111

There's significant ladder pulling. Tons of engineers work at places with interview processes they could never pass.

Also the closely related phenomenon of holding candidates unfamiliar with the codebase to the same standards as the interviewer, who wrote half of it. Yea, if I had also been working on this particular code for the past two years I'd be able to breeze through these problems too.

Yeah and failing an interview like that is dodging a bullet. Probably best to politely walk out at that point.

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

#217

Post by wbl » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #170

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 optima…

You can test skills relevant to the job. If you're mostly doing js /css do that, not algorithms questions.

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

#218

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #205

Apocryphon wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not according to me, according to many in this thread, in dozens of articles posted on this site, and many more across the industry. There are all sorts of management principles and truisms people take for granted, and this is one of them that’s being called into question.

>Not according to me, according to many in this thread, in dozens of articles posted on this site, and many more across the industry. Yes, that what said, but I doubt according to the people who do the hiring . It doesn't matter if you think you are right candidate according to you or other people. Ultimately its the people who going to hire you who is going to judge you according to his/her subjective criteria.

Right, but this entire discussion is predicated upon questioning if perhaps the hirers are wrong. Are their interviewing practices serving their organization? A lot of the employers themselves have expressed difficulty at hiring and dissatisfaction with the process. Are they screening for the optimal qualities? There's no shortage of engineering projects that have gone bad. Could that be because the candidates being hired with current practices are suboptimal?

Hiring is still an on-going debate. Google SVP of People Ops Laszlo Bock has admitted previously that internal studies revealed that the interviewing practices at the time didn't really correlate to employee success:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17196974

We're having a debate here. You can claim the current practices are best, that's fine. But you can't just state it and take it for granted without providing evidence.

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

#219

Post by vsareto » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #173

matz1 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As mentioned elsewhere, this is discriminatory against people with families and and commitments that prevent them from spending hundreds of hours in prep. Not to mention it affirms Goodhart’s Law, where a single metric- the ability to answer DS&A questions- overrules qualified applicants from becoming hired. Not to mention such interview styles can be gamed. Suppose a Flatiron bootcamp for DS&A questions becomes big…

I think a decent amount would trade "no technical interviews" for credential hiring (degree required for job). The degree would be a well-known, long-standing target vs. the vague moving target of technical interview competence.

This isn't unlike other professions, but you would lose self-taught developers who don't have the time/money to afford the credential. That is currently something special about development compared to many other professions.

This assuming you prevent people who can't do something like fizzbuzz from graduating with a CS degree.

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

#220

Post by callinyouin » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 11:36 PM UTC

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…

My experience mirrors yours, with some exception. The company I recently accepted a role at was great throughout the interview process. A friendly, knowledgeable person from HR conducted my phone interview. The on-site interview was conducted by a manager and the development team I'll be working with in pretty equal parts. They asked thought-provoking questions to see how I approach problems and skipped the code golf/write a linked list from memory on a whiteboard type of questions.

On the other hand, another company I applied to that seems really desperate for developers (no fewer than 9 open dev positions when I applied) completely dropped the ball. During the screening process they asked me to do an online test that took me about 2 hours. I got 100% on the test but it took the HR rep an entire week to respond. The response? The same canned email I received when instructed to take the test. From the same person. After a back-and-forth it was confirmed that they did receive my initial test score and I didn't need to retake it. About a month later and they never did get back to me. Sometimes I wonder if companies even want to attract good talent.