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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”

#231

Post by m4x »

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…

> 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?

Not necessarily, it might just mean that the more optimal approaches are not obvious. It seems extremely unlikely that the current approach is optimal.

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

#232

Post by benburleson »

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…

Where I work now doesn't have any real interview structure or way to measure candidates. It makes interviewing difficult, but honestly in the end the most important part is the answer to "would I like working with this person?" There are many aspects that can lead to your answer, but I really believe that is the most important question to answer. Someone can be extremely productive, but if they're an asshole, nope, I don't want to spend a minute working with them. On the other hand, if someone is slow and error-prone, but otherwise a pleasant coworker, I'm pretty forgiving, and hope they can learn along the way.

And for the social justice aspect, we do have a very diverse group of engineers, especially for our size and location.

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

#233

Post by sokoloff »

peter_d_sherman wrote: post #102
Spooky23 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not the intended goal... ...The intended goal is to figure out who is intrinsically motivated (i.e., curiousity, innate interest, desire to learn, etc.), from those that are extrinsically motivated (i.e., salary, money, title, career, corporate position, etc.)

I love writing software. In theory, I’d do it for free (and often do at home).

I’m also not an idiot and I can readily bubble sort a low offer against my current comp and against the other offers.

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

#234

Post by winrid »

lostlogin wrote: post #226
winrid wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the question... It was, if I was an HR director, what would I do in different situations.

I could be very wrong and am no HR expert, but I don’t think that question was actually about what would happen if you were an HR director. They wanted your thoughts on those situations in regards to the position you were apply for.

Right. I just thought it was funny they asked that and less technical questions, or better real-world questions.

It wasn't "triggering" or anything! I happy gave my opinion and moved on to the other questions.

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

#235

Post by imafish »

I have had one good experience with a technical interview that included a challenge.

It was a two-part interview, each part lasting around one hour. First hour I just talked with a single senior developer. About previous experiences, education, interests, etc.

Second part was a “technical” challenge. I was given a loose specification of a simple fullstack web application, and then asked to produce wireframes for the frontend, an architecture drawing for the entire system, a database schema and a project plan with estimates.

There were no detailed technical questions or exercises. My answers were nowhere near perfect or realistic - but that was also not the point. The point was, they wanted to see my thought process when approaching a real software project.

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

#236

Post by tomnj »

mikaraento wrote: post #39
jerf wrote: post #6

I think one of the major takeaways here is, stop asking algorithm questions [1]. Everyone. Just stop it. In my opinion, and modest experience (I've done several dozen interviews, so there are plenty more experienced then me, but I'm at least not new, plus nearly all interviews were for my team so I had to live with the results!) it isn't that hard to come up with small sample questions related to what the job actuall…

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…

Don’t forget 4) find the optimal solution with very few hints and write that too.

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

#237

Post by apta »

klipklop wrote: post #222
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…

The "standardized" interview at companies like Google has lead to them hiring mostly White/Asian males though... I have had plenty of people tell me that interviewing at Google is essentially a roll of the dice these days. You can answer all the 5x interviews in a satisfactory manner and still get rejected. I feel "just wing it" can lead to somebody talented from a non-traditional background getting a chance at a gre…

> hiring mostly White/Asian males though

Which seems reflective of the underlying pool of applicants.

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

#238

Post by achievingApathy »

I will never forget the time I was given a coding "challenge" and sent home with the instruction to send it back whenever I felt it was complete. This sent my OCD into overdrive, of course. For the better part of two days straight I coded my heart out and came up with this (what I thought perfect) robust system with all the bells and whistles. Heard nothing back. At all. My calls into the recruiter went unreturned and I figured I must have offended them somehow.

Fast forward a year and a friend of mine gets hired there. Turns out not only was my code pretty good, but had magically made its way into one of their production systems. The test cases that I wrote for my interview the year before word for word copied and pasted right into the prod test runs.

I know this because I used my name as the input for fname, lname trying to be a bit cheeky.

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

#239

Post by tikwidd »

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…

simpler explanation: a lot of people are getting nervous in tech interviews and forgetting how to do even the most basic things.

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

#240

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I've mentioned this before.

I have a portfolio that consists of six figures LoC of code, across dozens of open-source repos; most of which I am the 100% sole author.

I've written a fairly large open-source system that is rapidly becoming the world standard for a specific (rather small) demographic. It deliberately uses old and rather primitive technology (which is a big reason for it becoming a standard).

I've written hundreds and hundreds (probably thousands) of pages of documentation and Web site entries, designed Web sites, and helped hundreds of people and organizations to develop online presence (all for free). I've run instructional courses on a number of different topics.

I speak Swift without an accent. I can write ship-ready applications for every Apple operating system. I've been writing shipping software for over thirty years.

I'm good with device control. I've written embedded operating systems (long ago -different beast from today's).

And, of course, I can PROVE it. It's all out there.

And no one bothers to look at my portfolio when I've been contacted to apply for engineering positions. I usually send a couple of links to repos and/or blog entries that apply directly to the position. My portfolio leaves absolutely no question at all about what I can and can't do, technically.

I once even had someone insinuate that I had somehow faked my portfolio. I'm not exactly sure how they thought I did it. Maybe I hired an Indian shop to write tens of thousands of lines of code, hundreds of blog entries, design multiple Web sites, and hack GitHub and BitBucket to fake a decade of commit history.

At least, that was the reason they gave for ignoring the links I sent, and instead, giving a binary tree "Draw Spunky" test (I don't do well on them; never have, never will. I spend exactly 0.0 hours on HackerRank, practicing).

I stopped trying to look for work. I don't need it, and I was getting tired of the grind.

I just set up my own gig, where I do the stuff I want to do. Maybe someone will want to work with me in the future; maybe not.

I don't really care, and I'm quite happy.

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