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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”

#381

Post by tomp »

joshuamorton wrote: post #333
BubRoss wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making decisions based on arbitrary labels and demographics, not on the person. It is the definition of descrimination. Not only that, but it's blatantly hypocritical since you don't spend your money based on the demographics of a company, you spend it based on performance.

It's discrimination, yes, but in what sense is a quota bigotry?

It can result in hiring of person B instead of more capable person A, just because person B satisfies some arbitrary immutable characteristics (skin color, sex, etc.) and person A does not. Texbook discrimination.

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

#382

Post by joshuamorton »

tomp wrote: post #381
joshuamorton wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's discrimination, yes, but in what sense is a quota bigotry?

It can result in hiring of person B instead of more capable person A, just because person B satisfies some arbitrary immutable characteristics (skin color, sex, etc.) and person A does not. Texbook discrimination.

GP has since edited their post, it originally used the word "bigotry" where it now says "discrimination".

Edit: This leads to a much more interesting line of discussion that can be summed up as "discrimination (and similarly bias) isn't always bad".

They're useful tools and we should be careful about practicing them, but the idea that because discrimination is sometimes bad it is always bad doesn't follow. (or an alternative way of looking at this is that discrimination often includes the qualifier "unjust". Bias in favor of some group in the pursuit of greater justice therefore isn't discrimination).

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

#383

Post by Glyptodon »

My big question is whether doing a specially constructed in-person code review might be more effective than coding some challenge? You could make some sort of application with a limited size code base but various parts altered both obviously and subtly for discussion and deconstruction during an interview. And then after doing a live discussion and review of the codebase instead of coding, at the end you could discuss architecting a new feature of some of kind at a diagram and psuedocode type level. Seems potentially more pleasant.

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

#384

Post by mnm1 »

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…

You may not have a better way, but one has existed for decades, maybe longer. Combine a personal interview with a company that's worth working for and you'll have no problem finding qualified candidates.

This means one phone screen of about 30-60 minutes to both introduce the candidate and decide if they are worth a follow-up with the team followed by a one hour interview with the whole engineering team more focused on technical capabilities directly related to the job. Finally, just to be sure, a one hour take-home assignment that is simple just to make sure they are not bullshitting. This last one only goes to the top few candidates of which one will be chosen (assuming they can code the simple assignment). People have been hiring this way (ok minus the coding assignment) for decades, maybe even a century or more. And you know what? It works.

Now on to the second requirement: having a company that's worth working for. That means a company that at least partially values its employees. The best way to do this if you don't have FAANG money? Remote work. Ideally for everyone. That guarantees your pool of hiring (even if limited to certain locations for artificial reasons) is much higher and the demand for the job will be huge. Other things that make a company worth working for: good salary, yearly raises, performance bonuses, 40 or less working hours a week, flexible schedule, decent managers who understand engineering, interesting tech, etc. Note that none of those is out of reach of any company, even the smallest small-business.

So yeah, let's stop with this bullshit that we don't know or can't think of a better way to hire. That's idiotic and frankly, closed-minded. Let's stop pretending like there aren't a ton of qualified candidates just waiting to be hired when there are so many. Let's give people a chance for once to prove that they can do the job. Not everyone will work out, but you know what, in the US with at-will employment, that is not a big deal. Doesn't work out, fire them. Easy fucking peasy. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be leading a team/company.

My company currently works this way and we have had NO problem hiring. Whenever we want a great candidate, we go from resumes to hired in less than a month. There is nothing special about us. We don't pay top dollar. We don't even have a lot of the perks I listed above, but we have enough of them that candidates love us and we have no problem attracting great talent (the top one being remote work, of course). If a company isn't willing to make itself desirable, I have no pity for them. It's like never showering or grooming and expecting to find a hot girlfriend. Highly unlikely.

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

#385

Post by inertiatic »

jjav wrote: post #371
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> What would you propose as an alternative? Easy. Just talk to people as would-be peers. They want to find a role they can succeed in. You want to find someone who can succeed in the role. I interview by just talking about their past projects (based on resume). You can't fake your way through a friendly technical dialogue if you haven't done it. (Pre-requisite: the interviewer must be technically competent. This is w…

This would be my way of interviewing, at least for anyone who's not a junior.

What troubles me is that people will say this allows all your biases to run wild, but my feeling most of the time is that these biases will find a way to express themselves unless you remove humans from the hiring process entirely.

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

#387

Post by omar_a1 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #373
omar_a1 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but what you've outlined above doesn't show that you value the candidates' time. You require two rounds of technical interviews before any human contact. It's asymmetrical. By automating the first two steps, you've made it so that you can waste as much of the applicants' time as you want without expending any further time or resources on your part. Also, from experience, I've never come across a two hour takeh…

This is unfair. A typical, half-competent candidate in tech sends much fewer applications before they find a job than a typical company has to process in the same time span. So there's indeed an asymmetry here, but in the other direction - few companies could even afford to fully process every single application that comes in (not even counting the human toil on the interviewers from dealing with spam). 4 hours over…

It doesn't have to be equivalent, but it can't be entirely one-sided either. Two technicals are a major commitment. Even if we assume the nominal 4 hours, there's still lots of preparation that goes into taking those tests. And that's 4+ hours to get to speak to a human being assuming you pass. Otherwise, it's the "We appreciate your time," autoreply.

That's asking for too much upfront before the candidate can even decide if the job is a good fit. Job descriptions alone don't tell you much. That's where the phone interview comes in. It's a two-way street.

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

#388

Post by leghifla »

adt2bt wrote: post #363
milchek wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. We had this exact discussion at work the other day. I mentioned to a colleague that what I value most is someone who is creative. There are many candidates out there who know all the buzzwords or can discuss features of a programming language purely from memory, etc. This can make for some impressive interviewing, but it tells nothing of their ability to use that knowledge to solve real problems,…

I'm right there with you. I am always looking for people who attack problems with new perspectives and, most importantly, can describe to me coherently their thought process and pros/cons of their approach.

"can describe ... pros/cons of their approach"

I've always tried to do that... until recently.

With a new recruit, this is the fastest way to nightmare discussions. He always emphasizes the cons of my proposals, and never admit that his proposals also have cons. To be honest, I really think he believes what he says, he seems to not see ahead of time where the blocking points will be.

I am now forced to only submit the pros, and prepare an argument for the cons, which is rarely needed. This is not a way to have good technical decisions.

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

#389

Post by biztos »

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…

Is the interview process similarly standardized for managers?

If so, how are they "objectively" evaluated?

Do chemists recite the periodic table backwards in interviews?

I don't pretend there's never any bias, but I'm still not convinced you get any less, or any better bias with the whole hoop-jumping algorithm day-long whiteboard thing.

As has been noted elsewhere in the comments here, ours seems to be the only industry that does this to itself.

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