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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”

#441

Post by deanCommie »

choppaface wrote: post #393
deanCommie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see my edit for why it doesn't matter that these 30 minute algorithmic questions do not need to be directly applicable to day-to-day job tasks

Perhaps you might consider putting that sort of effort into CSE outreach or preparing interview prep materials that are free to the public.

I do :)

A lot of people at my company do, but you never hear about this stuff because nobody blogs about a career fair that came with some friendly helpful insights from senior engineers.

Also nobody blogs about recruiters when they are super helpful and give a ton of relevant interview prep material (which ours do), partially because most candidates frankly ignore the material thinking it's not relevant.

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

#442

Post by BurningFrog »

deanCommie wrote: post #439
BurningFrog wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of question can be heard as a dogwhistle for "Are you a leftist? We only hire leftists."

That's true, in our industry it seems that only leftists aren't assholes. So if you don't want to hire assholes who think "diversity" is a dog whistle, you hire leftists.

You seem real inclusive :)

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

#443

Post by deanCommie »

throway1n wrote: post #420
deanCommie wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right, Google and Amazon hire a bunch of brick layers that can't design a long term sustainable system... Come on man

thats like saying everyone in the ford factory is hired to design vehicles. some of the bunch are just workers implementing instructions. i interviewed a few ex google, yahoo and amazon and they were exactly that.

A few out of tens of thousands will sneak through, especially if they got managed out of couldn't hack it.

The vast majority at the FAANGs are full stack engineers which includes long term system design.

The comparison to a car assembly factory is so ridiculously out of alignment with reality that I can see why you chose to go with a throwaway account.

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

#444

Post by scarface74 »

no_wizard wrote: post #436
scarface74 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s just it. You worked at a FAANG - a company large enough that could carry the dead weight of junior developer (no insult intended we were all dead weight at some point). I’ve worked at smaller companies by choice or at smaller divisions of large companies (occasionally). One developer salary is a major cost and can add to their revenue. If you only have a few openings, you better make them count. For instan…

Because you can mold junior developers into a certain quality. You can’t always do that successfully when you hire experienced developers sometimes. That’s why I was brought into the situation I was: it was more cost effective to get me up to speed than it had been trying to hire experienced developers for the same work, because they had too many pre conceived notions about how the product was to to be built For what…

That’s the point. Once you have “molded” the junior developer for a year a two, they can easily jump ship for greener pastures.

I’ve seen the argument about paying them market rates. But honestly, if they are young and unencumbered, their “market” is the entire US. Meaning you may not have been in the position to pay them what they could make if they were willing to move across the country.

To go into more anecdotal detail, I had been programming as a hobbyist since I was 12 in assembly for 10 years by the time I graduated from a no name college in the south. I had two job opportunities - one making an entry level developer salary writing COBOL [1] in a slightly larger city, or working as a computer operator in a major city. I chose the latter job that paid much less just to get to the city. I got lucky and I was the only one who knew how to program so they gave me the previously mentioned project straight out of college. They gave me a raise the next year to that of an entry level developer (I was hourly at first and got a lot of overtime).

But now, three years later, the project was done and with a major green field C project under my belt, my market value had gone up more than 50%. They couldn’t justify paying me that and I got another job.

Now if a similar scenario had played out in today’s market instead of 1999, even if they could have matched my local salary of $80-$100K for a mid level developer, I could have spent a year studying “algorithms and leetCode”, picked up and moved to SV and doubled or tripled my total comp. There is no way they could compete with that.

Let’s look at the current state of affairs. Almost every engineer at my company is between 35-50. They purposefully created the office in the burbs three years ago to attract older developers. They not only get experience, paying local market salary is relatively easy comparatively. The chance of any of us uprooting our families, selling our big, relatively cheap 3000 square foot houses in the burbs with the great school systems and moving to the west coast is slim.

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

#445

Post by ryandrake »

omar_a1 wrote: post #387
TeMPOraL wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And, if all companies adopt this technique, that's 4+ hours per company. If a reasonably-competent person applies for, say 100 companies and expects a 10% callback rate[^], then they're dedicating 40+ hours just to do tests and "challenges" before even talking to a person. That's a lot of time to blow for a mere chance of talking to a person. I mean, I guess I'd do it--especially if I was desperate for a job, but if I was still employed I'd think twice and maybe find a way to grin and bear my current employer a little longer...

I think when your company comes up with a hiring scheme, they need to analyze it, understand and be cool with the kinds of applicants their system is screening out. In my view, most SV tech companies' practices tend to screen out the "skilled professional who's currently semi-comfortable at her existing job" and filters in the "desperately needs a job and will jump through hoops and put up with whiteboard hazing to get one." Which class of applicant does your company want to court?

[^]: I consider myself "reasonably-competent" and the 100:10 ratio was about what my last job search was like a few years ago.

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

#446

Post by jlokier »

mnm1 wrote: post #384
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…

> Whenever we want a great candidate, we go from resumes to hired in less than a month.

A month is considered fast?!

I guess as long as the great candidate you're hiring is not looking at other options.

A recently saw a recruiter lamenting that their clients needed to be told that if they don't make a hiring decision within 2-3 days of introduction, they tend to miss out on the best engineers, who get offers from elsewhere within the week and take them.

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

#447

Post by [deleted] »

no_wizard wrote: post #436
scarface74 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s just it. You worked at a FAANG - a company large enough that could carry the dead weight of junior developer (no insult intended we were all dead weight at some point). I’ve worked at smaller companies by choice or at smaller divisions of large companies (occasionally). One developer salary is a major cost and can add to their revenue. If you only have a few openings, you better make them count. For instan…

Because you can mold junior developers into a certain quality. You can’t always do that successfully when you hire experienced developers sometimes. That’s why I was brought into the situation I was: it was more cost effective to get me up to speed than it had been trying to hire experienced developers for the same work, because they had too many pre conceived notions about how the product was to to be built For what…

[deleted]

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

#448

Post by ryandrake »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #319
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 suspect companies have trouble hiring because they really don't want or actually need to hire. I mean, yeah, hiring managers can complain that they really, really need to hire someone for some open position, but I don't believe them if they've had a req open for years as you suggest (or even six months). If they really had a pressing business need to hire someone then they'd try to make it work. They wouldn't rejec…

Yup, my first interview straight out of university back in the 90's was just like that. From then on, it was brain teasers, whiteboard hazing and "you got everything right but aren't a good cultural fit!" pickiness.

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

#449

Post by no_wizard »

scarface74 wrote: post #444
no_wizard wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can mold junior developers into a certain quality. You can’t always do that successfully when you hire experienced developers sometimes. That’s why I was brought into the situation I was: it was more cost effective to get me up to speed than it had been trying to hire experienced developers for the same work, because they had too many pre conceived notions about how the product was to to be built For what…

That’s the point. Once you have “molded” the junior developer for a year a two, they can easily jump ship for greener pastures. I’ve seen the argument about paying them market rates. But honestly, if they are young and unencumbered, their “market” is the entire US. Meaning you may not have been in the position to pay them what they could make if they were willing to move across the country. To go into more anecdotal…

I still think it’s an incorrect assumption that you’ll just lose engineers you train, full stop. There are a lot of reasons being willfully ignored and a lot of assumptions being made that I have not seen nor seen data to the effect of happening en made.

We train developers in popular languages (particularly our stack leverages Vue and C# and a good deal of custom SCSS) we are only ~3 hrs from the valley yet we aren’t losing engineers in droves and haven’t ever for the years we have been in business

You should pay juniors market rates for their positions, period. I don’t agree with that at all

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

#450

Post by Balgair »

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…

And even when things are going great and both you and the company agree that you'll be a great fit, things still come in to screw everything up.

I had a great job lined up, perfect fit for me and them. But my SO has a condition. The pill my SO takes everyday costs ~$1-5 per pill with most insurance companies. The substance is used in horse feed, just like how humans put vitamin D in milk, or iodine in salt, this substance is put in horse feed gratis. It does not appreciably change the cost the feed.

When I looked into the health insurance for the new job, the pill would have cost us ~$100, so ~$3k/mo or ~$36k/year. I, obviously, had to turn the job down.

That US healthcare is completely broken is not just contained to families, but it leaks out over our whole society. A perfect hire, ruined because of shitty healthcare.

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