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

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

#491

Post by perl4ever »

NoOneNew wrote: post #473
perl4ever wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's best to compare metro areas and not cities per se. I live in a metro area much smaller than Austin, but it's still maybe a million people. If a city proper of say 100,000 people was out in the middle of nowhere, that would be very different.

I don't think so, speaking out of my personal experience. Colorado Springs Metro, for example, can gobble up a town called Palmer Lake (59k population). The Springs alone is 464k. Even though the Springs is kind of country (meh, not really, lots of defense and tech moved in the past decade), Palmer Lake IS country. Even though they border each other, they don't really vote the same or have similar concerns. Let's put…

I think it's important to include the general area because people commonly live and commute anywhere within a few miles. Most Americans live in what are technically suburbs.

And the overall lifestyle of a place depends on the population within a reasonable radius of travel, not what is within an arbitrary boundary.

I live in an area of NY currently that has towns similar in size to where I went to school in AZ, but the surrounding area, say a ten mile radius, has maybe three times the population. It's a very noticeable difference, both in general lifestyle and in employment opportunities, education and so on.

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

#492

Post by UncleOxidant »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #395
e40 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has to wonder, then, why they didn't hire you. I have a theory. It's quite cynical, but it's taken me about 5 decades to arrive at it: life is a beauty pageant. I don't say this lightly. It was a very slow process to get to this point. A friend, colleague recently interviewed at a very popular, pre-IPO company that is often discussed (positively) here. He doesn't look like your typical engineer, but he's literall…

I often think it would be better to introduce a random element into the process. Set some minimum criteria then just roll a dice.

Lots of biomimetic optimization algorithms like Ant Colony Optimization do this. Maybe adding some randomness in the hiring process would be a good thing?

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

#493

Post by perl4ever »

monoideism wrote: post #472
NoOneNew wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, you're right. I did the spreadsheet math quickly based on 2018 estimates on the top 314 cities by population in the USA. Apparently 100k minimum population is the marker of "city" according to this. Anyways, ~94m city dwellers compared to ~327m (2018) for the USA. "Big" cities are a minority. At 284, Boulder, CO is considered a "city". Don't get me wrong, it's a nice town, but you can't compare it to Austin (11…

> Not insignificant. But... not a wide majority. Yes. Maybe you can understand some of the frustration coming out of "middle America"? The new American economy is booming in large metro areas, while the rest of the country stagnates. I'm not a Trump voter, but I certainly understand the bitterness at being economically and culturally dominated by a segment of the country that is at the very most, 50% of the populatio…

The remainder of the country is still relatively blue and urban/suburban. Just because they live outside of the large metro areas doesn't mean they are rural. For instance, the Austin area was around 30th largest on a list I was looking at whereas I live in a MSA that is more like 60th+. But there are still lots of people here, universities, etc. - it's not the middle of Wyoming or Alaska. It's just that the actual cities and towns aren't that large. I don't live in New Jersey, but have you ever been there? You have like flat suburbs that go on and on - individually, I imagine that you can have a large area with a large population, but the towns aren't so big.

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

#494

Post by BurningFrog »

deanCommie wrote: post #461
BurningFrog wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem real inclusive :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Inclusivity does not mean having to include those that would exclude others.

I don't mind excluding the odd violent extremist.

But if you exclude all non leftists, that's about 2/3 of all Americans. And that looks very tribal to the rest of us.

The mandatory brilliant essay on this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

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

#495

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dahart wrote: post #488
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a lot of hiring, too. I managed a team of C++ image processing engineers for 25 years. All my coding was on the side, as open-source. I did it to keep my dev chops up. That's a big reason I have such an extensive portfolio. I learn faster, and much, much more comprehensively, these days, than I ever did when I was younger (I suspect because of the vast context I got from experience). The main reason I'm doi…

You do sound like you're in a great spot, congrats! I've tried to do the same thing and haven't made it there yet. I did start my own company hoping it would turn into a lifetime of being able to always do exactly what I wanted, but it didn't end up working out that way. It was a ton of fun and a ton of work, and I had to sell it and take a job so I could feed my family. Would love to hear a little about how you're m…

Not especially a great spot; an acceptable one. I have enough invested and working for me that I don't need to work again, but I won't be flying in my private jet anytime soon.

I also have two corporations, one with restrictions, but decent assets, and one with few assets, but a lot of flexibility.

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

#496

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dahart wrote: post #484
sixstringtheory wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who’s done a lot of hiring, I often glance at an online portfolio briefly, but I find it to be a low-quality signal for whether I will want to hire the person, and even for the technical ability. If I don’t know you, I can’t tell from your online portfolio whether you’re the sole author and/or how much you’ve contributed to a project. I can’t easily tell if you get a lot of your code from StackOverflow,…

> I’d find your approach to hiring to be a warning about how the culture operates there. Hahaha, well I can't stop you from making bad assumptions. When I say I believe that online portfolios are a low quality signal, I am speaking from experience. I have seen first-hand people that look amazing on paper who were bad hires, and also people who didn't invest in their online presence but were rock stars. I'd encourage…

I also have a Medium page, with a lot of writing; directly about my development methodologies and process. I'm a good author. I've been writing my entire life, and come from a rather Ivy-league family (I'm the redneck engineer).

I interview extremely well. I am empathetic, gregarious and genuinely like people. I have spent my entire adult life, getting along with some of the most difficult people in the world (long story, and has nothing to do with tech), and that has helped me to get along with people from a huge range of cultures and backgrounds.

Integrity is something that I take quite seriously. I live by a very well-defined personal code of ethics. It has served me well in my career.

It seems that I am not "cut out" for today's software development culture.

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

#497

Post by sjg007 »

lubujackson wrote: post #250
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…

Honestly, the "coding" is rarely the issue. For most software engineering roles you generally want someone who can: understand problems, figure out possible solutions, decide on which is best, communicate why it is best and (importantly) be flexible when the company wants you to do some other solution. Meet all those requirements and you are a useful member at most companies. I think a general chat about a broad prob…

True but the whiteboard algorithm problem is supposed to be the proxy for that. then maybe a systems question. I don’t do well at them. I agree that requirements are underrated.

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

#498

Post by sixstringtheory »

dahart wrote: post #484
sixstringtheory wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who’s done a lot of hiring, I often glance at an online portfolio briefly, but I find it to be a low-quality signal for whether I will want to hire the person, and even for the technical ability. If I don’t know you, I can’t tell from your online portfolio whether you’re the sole author and/or how much you’ve contributed to a project. I can’t easily tell if you get a lot of your code from StackOverflow,…

> I’d find your approach to hiring to be a warning about how the culture operates there. Hahaha, well I can't stop you from making bad assumptions. When I say I believe that online portfolios are a low quality signal, I am speaking from experience. I have seen first-hand people that look amazing on paper who were bad hires, and also people who didn't invest in their online presence but were rock stars. I'd encourage…

I do agree with basically everything you said, and I am lucky enough to currently work at a very small company that can still do continuous feedback vs periodic review. But I’ve also worked at larger places that have that periodic review, they’ve been varied in terms of good or bad, humanizing or less so. At a certain scale I do think a more formalized process is warranted, at least to be able to bubble up high level stuff to more senior management. I won’t pretend to have perfect solutions for how to do this without boiling people down to one number or metric.

But in terms of hiring, you as a newcomer will be jumping into a codebase and are expected to be able to work in it quickly. A symmetrical relationship for a hiring role might be to be able to find something to talk about in a candidate’s portfolio. Could even have the candidate point out the region of interest beforehand so you can have a good talk about it when the time comes. Not unlike a code review for a PR.

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

#499

Post by dahart »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #496
dahart wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d find your approach to hiring to be a warning about how the culture operates there. Hahaha, well I can't stop you from making bad assumptions. When I say I believe that online portfolios are a low quality signal, I am speaking from experience. I have seen first-hand people that look amazing on paper who were bad hires, and also people who didn't invest in their online presence but were rock stars. I'd encourage…

I also have a Medium page, with a lot of writing; directly about my development methodologies and process. I'm a good author. I've been writing my entire life, and come from a rather Ivy-league family (I'm the redneck engineer). I interview extremely well. I am empathetic, gregarious and genuinely like people. I have spent my entire adult life, getting along with some of the most difficult people in the world (long s…

I don’t believe it, you sound totally cut out to be a dev in today’s culture to me. :)

If you’re experiencing issues interviewing, there are lots of things that could be going wrong. It might be the types of jobs and/or companies you’re applying for. You might be shooting slightly too high or too low for your experience level. You mentioned plainly that you’d work for not much money, that could (perhaps surprisingly) work against you if you say it in interviews. It could even be sampling noise, just an unlucky string of interviews. But I’d hire someone like you on my team...

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

#500

Post by dahart »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #498
dahart wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d find your approach to hiring to be a warning about how the culture operates there. Hahaha, well I can't stop you from making bad assumptions. When I say I believe that online portfolios are a low quality signal, I am speaking from experience. I have seen first-hand people that look amazing on paper who were bad hires, and also people who didn't invest in their online presence but were rock stars. I'd encourage…

I do agree with basically everything you said, and I am lucky enough to currently work at a very small company that can still do continuous feedback vs periodic review. But I’ve also worked at larger places that have that periodic review, they’ve been varied in terms of good or bad, humanizing or less so. At a certain scale I do think a more formalized process is warranted, at least to be able to bubble up high level…

I’ve been through crappy perf review processes too... I agree with you, it can be dehumanizing, that’s a good word for it.

For new hires, I like to have an assigned mentor for the first year, it really helps ramp them up quicker, and have good material for performance reviews if necessary.

There’s nothing at all wrong with reviewing code and talking about it with the candidate/employee, that’s highly encouraged, and I do it constantly. I just can’t spend a lot of time looking at candidate’s portfolios without them being in the room, I don’t get enough information from it, and the information I do get might be misleading.

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