As a professional programmer I spend almost all of my free time NOT programming, but I do spend it taking care of my family and social obligations instead. While I love what I do I would love it less if I did too much of it.
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How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
51–60 of 94 posts
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
/me looks at a pile of empty coffee capsules, /me looks at the hoodie, /me looks at the (unread) giant math is fun book, I hide in shame. I do agree though, especially in hiring I find it weird to expect people to have their hobby being the same as their job. I'm quite curions if there is another profession where this is the case. Photographers maybe?
> I'm quite curions if there is another profession where this is the case. Any artist, really. The line between work and leisure are blurry at best.
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#53I consider myself good at programming in general. But let's say the interviewer was hiring me for a technology stack that I'm pretty much clueless about... let's say assembly language or cobol... Even then I can bullshit my way past all of those questions, and I'm sure most people who can't program can also do the same too.
"What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?" Its not hard to figure out the right answer to that one: "I never compromise. Must be perfect." But of course that's not true. There are always pathological conditions that can reasonably ignored especially in the first release.
It used to be that 'it has to compile' but since so many people are using Python and Javascript I guess that is no longer true
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#54> What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?
Code that works.
I'll take a gordian knot that works over an over-engineered system that fails or never ships. Some of the worst code I've seen comes from engineers who focus on "unit tests, documentation, and refactoring code." Those are all good things, but they aren't #1.
The "done" question is a very good one.
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#55I consider myself good at programming in general. But let's say the interviewer was hiring me for a technology stack that I'm pretty much clueless about... let's say assembly language or cobol... Even then I can bullshit my way past all of those questions, and I'm sure most people who can't program can also do the same too.
"What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?" Its not hard to figure out the right answer to that one: "I never compromise. Must be perfect." But of course that's not true. There are always pathological conditions that can reasonably ignored especially in the first release.
> "What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?" Its not hard to figure out the right answer to that one: "I never compromise. Must be perfect.
That is actually the worst possible answer I can think of. Pretty much any answer would be better than that. It demonstrates that the person either:
1. isn't honest or
2. doesn't understand basic engineering concepts
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
/me looks at a pile of empty coffee capsules, /me looks at the hoodie, /me looks at the (unread) giant math is fun book, I hide in shame. I do agree though, especially in hiring I find it weird to expect people to have their hobby being the same as their job. I'm quite curions if there is another profession where this is the case. Photographers maybe?
Well if you’re the real deal, you’re the real deal :p I guess only celebrities/insta influencers have to keep up the image. Casually hides Cracking the Coding Interview book
> Casually hides Cracking the Coding Interview book
Ironically, I'm pretty sure that owning that book is part of the image :)
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#57I'm a good enough developer who has worked on enough projects that if someone tries to tell me that I need to show them personal projects I'm working on, then that ends the interview. I used to be a recruiter, I know how to conduct an interview and sit on the other end of that desk, and I know what I won't put up for in the workplace. My personal time is my personal time. If there's a good work-related reason for me…
Another angle of this question is often to elicit what kinds of problems you have solved in your personal time, ideally technical, but not necessarily so. I have had great conversations with someone who has built an automatic pet feeder that lead to the work. It shows a different facet of one's personality. This, in turn may come in to play when creative problem solving is involved. Quite often even non-technical pro…
This is presumptuous of a level of trust that is not there.
There is no talent shortage, and if there is, it's of management, not the ability to write code. The difference between a good developer and a code monkey is that the first is self-managing. They have to be, to do their job. But even they can't do it without clear communication about the project---and cash, of course.
That the shortage is of management, not developer talent (if you protest that there is a developer shortage, I have bad news for you about where the shortage of management ability is), means that the interviewer is generally in the power position.
Ergo:
How great can the conversation be on such unequal terms? I'm not saying I haven't had good conversations with interviewers or interviewees, but it can't be expected to be a regular thing. What I really think is a smorgasbord of hunches, folk wisdom, and Alan Kay quotes---but I would never be so rude as to express such in an interview.
Buy the girl a drink first, sheesh.
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#58How do you calibrate yourself on these open-ended questions? How can you compare one good answer to another completely different good answer and figure out which one is better overall? You can't rely on a "The very best engineers have a checklist they apply depending on the type of bug." type of framework here -- each "very best" engineer might have a completely different way of doing things. You have to have at leas…
> The very best engineers have a checklist they apply depending on the type of bug. This is misleading at best. Masters do less work than beginners. They have years of intuition built up that let them apply heuristics extremely cheaply and save their energy for solving the novel parts of the problem. There is no 'list'. There is only the verbal part of the brain trying to introspect on what just happened. Sometimes a…
Most problems aren’t special. They occur because some good general guidance wasn’t formed or applied.
Having a checklist does help masters. It helps make sure they don’t miss the obvious issue in front of their face.
Checklist manifesto is good reading on this.
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It baffles me how much this is an assumption. Like all the developers should not have any hobby that doesn't involve coding.
but don't you think its a fair guess that someone who hobby is X might be better at X than someone whose hobby is Y.
If "Time technically participating in an activity" directed overall skill that clearly, yes. Unfortunately there are plenty of 10 years exp devs with thousands of hours in their chair that also just aren't very good.
Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II
#60[deleted]