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Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

erikmcclure.com

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Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#71

Post by UncleMeat »

neogodless wrote: post #67
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #25

Click-Bait title, and judging by comments here everyone went for the click-bait. The author doesn't actually use factorio for interviewing, and thinks it world be a bad idea to do so. A more accurate title would be "Comparison between Factorio and Software Engineering Concepts" - but that wouldn't have gotten it to the top of HN so fast, nor gotten so many comments so quickly.

I believe we may be at a point where it is understood that headlines are created with the goal of attracting readers to the article, and it may no longer be necessary to point this out for each article we come across.

That's not even the case. The point of headlines is to attract readers to the comment section on facebook, reddit, twitter, HN, etc. Some small percentage of people who have become engaged in the discussion seeded by the title then click through and provide a bit of ad revenue.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#72

Post by oauea »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Saying satisfactory is a nicer factorio is ignoring everything that makes factorio a good game.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#73

Post by plank_time »

kentonv wrote: post #58

We used this a couple times at Sandstorm back in the day. At the end of the interview the candidate would play Factorio cooperatively with the team for a while. I think it is remarkably effective at identifying the kinds of skills and personality traits that a software engineer actually needs to have in day-to-day work. You can find out if someone is self-directed, how fast they work, whether they produce clean desig…

Hire quickly and fire quickly with a generous severance. That’s the only method that I’ve seen works effectively. Netflix does more with 2000 engineers that companies with 10-20x that.

This also lets you take chances on engineers that weren’t “perfect” but had a lot of positives to offer.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#74

Post by colpabar »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Now check out Dyson Sphere Program, it's like those games but in space ;)

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#75

Post by commandlinefan »

If you think about it, that's not that far off of a professional licensing exam like the ones that lawyers and doctors take: it's something that's peripherally, but not directly, related to the actual work, takes a long time to complete, can be improved somewhat through careful study and can be objectively examined for success.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#76

Post by ouid »

neogodless wrote: post #67
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #25

Click-Bait title, and judging by comments here everyone went for the click-bait. The author doesn't actually use factorio for interviewing, and thinks it world be a bad idea to do so. A more accurate title would be "Comparison between Factorio and Software Engineering Concepts" - but that wouldn't have gotten it to the top of HN so fast, nor gotten so many comments so quickly.

I believe we may be at a point where it is understood that headlines are created with the goal of attracting readers to the article, and it may no longer be necessary to point this out for each article we come across.

I'll stop when I'm dead.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#77

Post by [deleted] »

SilasX wrote: post #63
lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Disclaimer: I've only played the Factorio demo. If that's the analogy, then I don't think it captures the core difficulty of software, which is unknown unknowns. That is, you write something that depends on an external system working a certain way, you follow its spec and depend on it working that way, and then it just ... doesn't, and you have to find exactly where it deviates, possibly making up some complicated kl…

[deleted]

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#78

Post by SamBorick »

Factorio is fascinating because it also simulates critical issues in productions: bugs will come and eat your beautiful factory.

I also I threw together some thoughts about factorio and programming a few months ago:

https://dev.to/samborick/what-factorio-taught-me-about-work-...

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#79

Post by DanHulton »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

The latest update in Experimental (in Early Access on April 13) adds Drones for point-to-point delivery without needing connecting belts or rails or whatever. They're pretty low-bandwidth so you can't use them to transport raw materials at any scale, but if your "microservices" are sufficiently focused at a higher tier, you can tie them all together pretty easily with Drones now.

At least, in theory. Drones are T8 tech, and I'm not _quite_ there yet to start putting that theory into practice. But that's the stated intent, at least.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#80

Post by kempbellt »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Also dipped my toes into Satisfactory this winter - after spending over 2,000 hours in Factorio.

Games like these challenge your ability to manage complex systems. Remembering which parts of your system processes which data (aka, "materials"). Finding and addressing bottlenecks in production lines. Maintaining and upgrading components, while creating new production lines using the techniques you learn. Managing time spent refactoring old systems vs replacing them with new ones. Etc, etc, etc. Planning properly - as you mention - is extremely critical to building a good factory.

However, despite over a decade of software development experience, and some time in Factorio, my first several play throughs in Satisfactory where an efficiency disaster, and even my recent ones were an ugly mess of spaghetti for the first few days of gameplay.

It took several playthroughs for me to grok the mechanics well enough to build a somewhat efficient factory. If my first couple tries were reviewed in a job interview I highly doubt I'd get the job.

There are strong similarities between these games and the mechanics software development, but like any new system, it takes time to create a true intuitive understanding of the mechanics and demonstrate them in front of others. If you're going to interview someone for a job, you're better off testing their ability to play the game that they'll be playing on a daily basis if they get hired: "Software Development".

Software Development, the game!

Want to play a game where you will never run out of new content? Where you are constantly challenged by new issues that'll haunt your dreams and make you lose sleep? Software Development is the game for you! With an ever changing landscape, where components and frameworks are updated daily! That's right, DAILY! This MASSIVE-multiplayer-online game never turns off. There are actively hundreds of thousands of players right now!

And you know what the best part is? Software Development is not "Pay-to-Play" like all those other games that try to steal those valuable dollars out of your pocket.

No, in Software Development YOU get PAID to play. That's right! All you have to do is find a company, nail a job interview, and enjoy playing the game you love while they hand you buckets of REAL LIFE MONEY that you can spend on other games that you have to pay to play. And also, food and rent and stuff...

Download now at, the internet.

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