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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

#81

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

> or, if the feature is sufficiently common, google it

I do that all the time. I haven't yet, today, but I'm sure I will soon. I'm working on some stuff I haven't done in a while. Googling has the extra benefit of helping me to do something that I already know how to do, but more effectively. I can always learn new stuff.

They also mention that people "don't have the time" for open source.

But I do have the time, and the result is a pretty massive portfolio.

It's been kind of amazing, watching it get ignored.

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

#82

Post by inetknght »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #37
shawnz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a factory a large distributed system? What's the difference between this and a visual programming language like LabVIEW?

Well, LabView doesn't have locals who get pissed off by your pollution, for one.

In Factorio you can turn off the locals.

But turning off the locals for your factory is probably not what you want to do.

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

#83

Post by danaris »

oauea wrote: post #72
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.

As someone who has played a bunch of Factorio but only heard about Satisfactory: Can you elaborate on that?

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

#84

Post by cdirkx »

minikites wrote: post #56
Toutouxc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

>Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented. I think you dramatically over-estimate most people's literacy with games and movement in a virtual space, let alone most people's hand-eye coordination. How many people can touch type these days?

Why would the amount of software engineers that can touch type be down?

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

#85

Post by lukas099 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #13
francisduvivier wrote: post #6

How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generalizable for other companies.

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

> You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor.

You make it sound so easy. Once I gave my PS4 controller to my dad to play a driving game. Even though he's a better driver than I am, it did not go well.

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

#86

Post by inetknght »

plank_time wrote: post #73
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.

> hire quickly and fire quickly

This kind of mentality is not conducive to a well-functioning nation with people who have dependents and need stability.

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

#87

Post by evo_9 »

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…

Factorio runs on Windows, Mac and Linux; Satisfactory only runs (currently) on Windows. Factorio is the better option, though Satisfactory is a great game non-the-less.

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

#89

Post by plank_time »

inetknght wrote: post #86
plank_time wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> hire quickly and fire quickly This kind of mentality is not conducive to a well-functioning nation with people who have dependents and need stability.

Saying that it isn’t conducive to an entire nation is a bit of an over-dramatization, don’t you think?

I think a generous severance makes up for that. Plus people would know what they are getting into, just like Netflix. If you don’t want the risk/return you don’t have to apply or accept a job there.

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

#90

Post by hobs »

danaris wrote: post #83
oauea wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As someone who has played a bunch of Factorio but only heard about Satisfactory: Can you elaborate on that?

Factorio is very much like programming on a good team, automation, expansion, refactoring, tooling used to solve your problems.

Satisfactory is cool, but at no point do you get the "ok so I built this entire factory and now I can just replicate it modularly" - no, just place every, single, block, by, hand.

To me factorio is a rethinking of the RTS game, satisfactory is like a really nice minecraft mod.

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