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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

#231

Post by ecnahc515 »

burntoutfire wrote: post #202
jontas wrote: post #125

I am a senior engineer and have been programming for close to two decades. I picked up Factorio a few months ago and felt overwhelmed. I couldn't finish the tutorial. I think my problem is spatial relations--it is something I've always struggled with (how to arrange furniture in a room, solve a jigsaw, etc). I don't think this is a detriment to my programming ability at all--spatial relations really never enters into…

Also a senior engineer. I tried factorio demo out for maybe 30 minutes, but hated the fact that I actually have to walk the engineer around and do menial tasks like resource collection myself. Why can't I just do stuff with mouse cursor like in most other top-down strategy games? Maybe the game changes in later stages, but the demo seemed to be full of nonsense busywork that is prevalent in survival games.

You might like shapez.io

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

#232

Post by outworlder »

burntoutfire wrote: post #202
jontas wrote: post #125

I am a senior engineer and have been programming for close to two decades. I picked up Factorio a few months ago and felt overwhelmed. I couldn't finish the tutorial. I think my problem is spatial relations--it is something I've always struggled with (how to arrange furniture in a room, solve a jigsaw, etc). I don't think this is a detriment to my programming ability at all--spatial relations really never enters into…

Also a senior engineer. I tried factorio demo out for maybe 30 minutes, but hated the fact that I actually have to walk the engineer around and do menial tasks like resource collection myself. Why can't I just do stuff with mouse cursor like in most other top-down strategy games? Maybe the game changes in later stages, but the demo seemed to be full of nonsense busywork that is prevalent in survival games.

> and do menial tasks like resource collection myself

That is PAINFUL in Factorio for a reason. It forces you to automate it away as soon as humanly possible. Which is the point of the game.

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

#233

Post by zamalek »

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.

You probably don't need Hadoop, and you probably don't need 10x engineers.

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

This is not true. An AS/HFA/Autistic person wouldn't survive very long at Netflix, because they biologically struggle with the goal-setting/performance review game. These individuals may have talents that are biologically unavailable to neurotypical people.

The Netflix approach selects for a very specific type of individual: an extreme degree of rote knowledge and the ability to effortlessly apply that knowledge. There are people who acquire this knowledge and talent via unconventional means, and Netflix is able to grab those people up.

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

#234

Post by sangnoir »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #223
sangnoir wrote: post #207

> A senior developer should be able to explore the UI and figure out a goal, then establish a plan for accomplishing that goal. I'm confounded on why the author thinks being a senior developer (say, in embedded systems) would make someone better at exploring a game UI compared to an intern-candidate who puts 20+ hours into gaming per week... I would probably walk out of the interview if someone suggested I play facto…

Factorio isn't a game about shooting things. It is a systems-design game. Your goal is to orchestrate the processing of several different resources (iron, copper, coal, oil, stone) into several different intermediate products (gears, circuit boards, sulfuric acid, radar systems, etc), in service of a final deliverable (a rocket launch, or if you're ambitious, a continuous series of rocket launches). To that end you m…

> Factorio isn't a game about shooting things.

Thank you for providing additional information, but I already had a good idea of what Factorio is; that is how I know I would be addicted if I were to ever try it.

I was specifically criticizing the idea that a senior developer should automatically be more proficient than an intern at navigating the UI of a game - even when that game is Factorio. It's seems preposterous to me, even though it's a tiny detail in a larger essay.

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

#235

Post by dasil003 »

The reason interviews suck is because FAANG pays multiples of most other career paths, so an awful lot of people want those jobs, therefore they need an ever higher bar for people to jump through. Then every other startup and mid-size company cargo cults the process because they want to hire "the best" even though their funnel looks nothing like FAANG. Basically at this stage whatever process the top company chooses is immediately subject to Goodhart's Law, and they end up hiring roughly the same number of muppets as every other big company, the only thing you get is maybe a slightly higher IQ floor.

Casually playing Factorio with someone might give you a strong hint of someone's potential as a software engineer, but the minute you bring it anywhere near a high paying job interview process you are asking for disaster.

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

#236

Post by scpedicini »

ummonk wrote: post #210
tryonenow wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it racist and sexist to presume that women and POC won't play a game just because it's made by white men? How is that relevant? Is anyone else concerned over this kind of overt, casual, anti-white racism and misandry that has become socially acceptable as of late?

Don’t be disingenuous. It’s almost exclusively played by mostly white (and some Asian) men, often on the spectrum. And you know this is true and that it isn’t sexist or racist to point it out.

"almost exclusively played by mostly white (and some Asian) men, often on the spectrum."

you have the demographic data to back that up? I'd hate to accuse you of talking out of your ass.

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #223
sangnoir wrote: post #207

> A senior developer should be able to explore the UI and figure out a goal, then establish a plan for accomplishing that goal. I'm confounded on why the author thinks being a senior developer (say, in embedded systems) would make someone better at exploring a game UI compared to an intern-candidate who puts 20+ hours into gaming per week... I would probably walk out of the interview if someone suggested I play facto…

Factorio isn't a game about shooting things. It is a systems-design game. Your goal is to orchestrate the processing of several different resources (iron, copper, coal, oil, stone) into several different intermediate products (gears, circuit boards, sulfuric acid, radar systems, etc), in service of a final deliverable (a rocket launch, or if you're ambitious, a continuous series of rocket launches). To that end you m…

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by scpedicini »

lghh wrote: post #182
scpedicini wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not ask? Programming is a craft, and having a showcase could demonstrate initiative, capabilities, and inventiveness. They're concrete samples of your work. Aside, there seems to be a swath of people who seem bizarrely resentful of personal projects. Yes, we get it, not EVERYONE in the universe has sufficient free time. Bla bla bla, maybe cut down on Netflix.

> Aside, there seems to be a swath of people who seem bizarrely resentful of personal projects I wouldn't say anyone is resentful, just rightfully annoyed. It's not bizarre. I just don't think we as an industry should require everyone dedicate every waking moment to working. It's not healthy. Surgeons don't do surgery in their free time and are not asked about it in interviews. > Yes, we get it, not EVERYONE in the u…

I would argue that if you consider your personal project to be a form of work, then something is wrong. If the principal reason that you're working on your own personal projects is to be able to pad out your resume, then I agree with you.

I don't think surgery is a good analogy. Engineering is a field where you're actually producing something, such as a product, that you can share and be proud of.

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

#240

Post by gentleman11 »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #223
sangnoir wrote: post #207

> A senior developer should be able to explore the UI and figure out a goal, then establish a plan for accomplishing that goal. I'm confounded on why the author thinks being a senior developer (say, in embedded systems) would make someone better at exploring a game UI compared to an intern-candidate who puts 20+ hours into gaming per week... I would probably walk out of the interview if someone suggested I play facto…

Factorio isn't a game about shooting things. It is a systems-design game. Your goal is to orchestrate the processing of several different resources (iron, copper, coal, oil, stone) into several different intermediate products (gears, circuit boards, sulfuric acid, radar systems, etc), in service of a final deliverable (a rocket launch, or if you're ambitious, a continuous series of rocket launches). To that end you m…

My wife wasn’t a gamer before she met me. There are a hundred little things that gamers take for granted that non gamers don’t know to expect. You have to explain things like “there are lots of places you can go here, but if you’re a gamer you know it’s all fake: there is only one way to progress and there will be green lights at that spot. Why green lights? Who knows, green is just a standard message games use to say go-here, you know about it because of all the games you played in the past. Also, for some reason there will be items hidden if you wander around”
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