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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

#261

Post by 908B64B197 »

imbnwa wrote: post #246
908B64B197 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. > Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers Not sure what you are insinuating her…

> I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" > Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? I said "least likely to have any experience communicating... as peers"…

> If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious"

I've seen a lot of programs that have "IT" or other technical terms in their description but that would not prepare a student for a real Software Engineering position. Same thing with a lot of bootcamps.

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

#262

Post by splonk »

I've never played Factorio and have no particular opinion on its value as an interview method, but I assume some of whatever value it has comes from forced team interaction rather than anything inherent in the game.

I have turned down an interview because of Diablo. I got recruited a couple times by a startup that would have been a very good fit for me. The first time it was quite small and I chatted with the CEO about possible roles and product directions and such, but I'd just quit a long term job and eventually decided that I wanted to take a break for a while.

The second time was years later after it had grown a lot and gotten tons of funding over multiple rounds. As it happens, the CTO was also a friend-of-a-friend. When the Diablo 3 beta came out, I played a bit with him and our mutual social circle, and he demonstrated enough personality traits during that brief experience that I decided I wasn't interested in socializing with him more, and just turned down the recruiter after checking to see that he was still the CTO. I would have at least discussed it further if he wasn't specifically in a leadership position.

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

#263

Post by heartbeats »

omginternets wrote: post #216
tofuahdude wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a company's responsibility to create a well-functioning nation.

Says who, Milton Friedman? Surely companies have some minimal responsibility to act ethically, and surely behaving in a way that causes social dysfunction is not ethical.

It's the responsibility of the government to create a well-functioning nation, and to use corporations to this end. But to suggest that people or the corporations have a direct responsibility, is to shift the responsibility away from those who are on 'our side', and to those who are either neutral or its primary victims.

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

#264

Post by brightball »

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…

I've honestly simplified my approach to interviewing over the last few years and I'm pretty happy with the results.

I just have a conversation and ask them to tell me about a favorite code project they've worked on. Could be school project, previous job, whatever.

And just let them talk about it. I'll prod for more detail if I need to give a little nudge. Ask about problems they solved when doing it, etc.

The _only_ thing that I'm looking for in this process is whether or not the person is truly interested what they're doing. This comes through when talking about something they're excited to have worked on, seemingly small problems that they had to really work to solve, etc. Geeking out, if you will.

The single most important trait I've seen in programmers that I've worked with over the years is "level of interest". There's too much that you have to learn on a daily basis to be successful in this field. If you're not interested in learning new things and finding solutions to the problems that you encounter, you're not going to make it very far.

Beyond that and basic competence in the core skills that the job requires, I don't look for much more.

Thus far, everybody I've ever hired who has passed this little conversational test has been an excellent team member.

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

#265

Post by omginternets »

heartbeats wrote: post #263
omginternets wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who, Milton Friedman? Surely companies have some minimal responsibility to act ethically, and surely behaving in a way that causes social dysfunction is not ethical.

It's the responsibility of the government to create a well-functioning nation, and to use corporations to this end. But to suggest that people or the corporations have a direct responsibility, is to shift the responsibility away from those who are on 'our side', and to those who are either neutral or its primary victims.

Surely every stakeholder has some degree of responsibility in the proper functioning of any system.

By your reasoning, I am free to degrade public infrastructure such as roads because it is not my responsibility to build them.

Equivalently: I am morally justified in committing crimes since I am not a police officer.

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

#266

Post by viklove »

sangnoir wrote: post #234
fennecfoxen wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> navigating the UI of a game

Why does it matter if it's a game? Navigating the UI of GitHub, JIRA, VSCode, etc. are all important. Being able to learn new skills is a good thing to judge people by. Seeing how quickly they pick up tools and apply them to solve problems is a great way to see how good a teammate someone can be.

People just get hung-up over the fact that it's a game -- I don't see anyone complaining about the fact that you have to figure out how to use the HackerRank UI during an interview for some reason.

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

#267

Post by cesarb »

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…

> A person who has played the game before will have a big advantage. A person who doesn't play video games at all will have a big disadvantage.

There's also a "similar game" advantage. For instance, a person who played games like OpenTTD before will have a much easier time with Factorio rail signals, since the two kinds of rail signals in Factorio work very similarly to two of the several kinds of rail signals found in OpenTTD.

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

#268

Post by Der_Einzige »

imbnwa wrote: post #246
908B64B197 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. > Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers Not sure what you are insinuating her…

> I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" > Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? I said "least likely to have any experience communicating... as peers"…

Serious in this case means any accredited 4 year public or private university. So, not boot camps, not sketchy for-profit crap like Trump university. I went to an unremarkable 4 year public university and they focused quite hard on data structures and algorithms. I thought it was the same everywhere else...

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

#269

Post by kentonv »

jackietreehorn wrote: post #222
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…

We used it at Cloudflare a few times too (as suggested by former Sandstorm people). I still remember getting the purchase of the game approved by engineering leadership. Was pretty humorous where it went from wanting to understand to whatever approved in like 30 seconds. I agree with your assessment of the pros/cons of the various interview methods. I agree that there is no right answer.

Huh I actually had no idea it was tried at Cloudflare!

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

#270

Post by pmlnr »

dillondoyle wrote: post #151
inetknght wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I would reverse it. The nation is not conducive to business if it can't provide healthcare and safety nets for those without work or in between jobs. In the US we are held hostage with healthcare based on our employers - if you're even lucky enough to have a stable job with benefits.

Show me one coutry who pays unemployed benefit at the level of the job you need to leave because of that insane hire fast fire fast.
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