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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

#341

Post by zamalek »

barry-cotter wrote: post #325
zamalek wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

n=1. In addition, that individual is likely wasting mental resources gaming performance reviews, or their manager has identified their struggle and is protecting them from the ceremony. Systematically, Netflix is not equipped to deal with them.

Everyone either wastes mental resources gaming performance reviews or ignores them as a sideshow to actually doing a good job. The better the performance review the closer these two approaches are. Unless you have experience of Netflix’s culture and management you are less qualified to opine on whether Netflix is equipped to deal with autistic employees than someone who knows an autistic Netflix employee who is succe…

> Everyone either wastes mental resources gaming performance reviews or ignores them as a sideshow to actually doing a good job.

You can find out that this is a false equivalency in DSM IV. Spectrum individuals struggle with certain executive functions, and performance reviews align incredibly well with those metrics.

You've claimed the anagolous equivalent of "everyone gets tired climbing stairs, paraplegics are no different."

> opine

I hate to tu quoque, but I'm one of those individuals and I do struggle with performance reviews - as would most (not all) adult diagnosed individuals. Literally page 5 of my AS/HFA workbook. I'm lucky to be managed by someone who gives me qualitative reviews, instead of quantitative ones.

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

#342

Post by barry-cotter »

zamalek wrote: post #341
barry-cotter wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone either wastes mental resources gaming performance reviews or ignores them as a sideshow to actually doing a good job. The better the performance review the closer these two approaches are. Unless you have experience of Netflix’s culture and management you are less qualified to opine on whether Netflix is equipped to deal with autistic employees than someone who knows an autistic Netflix employee who is succe…

> Everyone either wastes mental resources gaming performance reviews or ignores them as a sideshow to actually doing a good job. You can find out that this is a false equivalency in DSM IV. Spectrum individuals struggle with certain executive functions, and performance reviews align incredibly well with those metrics. You've claimed the anagolous equivalent of "everyone gets tired climbing stairs, paraplegics are no…

I have also been diagnosed. Autistic individuals aren’t paraplegics in this analogy. They are dramatically shorter than average. Working under a disadvantage is not the same as being unable to do something.

It’s not like the population of people who take performance reviews seriously rather than as bullshit hoops that have to be endured or gamed is large.

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

#343

Post by RogerL »

thereisnospork wrote: post #313
mwcampbell wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A reminder that the goal of an interview process is not to be fair. This is not a sports event or a court case. Given the power that companies have over individual workers, I'd say that a job interview should be treated as seriously as a court case. So yes, making it fair should be an explicit goal.

A company's goal isn't to hire every good potential employee, it is to hire a number of good employees, and avoid hiring bad ones. If Factorio wizards make good engineers, who cares if only 1/10 good engineers have even played?

Who cares if they are all white 23yo frat bros? who cares if no woman can get hired so long as the company makes hires it likes. Or gay, or Jewish, or whatever busy is in your selection.

I'm not asserting there's a specific bias in this particular interview choice, but I am asserting that if you were taking a fairly narrow part of the population you better be working damned hard that you don't have hiring biases that are not relevant to job performance

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

#344

Post by _the_inflator »

brightball wrote: post #264
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_…

Same here. Motivation and will to learn beats almost everything in a ever changing world of IT.

Look for curiosity, interests and blend them with your product.

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

#345

Post by jackbravo »

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…

> Coding interviews bias towards people who can code under pressure with someone looking over their shoulder, which is almost nothing like real-world coding.

I don't understand this. Why instead play a game, which, as you said, could have disadvantages because there are people that do play and people who've never played. I guess the thinking goes that by easing into a game you can see clear behaviors of people. But you can also try to ease them into coding while you are looking over their shoulder. The interviews I do, and I've seen done at my previous company and the one I'm currently at, it is similar to pair programming, and yes, there is people that is super nervous at the beginning, and that seem to need a lot of hand holding at the beginning, but after coding and having a few small wins start to ease at the test and then they can surprise you with very nice coding or interactions on solutions.

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

#346

Post by bb010g »

markus_zhang wrote: post #108

For anyone interested in Factorio as well as the technical notes of optimization. I highly recommend another game: Daison Sphere Program. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1366540/Dyson_Sphere_Prog... The leading programmer uses some sophisticated ways of optimization, including: - DOP instead of OOP - Leveraging GPU for parellely calculating certain stuffs - Using a GTX 660 Ti for development Here is a technical po…

What is DOP?

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

#347

Post by markus_zhang »

bb010g wrote: post #346
markus_zhang wrote: post #108

For anyone interested in Factorio as well as the technical notes of optimization. I highly recommend another game: Daison Sphere Program. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1366540/Dyson_Sphere_Prog... The leading programmer uses some sophisticated ways of optimization, including: - DOP instead of OOP - Leveraging GPU for parellely calculating certain stuffs - Using a GTX 660 Ti for development Here is a technical po…

What is DOP?

data oriented programming

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

#348

Post by prepend »

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…

I assume everyone is curious and can easily filter garbage to find useful ideas. But I’ve been surprised the number of times juniors got stuck and weren’t able to Google and find libraries that are top on stack exchange.

Or designs with alternative analyses that honestly leave out the top toolkits for a project because they found the gartner report and didn’t go any further.

I don’t consider these junior/senior types of things, but there are things I have to realize vary across people and not everything is intuitive or easy to everyone.

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

#349

Post by grogenaut »

benlivengood wrote: post #120
grogenaut wrote: post #53

I actually bounced off from factorio becuase I'd rather solve it as a programming / optimization problem than run around im the game. I find this with a lot of management sim games.

Did you bounce before construction and logistic robots? That is basically the shift from traditional rts-style game to programming/optimization game.

yes... takes too long to get there. Also I played way before those existed.
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