Aside from addressing the article directly, I appreciate the author going to such a length to explain his point of view to the potential candidate. So often I experience such little communication when engaging potential job prospects. Often I'll reply to a recruiter and end up being ghosted.
The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
21–30 of 93 posts
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone else pointed out that nowhere did he list how much he was going to pay this guy. Horror stories abound about companies using “take home” application tests to get work done for free, I think it’s somewhat reasonable for the applicant to be wary about this.
>On top of that, my client was offering to pay this individual to do the work.
Yes, but /how much/ was the client offering to pay? This whole situation screams of someone trying to get a cheap deal, then getting mad when the attempted victim wises up. (This is pretty typical with loud-and-proud small business types, IME)
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#23I really don’t see what’s wrong with an applicant saying “no”. Employers say “no” all the time! The paragraphs and paragraphs about small-business ownership and how you have to hustle and grind and have character seemed really odd to me. Your applicant didn’t want to do what you wanted them to do. Just move on?
I think the author was just a bit peeved after interviewing what he saw as the hardware equivalent of a software engineer who considers writing any tests beneath them, a job for someone else.
> a software engineer who considers writing any tests beneath them, a job for someone else
I'd also balk at that for an interview take-home test.
I was an Indian QE guy looking for a dev job once. I was that guy whose job was to write tests for someone else, which wasn't fun at all.
If I had interviewed somewhere and I felt the conversation was going towards "how good are you at writing tests, write some", I'd have noped out of it immediately.
Specifically because testing was being offshored (think of the early 2000s) and development work was being held at HQ at my then employer.
I would expect that this work would be my day-to-day based on that interview.
That sort of "stale smell" around the job of writing tests for someone else's code stinks to say the least.
Right now I'm on the other side of the hill, I'd consider it a red-flag if someone interviews me for a day without asking me "review this code" or "analyze this design", but merely whiteboard a bunch of algorithmic C++ code without any tests.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone else pointed out that nowhere did he list how much he was going to pay this guy. Horror stories abound about companies using “take home” application tests to get work done for free, I think it’s somewhat reasonable for the applicant to be wary about this.
>On top of that, my client was offering to pay this individual to do the work.
I think it matters whether or not the amount was explicit, that's not clear in the post. Also, based on the (inexplicably) one time the author mentions the candidate was Indian, it's plausible the latter was wary of being exploited.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem is that EE/FPGA jobs have to compete with FAANGs. Too bad. That is the free market. The market is not obligated to provide companies with labour, just like companies are not obligated to provide people with jobs.
No argument. But the flip side is that I'm also not required to hire someone either. However, programmers don't get to complain that the FAANGs are gatekeeping/discriminating/etc. when the programmers decided that FAANG jobs are the only ones paying salaries they're willing to work for.
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Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#26Aside from addressing the article directly, I appreciate the author going to such a length to explain his point of view to the potential candidate. So often I experience such little communication when engaging potential job prospects. Often I'll reply to a recruiter and end up being ghosted.
I've spoken a few times with the author, he's quite a decent guy. He's quite active in advocating for formal verification on FPGA's, and is happy to spend time on forum threads teaching those who ask good questions and are willing to learn.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#27If you found this article interesting, I'd recommend this article by the same author: https://zipcpu.com/blog/2020/11/26/zipcpu-biz.html > On another team I worked with, I was asked to call a man by female pronouns. This one brings me more grief, as I enjoyed working with the individual in question. He wanted to declare himself to be a woman. He changed his name, his clothing, his looks, his dress, you name it. While…
For those having trouble with this, the consensus within inclusionary groups in the US is that sex and gender are separate concepts. Meaning that males can be recognized as males and females as females, no matter what their pronouns are, as that is sex. Gender is not intrinsically tied to those, so gendered words like “man, woman” and “he, she” can be dynamic and up to the individual to identify as.
The consensus on this may seem confusing because other English speaking countries have not necessarily adopted this clear separation, within trans communities or areas willing to be inclusive.
So on the internet, a lot of discussion on these topics gets mixed up with exclusionary as well as simply Commonwealth residents versions of how to be inclusive.
The general recognition is that people are able to be productive members of society by simply saying their desired pronouns. Even when “they” adds an additional context as a singular form which didnt exist prior, or when “xie” didnt previously exist as an English word. It is such a simple ask with massive productivity leverage that people are willing to do it. It would not be a lie, when separating sex from gender.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#28If you found this article interesting, I'd recommend this article by the same author: https://zipcpu.com/blog/2020/11/26/zipcpu-biz.html > On another team I worked with, I was asked to call a man by female pronouns. This one brings me more grief, as I enjoyed working with the individual in question. He wanted to declare himself to be a woman. He changed his name, his clothing, his looks, his dress, you name it. While…
From another post: https://zipcpu.com/blog/2018/10/04/welcome.html
> My Christian beliefs are centered around a literal interpretation of the Bible. This includes a belief in a 6-day creation that took place roughly six-thousand years ago, a belief that God will cause the end of this world rather than any man-induced climate change, a firm belief that a free people should be an armed people, and more.
Ouch.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the author was just a bit peeved after interviewing what he saw as the hardware equivalent of a software engineer who considers writing any tests beneath them, a job for someone else.
> a software engineer who considers writing any tests beneath them, a job for someone else I'd also balk at that for an interview take-home test. I was an Indian QE guy looking for a dev job once. I was that guy whose job was to write tests for someone else, which wasn't fun at all. If I had interviewed somewhere and I felt the conversation was going towards "how good are you at writing tests, write some", I'd have n…
I can see why your experience might lead you to that particular bias. However, that's not where he's coming from. If you've followed his blog over the years, you'll see that he believes you cannot be a decent hardware engineer unless you also have some formal verification chops and use formal methods as part of your design methodology. That's his bias. He expects a practicing HDL engineer to write their own verification proofs.
Re: The FPGA Designer Who Didn't Get the Job
#30If you found this article interesting, I'd recommend this article by the same author: https://zipcpu.com/blog/2020/11/26/zipcpu-biz.html > On another team I worked with, I was asked to call a man by female pronouns. This one brings me more grief, as I enjoyed working with the individual in question. He wanted to declare himself to be a woman. He changed his name, his clothing, his looks, his dress, you name it. While…
>If you found this article interesting, I'd recommend that you UNDERSTAND THAT THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT HAS THE WRONG OPINIONS AND SHOULD BE CANCELED
Can you not.