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If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

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Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#121

Post by jfengel »

jerf wrote: post #109
jfengel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an estimation problem, and programming is full of estimation problems. How many servers will I need? Will I be able to fit this in RAM or do I need an on-disk solution? How long will it take to go from 10 users to 10 million users, and will I be able to scale the design? You don't need the exact value, just a rough order of magnitude. That's the whole point of the big-O notation. A problem like that is lighthear…

I agree with you, and as such, I suggest simply asking such an estimation problem set in the computing world. It also has the advantage that you can get into discussions of things relevant to computing, like finding out how much they understand about orders of magnitude time like socket communication times to various distances, speeds of disks, etc. One of the reasons I don't like "how many ping pong balls" etc. is t…

I think there's advantages and disadvantages to either approach. In this case, the thing I like about it is having them talk through their reasoning, regardless of the domain. If it's a domain they're familiar with I get the benefit of their knowledge, but it also takes longer because the specificity raises a lot more questions. If it's an unfamiliar domain, I get a glimpse of their creativity with a problem they haven't previously considered.

If anything, it sounds like "ping pong ball" problems have become cliche. That makes them less useful: it doesn't represent my creativity, and it potentially leads to them reciting rote answers from "cracking the interview" books.

Fortunately, I can come up with a thousand problems off the top of my head. How many letter "e" in the New York Times every day? How many sodium atoms in the ocean? How many people at the Nobel Prize Ceremony?

The more off the wall the question, the more I'm testing how they handle the unfamiliar -- as well as conveying who I am. Which is part of the point. They should be interviewing me as much as I'm interviewing them.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#123

Post by BizarroLand »

Hokusai wrote: post #86
okareaman wrote: post #75

How many ping pong balls would it take to fill a 747? Why do you ask? What problem are you trying to solve? We want to understand your thought process I'd think it was stupid to fill a 747 with ping pong balls and think about something else

The problem is that it is impossible to give a good answer without context. Did it matter a 2% error? There are cost limits? Maybe you don't even need to know the number of ping pong balls but it would be faster to transport them by ship....

If you dissolve the ping pong balls in acetone first I can fit as many as you have available into a 747 with plenty of room left over for a machine to reconstitute them on the other side.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#124

Post by dekhn »

watwut wrote: post #36
thom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that _is_ the conceit here. The ‘right’ answer is that all manhole covers are round because a round cover can’t fall into the hole.

Many manholes are in fact squared. So the premise itself is wrong.

Let's just say there are many questions that people ask in interviews where they have a scientific sounding answer that is simple and wrong (when considered in full context).

it's not your job to consider it in full context and give the globally true answer (as feynmann attempted here). it's your job to be cleverer than the interview, perceive what they want to hear, and tell it back to them in a way that maximizes the score they give you on the interview.

The reason you do that is it directly impacts the size of the job offer they give you if you answer questions exactly the way you want to hear. It's eminently rational, and a form of social engineering. Once you're hired you can advocate for change from within *

* I tried to get google to change many of it's stupidest hiring practices for years but it was tilting at a windmill

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#125

Post by Hokusai »

s0rce wrote: post #119
Hokusai wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it is impossible to give a good answer without context. Did it matter a 2% error? There are cost limits? Maybe you don't even need to know the number of ping pong balls but it would be faster to transport them by ship....

Isn't the context an interview, ie. give a decent order of magnitude estimate with back of the envelope methods.

Oh, yes. It's about having a shared culture more than intelligence or knowledge. I know what I will answer if I wanted the job, that does not mean that it's a good answer, it just means that I have the background to know what are they looking for.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#126

Post by dekhn »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #55
msravi wrote: post #37

In the same vein: The Barometer Question and Calandra's account https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometer_question

I'd never seen that before, that's excellent! The original PDF is at https://www.unz.com/PDF/PERIODICAL/SaturdayRev-1968dec21/62/ , which is includes a nice drawing of the student speaking with a building superintendent while holding a barometer, but to say more would be to spoil the punchline. Here is the text: > Angels on a Pin By ALEXANDER CALANDRA SOME time ago, I received a call from a colleague who asked if I w…

this is one of my favorite made-up stories

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#127

Post by giantg2 »

tester756 wrote: post #114
giantg2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a rare practice right? "... the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training." I must be a genius. I'm sooo bored at my software dev job. https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

or it's time to change job :)

I feel like most jobs get boring in a year or less. Usually it's due to the bureaucracy and not having any input into the business systems that were implement in the tech.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#128

Post by BizarroLand »

ineedasername wrote: post #69
msravi wrote: post #37

In the same vein: The Barometer Question and Calandra's account https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometer_question

Hold the barometer up and shout that it's a bomb & you'll blow up the building if someone doesn't tell you how tall it is. Use the barometer to prop open the door to the city's municipal building as the last person leaves for the day & sneak in to find the plans for building.

Dig a hole all the way through the earth and drop the barometer from the top of the building into the hole, and subtract from that time the time it would take the barometer to fall from directly over the hole to the other side and then divide the remainder by 9.8m/s^2.

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#129

Post by [deleted] »

thom wrote: post #8
cableshaft wrote: post #3

I was expecting something a little different, where they passed on him because he didn't give the 'right' answer (what the interviewer had preconceived and/or looked up online).

Well, that _is_ the conceit here. The ‘right’ answer is that all manhole covers are round because a round cover can’t fall into the hole.

[deleted]

Re: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft (2002)

#130

Post by SavantIdiot »

It amazes me how defensive, threatened, and snarky people get about interview questions.

When leading an interview, do you know how hard it is to tease out if someone is a creative thinker or just a bullshitter? Very hard. You come at it from multiple angles. Sometimes you need questions like this, it is part of the interviewing toolkit along with coding examples, and domain-specific challenges.

EDIT: And sometimes you just need to hire a drone that will follow orders and not think creatively: just implement the spec as-is. WHy? because tech needs all sorts of skills. You don't need (and can't manage) a team of Feynmans. It would be crazy, his ego was huge.

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