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The greatest resume I've ever seen

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Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#61

Post by stuff4ben »

strgcmc wrote: post #50
stuff4ben wrote: post #14

So... smart and gets things done. Honestly that's all I look for on a resume. You also have to talk about it in an interview. I couldn't care less if you can invert a binary tree. One of the greatest developers I've ever worked with, I hired straight out of college. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree but his senior year he took a course in Java and liked it and decided to be a programmer. Couldn't tel…

The trouble is, this "je ne sais quoi" that you speak of, that you "could tell he had the chops to figure things out", is unquantifiable and almost totally subjective. To be a bit blunt and cynical, this way of evaluating candidates basically boils down to, "do I like this candidate?" Your criteria for liking someone happens to be that you look for these nebulous "chops for figuring things out". What about the other…

oh no doubt, getting around implicit bias and all that is hard and is training I've been through and try not to let get in the way. I've interviewed hundreds of people over the course of my career and I've had the greatest success in evaluating the soft skills of an engineer rather than their stated resume skills. For experienced engineers, I still ask technical questions to make sure they're not BSing their way in and have some knowledge of development. But college grads I really want someone with those soft skills.

Yes, it is slightly subjective, but not unquantifiable. You have to have shown me times you've done those things, not just say them.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#62

Post by tlarkworthy »

vishnugupta wrote: post #26
jb1991 wrote: post #4

It’s come full circle. I’ve often heard people (working developers) say over the years that software engineers are basically just digital plumbers. And the job often feels that way. Now we have proof that the skills do in fact overlap quite a bit with plumbing.

> digital plumbers. I had this realization over last one year, after 17 years of professional life. Most of my work these days involves plumbing together right libraries and data pipelines to automate business processes. Sometimes I need to fix an existing plumbing to plug a leak here and there. Now my Twitter handle says Plumber

There is subversive power in choosing what to connect

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#64

Post by biggieshellz »

jb1991 wrote: post #4

It’s come full circle. I’ve often heard people (working developers) say over the years that software engineers are basically just digital plumbers. And the job often feels that way. Now we have proof that the skills do in fact overlap quite a bit with plumbing.

I mean, we have a Linux Plumbers Conference for a reason. The kernel is digital infrastructure.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#65

Post by mosselman »

ableal wrote: post #63
drcode wrote: post #16

The best college application is still from Clyde Tombaugh, who was able to put in "discovered Pluto" when he applied.

I heard that Sakharov ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov ) just used two lines: - Hero of the Soviet Union - Nobel Prize

I think I'll do that as well next time I apply for a job. See where it lands me. If they actually check if I've won a Nobel Prize and find out I haven't, I'll just call it a career hack, that should resonate enough in today's world.

The meanings "Hero" and "Soviet Union" are both up for discussion, so I think I could bluf my way into being believed about that part at least.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#66

Post by approxim8ion »

moron4hire wrote: post #43
monster_group wrote: post #7

Interviewer - "That's impressive Daniel. Now can you invert a binary tree on the whiteboard?"

Jesus christ. Inverting a binary tree is not hard. That people keep using this as a joke is more a testament to the stubbornness of people believing they shouldn't have to do no learnin' no more than it is bad interviewing practices.

The difficulty isn't the point. Your ability to invert a binary tree has very, very little to do with you writing CRUD applications.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#67

Post by dahart »

mcntsh wrote: post #53
moron4hire wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus christ. Inverting a binary tree is not hard. That people keep using this as a joke is more a testament to the stubbornness of people believing they shouldn't have to do no learnin' no more than it is bad interviewing practices.

> shouldn't have to do no learnin' Expecting engineers to develop skills they don't learn/use in their actual professions to prove they're capable of working a job makes no sense. If these leetcode puzzles were actually relevant, why do so many engineers have to spend time outside of work "grinding" in order to get better at them?

> Expecting engineers to develop skills they don’t learn/use in their actual professions to prove they’re capable of working a job makes no sense.

I used to feel this way, but I think I’ve changed my mind. Interviews aren’t really primarily testing for skills you’ll use day to day, they’re testing for breadth of skills and knowledge and more importantly breadth of understanding. When I’m interviewing, knowing if the candidate has the specific skills for the job is the bare minimum needed to get in the door. I’m really more interested in potential, how much they can grow, and indicators of growth potential include how interested they are in the art of programming in it’s many different forms, whether it’s algorithms or math or software architecture, or coordinating people who write software. Puzzles are only the tiniest fraction of all that, but they’re still a signal that you like thinking about algorithms, and have exposure to different ways to write code and lots of algorithmic concepts.

A university CS degree isn’t particularly good at teaching job skills per se either, there isn’t much I use in my job day to day that I practiced in school, at a superficial level. But the school degree is pretty good at covering the broad concepts of computer science, and that has lasting value over the course of a software career.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#69

Post by eps »

mcntsh wrote: post #53
moron4hire wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus christ. Inverting a binary tree is not hard. That people keep using this as a joke is more a testament to the stubbornness of people believing they shouldn't have to do no learnin' no more than it is bad interviewing practices.

> shouldn't have to do no learnin' Expecting engineers to develop skills they don't learn/use in their actual professions to prove they're capable of working a job makes no sense. If these leetcode puzzles were actually relevant, why do so many engineers have to spend time outside of work "grinding" in order to get better at them?

Reversing a tree is not a skill. It's a test of rudimentary experience working with fundamental data strutures. You are not expected to know the solution, but you are expected to produce one if asked.

"Leetcode puzzles"... jeez.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#70

Post by throwaway5752 »

JshWright wrote: post #28

"Until I met Daniel, I actually didn't know that "smoke testing" was a term with a literal smoke-related meaning. I'd always heard it used in the context of software tests. Daniel used a tracing technique to follow a problem to its source, instead of just making random guesses." I've always known "smoke testing" to refer to the mythical magic smoke that makes all electronics work. Smoke testing is turning something o…

It even pre-dates plumbing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_testing_(mechanical) is a good overview.
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