The greatest resume I've ever seen • Hacker News Board

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#141

Post by user_named » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #72

strgcmc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly, it's so sad hearing someone not realize that their hiring process is basically discriminatory in nature. Can you tell someone had the chops to figure things out if they came from a different cultural background than one you're familiar with? If they had a different social upbringing from yours? If they presented themselves in a way that you personally misunderstood but someone else would have been completely…

The big tech hiring process discriminates in other ways. In fact every time you make a choice you by definition discriminate.

I think your way of thinking or perhaps pretending that there are objective ways of making choices is a far bigger issue.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#142

Post by crispyambulance » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #114

crispyambulance wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring is a Hard Problem, and there's a big gap between well-intentioned intuition and translating that into robust processes. Ultimately, hiring is INTRINSICALLY a subjective process. If it were quantifiable and one could reliably screen based on "objective" criteria, it would have been a solved problem by now and employers could hire "robustly". But it is not and it never will be that way. That said, hiring and a…

Your argument presupposes that an objective criteria is optimal. It's trivial to refute that, for example a company could hire people based on whether they are greater than 6 ft tall, that's an objective criteria but it would still be terrible. Objective doesn't mean "good/optimal/solved" and subjective doesn't mean "bad/suboptimal/unsolved". All subjective/objective refer to is how sensitive a property is to a speci…

Thanks, but I don't need the explanation about the difference and nature of objectivity and subjectivity and don't need to be told that it's not a value or worthiness dichotomy. Admittedly, the HN crowd clearly heavily favor what they think is objectivity, so it's easy to assume everyone thinks like that on here!

I do think we sort-of agree that BOTH subjective and objective measures need assessment and they're both difficult to measure.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#143

Post by Kranar » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #142

Kranar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument presupposes that an objective criteria is optimal. It's trivial to refute that, for example a company could hire people based on whether they are greater than 6 ft tall, that's an objective criteria but it would still be terrible. Objective doesn't mean "good/optimal/solved" and subjective doesn't mean "bad/suboptimal/unsolved". All subjective/objective refer to is how sensitive a property is to a speci…

Thanks, but I don't need the explanation about the difference and nature of objectivity and subjectivity and don't need to be told that it's not a value or worthiness dichotomy. Admittedly, the HN crowd clearly heavily favor what they think is objectivity, so it's easy to assume everyone thinks like that on here! I do think we sort-of agree that BOTH subjective and objective measures need assessment and they're both…

The purpose of the explanation is to point out the flaw in your argument that if hiring was purely quantitative and objective then it would be a solved problem. To quote you:

"If it were quantifiable and one could reliably screen based on "objective" criteria, it would have been a solved problem by now"

Given that was the premise of your entire argument, once that flaw is exposed the rest of your argument falls apart.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#144

Post by forrestbrazeal » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

JBlue42 wrote: post #137

riffic wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know the book itself is highly overpriced. It'd be much more worthwhile at the $5 to $10 price point. someone who just bought a copy to skim through.

Agreed. It's 133 pages. Content is good for those like myself trying to answer "Where to start" with cloud stuff. Still cheaper than LinuxAcademy/ACloudGuru. If it leads to a six-figure career, a $24 investment is worth it I guess.

Like with any info product, a lot of the value here comes from what you put into it (the book contains dozens if not hundreds of hours worth of project ideas) - but I'll just add for posterity that part of the value of that sticker price is an included biweekly newsletter that provides inside referrals to hand-curated cloud jobs. We've seen great response to this newsletter so far, including multiple folks getting job offers: https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/newsletter

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#145

Post by JshWright » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #47

mattnewton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This- I knew the electrical sense that early software engineers working on hobby computers probably got it from, where it refers to wiring something up, plugging it in for the first time and seeing if it lights on fire / creates smoke. I guess there is a dual origin though https://medium.com/@AikoPath/about-the-origin-of-smoke-testi...

That reminds me of a story[0] my digital electronics instructor once told me. He was on a team working on satellite[1] electronics and had the whole thing laid out on breadboard. It wasn't working, and they suspected it was a short, but with so many connections everywhere it would take forever to find. So they decided to crank up the input current until the short started burning and locate it that way. It apparently…

Yeah, this is not uncommon as a testing technique. Fuse keeps blowing? Replace it with a bigger fuse (or a heavy gauge wire) and eventually something else will pop (hopefully the bad component).

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#146

Post by kcplate » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 12:17 AM UTC

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…

Frankly I’m not surprised at all that a plumber that is an effective troubleshooter could port that skill to the digital realm in a short period. Being an adept troubleshooter is pretty much the top requirement for the trade (that and a strong resistance to malodorous work environments).

I’d have been much more impressed and surprised to read an article profiling a programmer that became an effective plumber in the same amount of time.

Yep, I’m saying it—y’all just ain’t as smart as the plumbers out there…and most of you are kind of…”soft” in the physical department and probably would run screaming from the physical demands of the gig.

(I am including myself in the negative assessment above)

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#147

Post by 908B64B197 » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

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 agree with plumbing.

But not residential. That's all pretty standardized.

Think industrial, or a nuclear power plant. Or a spacecraft. Something where everything had to be custom designed.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#148

Post by moron4hire » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:02 AM UTC

stephenhuey wrote: post #135

moron4hire wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm hiring you to develop GUIs and work with relational databases, I'm hiring you to work on tree structures. I think you should have to prove you aren't completely clueless about tree structures. If I were hiring you to work on raw data streams, I'd expect you to be able to figure out how to count in binary on your fingers in 10 seconds, if you hadn't already figured it out while sitting around bored somewhere.

So, I just read more about what you do, and you do some cool stuff. I know a ton of developers and most of them do nothing like what you do. The point is lots of people are annoyed at being asked interview questions about things unrelated to the job.

I wasn't always a VR developer leading my own dream project, and I didn't get to be where I am by crying about "why should I know this? I don't need it for my job every single minute of every single day."

You know what my first job was out of college after graduating with the highest GPA in my major? QA tester. That's all I could get. I had to beg to get commit access to fix bugs I found that I knew exactly how to fix.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#149

Post by wpietri » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

riekus wrote: post #19

wpietri wrote: post #12

This is great. Occasionally I wonder what I'd be doing if I weren't a software developer. I suspect I'd be a mediocre car mechanic. I'd be great at the weird and interesting problems, but bored to tears by the standard, unchallenging work. And crabby about it, of course.

That was exactly me as a car mechanic, finding the problem that no one couldn't find? Awesome, but even doing the work to fix it after diagnosed it was boring for me, not to mention the thousands of tire changes, oil changes... So boring. Sold everything and travelled for 4 years where I worked on projects of my own (programming) and being self taught I planned to be a programmer when I came back (now) but thinking a…

Plenty of dev jobs are as you describe, but not all of them!

For example, right now I'm working for a non-profit. Meaningful work, smart colleagues, and a fair bit of agency. It doesn't pay as well as a fancy tech company, but I get by.

You should also check out groups that are more niche. For example, a friend of mine is part of the Copenhagen user group for Extreme Programming. That's a method that's focused on a good developer experience. And in my experience, niche methods and languages tend to be used more at non-awful companies.

So stay away from the big, boring companies, or at least the boring parts of them. Look for small, independent groups with clear purposes and close connections to the users.

Re: The greatest resume I've ever seen

#150

Post by wpietri » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

sdoering wrote: post #34

wpietri wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. My summer jobs were in restaurants and factories. It deeply shaped my notion of what work is. It's been a long time, and I'm still excited I get to work from my house basically solving puzzles. It has downsides, though. One thing you learn in blue-collar businesses is that the direct work is primary, with other stuff secondary. In a restaurant, nobody shuts down during the lunch rush to talk with everybody.…

Oh wow. Thanks for the distinction. This cleared up something for me that was knocking in the back of my mind. I had the same feeling having had a lot of blue collar jobs while studying. Discussions/management was scheduled around getting work done. I was working as a cook once and the real chef (I was studying literature and history at that time) and I were doing reviews of the evening after the kitchen was closed,…

Yes, absolutely. When the work is visible and straightforward, it's so much easier to understand and optimize what's going on.

That's part of why I'm a big fan of kanban boards for work. If you make our pretty abstract work visible, you enlist people's natural intuitions. Especially when there's the habit of regular reflection.

Of course, that takes a culture that supports it. It sounds like you had a really good place to work!