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Don’t do interviews, do discussions

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Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#261

Post by wiseowise »

dtoms wrote: post #113
01100011 wrote: post #30

Depends on the role and the candidate. If I'm hiring for a lower skill position and the candidate has a strong resume I just might want to verify the resume and confirm they have a basic grasp of the relevant skills. If I'm hiring for a high-output FANG job, you bet your ass we're going to the whiteboard. Sure, I hate it too(on either side of the table), but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on you…

so there is no glue code at FAANG? Or you have overqualified folks doing, and getting bored, and jumping ship between FAANG every 1.5 years...

There's glue code, but nobody wants to work with people only capable of doing glue code.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#262

Post by oblio »

gamzer wrote: post #244
iamsb wrote: post #222

Having unscripted conversations is one of the best way to be swayed by unconscious bias in interviews. Even though this advice sounds awesome, I will be cautious of putting it into practice without thinking through the bias problem. I do remember reading multiple research papers on this, but unable to find them at the moment. From anecdote - In the last company I worked in London, only one team (DevOps) did not follo…

How is diversity of thought measured?

Standard precog manual, page 46.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#263

Post by Hermitian909 »

TrackerFF wrote: post #260
Hermitian909 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interviewee I'd like this too, but as an interviewer I wonder if it actually has enough signal. One of the problems I've found with these kinds of conversations is that people can plausibly BS quite a bit about projects, or their role in them. Maybe I started a new compiler or something at my company but didn't have the chops for it and the project flamed out. If I lie and said that all my goals were achieved a…

There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position. Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine. And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'l…

It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company. How empowered are new senior hires, and how expensive is the time of the team? At larger companies senior engineers are often phenomenally expensive and at smaller companies controls over potentially business ending operations are usually minimal.

A friend of mine at a FAANG recently dealt with a bad hire. Their guess was that in the 6 months the bad hire was there they cost the company maybe ~5 million between wasted engineer time and delayed release schedules after people kept having to put out their fires. On the other end of companies, I've heard of seniors corrupting the database and its backup and ending an entire startup.

This is not a defense of whiteboard interviews per se, just an observation on why companies desperately want to avoid bad hires.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#264

Post by jonathankoren »

TrackerFF wrote: post #260
Hermitian909 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interviewee I'd like this too, but as an interviewer I wonder if it actually has enough signal. One of the problems I've found with these kinds of conversations is that people can plausibly BS quite a bit about projects, or their role in them. Maybe I started a new compiler or something at my company but didn't have the chops for it and the project flamed out. If I lie and said that all my goals were achieved a…

There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position. Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine. And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'l…

I think about the time my manager dismissed an interviewee as not understanding map-reduce because he couldn’t solve some problem in 2 passes, but rather needed 3.

I asked him to explain how to do it in 2. And he was like, “what? It’s easy!” Then another person on the team who over heard it also asked.

Eventually the whole team was there, asking him to prove it, and he spent over an half an hour trying to explain it, and none of us were getting it. The consensus from everyone (except the manager) that it was an unfair question that relied on a a very subtle assumption about the data that wasn’t obvious at all, and that 3 passes was the minimum required Without the that assumption.

Of course the manager said everyone was stupid and it was a good question.

That manager remains my counter example of what a good manager is.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#265

Post by justinlloyd »

xyzelement wrote: post #74
CalRobert wrote: post #26

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

>> "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders. I would be very surprised if you say literally this and get results. No self-respecting company or manager is going to invest in talking to you if you describe yourself so overtly mercenary. Obviously, when you're happy where you are, money is part of the equation to get you to move, but making it seem like the o…

On LinkedIn, when approached, and I am approached very often: My very first question is: "What is the compensation range for this position?"

And if it is below what I am seeking, I say "Thank you for making me aware of this opportunity. At the compensation range you stated it is a hard pass from me. If you can come back with a realistic number I might be open to a discussion. Good luck in your continuing candidate search."

Or if they ask me what I want, I say: "I'm currently making $230k base. Can you come up with a number higher than that which would convince me to move from a job I am happy with?"

It quickly removes the time wasters and the starry eyed dreamers and the cheap skates, and the people who are serious, then we have a conversation and see where it leads. And I have plenty of conversations every month. Yes, it's effective. It's a business negotiation, and the person on the other side of the conversation either understands that inherently or is trying to convince me that my labour is worth less.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#266

Post by RNCTX »

charles_f wrote: post #94

Every few weeks someone comes back with the one true way of interviewing, or the X things wrong with how interviews are led. I have conducted a few hundred of these by now, and the most I know about it is that there's no good way, because you try to figure someone out in just a few hours based on stuff they tell you. The format that seems to work the least worse for me is when you get them to tell you about actual st…

> they all answered a variation of "it takes a while to get stuff to prod once it's built. We need someone who can help get better at that". Yet not a single question for that. I guess the lesson learnt is that if you are looking for a particular skilk, maybe focus on that as well.

If they knew enough about the problem and its solutions for it to filter down to people doing interviews, they wouldn't need to hire someone to teach them how to do it, right?

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#267

Post by justinlloyd »

foobiekr wrote: post #86
CalRobert wrote: post #26

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

This is my experience as well. I no longer interview for things, I interview people who want to hire me. At this point in my career, as an engineering IC, my initial conversations are with the VP/GMs of business units. Younger me would have been very surprised how much i actually enjoy these conversations with manager types. In my experience, _most_ of the VP GM and CEO types are much broader and more interesting tha…

I am at the same point in my career. I don't interview. I have a conversation with the person who wants to hire me. I've had two formal job interviews in the past 14 years, both at a FANG. Did not enjoy the interview experience at all. Got offers for both, and turned down both offers.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#268

Post by yvrev »

philbert101 wrote: post #250
swman wrote: post #197

I wish I could a 2-3 hour interview where I (or the candidate) showcase one of my projects and explain the architectural details and decisions in addition to showing any cool/hairy/insane code that got the job done. We can discuss those things and see how to improve them, or laugh at the crazy solutions. Honestly how many times do I need to rehearse these dumbass algos (blah blah blah, so I'll optimize for space with…

This is pretty pretty much what I tried to achieve here https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test The point is to have a conversation about a project that the candidate understands well and is passionate about rather than asking them a bunch of questions that we already know the answers to. Before the interview we review the code base and try to understand what it’s doing by the documentation provided in the re…

I feel like this is a pretty big ask to do for an interview, unless you happen to have it lying around already.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#269

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

wiseowise wrote: post #257
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on your feet and solve hard problems if that's what the job is. Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot... You hate it because you know that's not true. Yet you're using it.

> Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot... Are you trolling? Everything that you do as an engineer is coming up with an algorithm. Algorithm is how you solve a problem, how you think about constraints and requirements.

You're being pedantic. You know what I mean.

There's plenty of algorithms I know and I can see relevant business contexts to use them in. Do I know all of their implementations off the top of my head to regurgitate onto a whiteboard? No, because I don't need to. When the time comes I will just look that up. The easy part is the implementation. This isn't a school exam testing your memory.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#270

Post by dgb23 »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #263
TrackerFF wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position. Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine. And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'l…

It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company. How empowered are new senior hires, and how expensive is the time of the team? At larger companies senior engineers are often phenomenally expensive and at smaller companies controls over potentially business ending operations are usually minimal. A friend of mine at a FAANG recently dealt with a bad hire. Their guess was that in t…

In your examples, did they go through a coding challenge / whiteboard process?
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