Include debugging in the interview process
zhenghao.io
Include debugging in the interview process
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Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#2Flexport does! It stood out to me when I interviewed here.
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#3Recent similar-ish sort of article that I quite enjoyed, "How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code"[1].
I really really appreciate having resourceful people about. People who can go hunt for answers, who can explore questions: they are the ones that make excellent fantastic programmers, and people who are fun to engage with & watch go at it. I very much agree there's a huge weakness in drilling people to see if they can come up with answers, and that this idea of seeing how they navigate & explore things is probably >50% of the real battle in sw dev life.
[1] https://freakingrectangle.wordpress.com/2022/04/15/how-to-fr... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31047409 (993 points, 6 days ago, 542 comments, damnnnnnn!!)
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#4Yup, I file this under: ask more questions that reflect what the person would be doing day-to-day
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#5Yup, I file this under: ask more questions that reflect what the person would be doing day-to-day
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Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#6Recent similar-ish sort of article that I quite enjoyed, "How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code"[1]. I really really appreciate having resourceful people about. People who can go hunt for answers, who can explore questions: they are the ones that make excellent fantastic programmers, and people who are fun to engage with & watch go at it. I very much agree there's a huge weakness in drilling…
Yup and I'm not sure if adding a debugger to the mix is actually worth it.
Sure, it's closer to the actual day to day work, but a great dev should be able to understand code even without a debugger.
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#7Recent similar-ish sort of article that I quite enjoyed, "How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code"[1]. I really really appreciate having resourceful people about. People who can go hunt for answers, who can explore questions: they are the ones that make excellent fantastic programmers, and people who are fun to engage with & watch go at it. I very much agree there's a huge weakness in drilling…
Yup and I'm not sure if adding a debugger to the mix is actually worth it. Sure, it's closer to the actual day to day work, but a great dev should be able to understand code even without a debugger.
A great dev “should” have more than one tool at their disposal.
I find that “exploratory debugging” (for lack of a better term) is an under appreciated skill — using the debugger to learn about the code by seeing it in action as part of the ramp up process.
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#8I bet there are people who are interpreting this as adding another round to their 100 round interview process.
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#9And in most shops it will be just like the live coding stuff: a series of trivia questions that the sage interviewer will already know, unlike that hideous rube, the interviewee.
Re: Include debugging in the interview process
#10The Stripe Bug Squash description made me think of this :
https://dilbert.com/strip/2006-05-06
I wonder if Bug Squash fixes get submitted to the proper open source channels. Tha would be fun.
"Thanks for working through that, can you please sign this contributor agreement?"