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Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

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Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#61

Post by Spivak »

thdc wrote: post #58
one_buggy_boi wrote: post #33

> When interviewing as a software engineer, for example, you’ll run into places that lean heavily on algorithms interviews. And don’t get me wrong, those interviews can be fun (in the same way that Project Euler can be fun), but it’s not very relevant for most jobs I'm curious what changed around 2015-2016 that led to the current interview process. In the before times the interview was more of a technical conversatio…

I like to think it went like this 1. Interviewer: If you're a good software engineer, you can answer basic algorithmic questions. 2. Interviewees: Practice algorithmic questions so you appear to be a good software engineer. 3. Interviewer: People are just studying leetcode to get jobs, what can we do? Ask harder leetcode questions. 4. Other companies: Let's copy them since they're successful. In short, the questions…

It's actually great on the hiring side — you can skip all that bullshit and because tryhards are all prepping obscure CS questions just having a conversation about technical topics has become signal again. Measure something people aren't trying to game and you get a better assessment, go figure.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#62

Post by liquidpele »

one_buggy_boi wrote: post #33

> When interviewing as a software engineer, for example, you’ll run into places that lean heavily on algorithms interviews. And don’t get me wrong, those interviews can be fun (in the same way that Project Euler can be fun), but it’s not very relevant for most jobs I'm curious what changed around 2015-2016 that led to the current interview process. In the before times the interview was more of a technical conversatio…

What changed? Well it was about 2010, The industry became a target for very low quality people to do whatever they could to land the job by faking and lying. All of these annoying interview tricks are just a way to try to filter out all the people (90% of them now) who taught themselves how to talk the talk but couldn’t program themselves out of a wet paper bag. And yes, there are ways to figure it out but it’s really hard given the current volume, and having your engineers stop and interview constantly kills productivity when you have to interview 20 people and only one can even count words in a file.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#63

Post by jstarfish »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #35
jstarfish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The daycare center aesthetic and all this weird pronoun crap achieves the same ends. If everyone around you is an androgynous alien speaking a novel language and communications mishaps will get you fired, you won't feel comfortable working there. I'd argue that if you can remember people's names, you can remember their preferred pronouns - and that if you can't, or refuse to because you think it's "weird crap", the…

I'm terrible with names, but that's my own problem. I don't do voicemail or pronouns either.

The rest of it is being ostracized for refusing to acknowledge the black floor tiles are lava. Redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing. In fostering this sort of environment you're running a cult, not a company.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#64

Post by mewpmewp2 »

Spivak wrote: post #61
thdc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think it went like this 1. Interviewer: If you're a good software engineer, you can answer basic algorithmic questions. 2. Interviewees: Practice algorithmic questions so you appear to be a good software engineer. 3. Interviewer: People are just studying leetcode to get jobs, what can we do? Ask harder leetcode questions. 4. Other companies: Let's copy them since they're successful. In short, the questions…

It's actually great on the hiring side — you can skip all that bullshit and because tryhards are all prepping obscure CS questions just having a conversation about technical topics has become signal again. Measure something people aren't trying to game and you get a better assessment, go figure.

Yes, I explicitly do the opposite and have the most pragmatic exercises, questions.

Another thing is an exercise for system design where hyperscaling is not required and the thing is actually quite simple. Many who have specifically prepared by leetcoding and reading "cracking the coding interview" 10 times over will naturally overengineer everything trying to fit this exercise to those book patterns dropping all common sense, all the while not having actually built anything meaningful.

I think these people will mostly try to rest and vest anyway. Truly passionate people will pass since they have actually built something and will understand the exercise.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#65

Post by gdsimoes »

azangru wrote: post #60
yieldcrv wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

making a react component in a 45 minute interview (something I recently did) is better than leetcode, but still a poor signal. on the job I'll never do a time trial where I'm being watched and gaslit about "just wanting to see how I think" as opposed to "do it perfectly from memory in this collaborative coding session faster than this guy escaping a dystopia in Asia, and trying not to be deported back" find a way to…

> faster than this guy escaping a dystopia in Asia, and trying not to be deported back While that guy may have an advantage over you in motivation, you might have an advantage over him in communication.

Also known as accent.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#66

Post by [deleted] »

mooreds wrote: post #8
neilv wrote: post #3

> Interviews should be as close as possible to the work that the candidate would do if they join. Interviews should give information to both parties about what it would be like if the person joined. Simulating a typical work task, as this article describes, might give you some of that. Though important to remember that's far from all that's relevant to either party. A recently fashionable Leetcode hazing, on the othe…

> Interviews should give information to both parties about what it would be like if the person joined. I have participated in interview processes where, at the last interview, the employer tries to talk the candidate out of taking the job. Discuss the problems, the warts, the intractable issues, and other things that are downsides of this job. Every organization has these. I love this, because the employee is going t…

[deleted]

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#67

Post by a_wild_dandan »

sailorganymede wrote: post #41
dmoy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what changed around 2015-2016 that led to the current interview process. In the before times the interview was more of a technical conversation, sure they had some gotcha questions, but nothing too brutal. If you had real experience that you co... Places just copied big tech companies that were already doing that for many years prior to 2015. I had leetcode style interviews well before 2010 even.

Pretty much this. Companies needed software engineers, looked at what Google was doing, and copied. And they call themselves innovative for doing it.

Ah, so to reach their hiring destination, their preferred mode of transportation is the bandwagon.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#68

Post by hx8 »

one_buggy_boi wrote: post #33

> When interviewing as a software engineer, for example, you’ll run into places that lean heavily on algorithms interviews. And don’t get me wrong, those interviews can be fun (in the same way that Project Euler can be fun), but it’s not very relevant for most jobs I'm curious what changed around 2015-2016 that led to the current interview process. In the before times the interview was more of a technical conversatio…

It all started in a few years earlier. Google had determined that there was a strong correlation between understanding fundamental computer science and being a strong software engineer, so they began testing for computer science fundamentals. At the time lots of companies were trying to mimic Google's success and it quickly became an industry standard. People began just studying how to answer these questions. The population of people that are good at these types of interviews shifted from hardcore detail oriented programmers with academic backgrounds to mostly people that spend time practicing leetcode style questions.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#69

Post by mewpmewp2 »

herval wrote: post #48
xw30992 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I love leetcode. I do it on Sundays like others do crossword puzzles. But once upon a time these leetcode interviews made a ton of sense. Just getting your program to run at all was basically a leetcode exercise. see for example: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/war-stories-how-princ... I have my war stories too. It was fun but frustrating. Definitely not as productive as today. Early 2000s internet…

The kind of people who do best at FAANG interviews are the ones who enjoy leetcoding. We’re all selecting for the wrong skills.

Even if I enjoy leetcoding and I do, there are tons of things I would rather do before that, and that are far more useful, such as building and working on side projects.

So to me leetcoding is a waste of time and less fun than actually building something, having other people use what you have built. And there is infinite things to build there and learn.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#70

Post by lostlogin »

jstarfish wrote: post #63
pavel_lishin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The daycare center aesthetic and all this weird pronoun crap achieves the same ends. If everyone around you is an androgynous alien speaking a novel language and communications mishaps will get you fired, you won't feel comfortable working there. I'd argue that if you can remember people's names, you can remember their preferred pronouns - and that if you can't, or refuse to because you think it's "weird crap", the…

I'm terrible with names, but that's my own problem. I don't do voicemail or pronouns either. The rest of it is being ostracized for refusing to acknowledge the black floor tiles are lava. Redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing. In fostering this sort of environment you're running a cult, not a company.

> I don't do voicemail or pronouns either.

You don’t use any pronouns?

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