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Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

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Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#151

Post by Geisterde »

sverhagen wrote: post #150
RugnirViking wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

absolubtely! One of the best jobs I ever worked at asked me what CPU I had in my computer at home, I talked about how i'd built my own pc and the parts that went into it and why, and they (much) later when I was settled at the role said they could see I was a good candidate from that point onward. I think its useful to show a curiosity about your tools, about the boundaries of your world, which is useful when things…

Do you really think it made you a better candidate, or did this person just feel a connection due to a similarity in interests or in your approach to computing? Was it even relevant for the job?

I find basic pc troubleshooting skills to be highly relevant to working in a data center. I learned about isolation testing and minimum config when I was like 13 trying to play MMOs, these things come relatively naturally to me due to exposure at a young age. That interest has prevailed well into my adulthood now, having no formal education I run circles around the relatively disinterested comptia kids.

As to being a better candidate, there is little I doubt less* than simple observations I can make at work. We could split hairs over causality, but there is a clear distinction between the people who go home to delid their CPU and the people who have devoted their time to certs instead.

Of course there will always be those sages that dont really care much for videogames and have transcended the street knowledge, those people 1. Have better jobs to work 2. Are harder to find with little benefit.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#152

Post by e12e »

jayceedenton wrote: post #149

This sounds like a good exercise, and kudos for thinking differently and at least trying to create a fairer and more useful process. Two comments I'd make, that I hope you are already thinking about: 1. Role playing is a cringe-inducing experience for many (most?) adults. Please credit the interviewee with intelligence and don't try to actually role-play this. These are hypothetical scenarios, so discuss them as such…

> Role playing is a cringe-inducing experience for many (most?) adults.

Depends a bit on the how: I don't think most find fire exercises, military exercises cringy - although they are a form of roleplay?

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#153

Post by afpx »

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 had an interview recently where I was given a 1000 line, deeply stacked conditional and asked to traverse it. Like, what are they selecting for? I hope that’s not demonstrative of their source code.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#154

Post by NikolaNovak »

midasuni wrote: post #91
ascar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So what scale are we talking about? A few million monthly users? So like hackernews? I would use a single server... "

You really need two in physically different locations (ideally ASes) with some form of failover, assuming you want a reasonable guaranteed uptime

We've run 375,000 self-service employees ERP system (so much heavier single transaction than HN) on a single (large:) db2/aix box with no downtime over last 8 years. That's well within published specs for that hardware / software combo.

Yes we do have a DR box in another data centre now, in case of meteorite or fire.

This used to be the norm. A single hardware / software box CAN be engineered for high uptime. It's perfectly fine when we choose to go the other way and distribute software over number of cheap boxes with meh software, but I get pet-peeved when people assume that's the ONLY way :).

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#155

Post by afpx »

dmoy wrote: post #37
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'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.

Before 2010, I used to get a lot of “why are manhole covers round?” type questions, not ACM competition type questions.

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#156

Post by paulcole »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #133
paulcole wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! You’re getting it.

“Paying your employer to work for them” is commonly referred to as a “scam”.

Studying and practicing to pass an interview isnt “paying your employer.”

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#157

Post by OfficeChad »

Izkata wrote: post #144
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…

FizzBuzz as an example of 2/3: people used to occasionally talk about how interviewees were just memorizing the answer, and when they tweaked it slightly (like adding a 3rd number), a bunch of them could no longer solve it.

[dead]

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#158

Post by graphe »

dmoy wrote: post #140
trashface wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We might also ask why EE specialists (and indeed half of STEM) needs to fall back to software engineering to get meaningful and stable employment, but capitalism probably does not like us asking these pesky questions.

It's not that EE *needs" to fall back on software for stable employment, it's that software pays more, and ridiculously more at big tech companies. I have both EE and CS degrees, but I make literally more than double in CS-type jobs than I would back in EE. Even though back in the day, I was definitely better at EE stuff than CS stuff. This was true very early career, and for now at least continues to be true. --- I'…

I love hardware and EE, but most of my friends that do it hate it and work on power lines only. I wish hardware was as good, but it's not as in demand and it's harder too!

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#159

Post by xandrius »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #106
pavel_lishin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite interview experience was a short take-home that required me to write a toy version of something the company actually did on a day-to-day basis, followed by an in-person pairing session to extend that toy to handle more functionality and cover certain edge cases. Of course, the downside is that it required me to spend four hours working on this at home, and then another several hours at the interview - but…

What hourly rate did you charge? I have bills, and free labor doesn't pay them. If an employer spends 1-2 hours talking tech, the role, experience, culture fit, and maybe a quick "yes, I can code" toy PoC -- fine, I'll volunteer. But if one interview process requires a day+ of investment...I'll pass, thanks. Ditto for whiteboard hazing rituals, whose prerequisites include memorizing algo' arcana and cute puzzles. I h…

Couldn't agree more; if the exercise takes more than 20-30 minutes, I am always asking if they are ok with me charging them my freelance hourly rate for the time needed to complete the exercise (regardless of hiring result).

Re: Becoming a dungeon master for an interview

#160

Post by xandrius »

andrewstuart wrote: post #20

Here's how to recruit software developers. 1: define the requirements for the job 2: devise questions that attempt to give insight into how well the candidate might meet that requirement 3: note down the candidates suitability out of ten for each question 4: TALK to the candidate in a free flowing and open discussion about their work, what they have done, how they built it, why they built it that way, their role in t…

I wish you were the recruiter of every company in the world.
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