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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#511

Post by ghaff »

codr7 wrote: post #475
ghaff wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provisional hires (which often exist in theory but they're pretty much a formality in general) don't work for the most part. Lot of overhead for the company. And in many cases you're asking for the candidate to quit a job and possibly relocate on the possibility they'll get a new position assuming that they click in a short time interval.

So, accept the overhead as the cost of hiring the right people?

There's even more overhead on the people being provisionally hired.

Yes, sometimes things just don't work out. But, if someone quits a job and maybe relocates, that's a big personal cost. It's just the way things work in some limited contexts (e.g. professional sports) but it's not and shouldn't be the norm.

I suppose you can give a huge sign-on bonus with no claw-back provision, but that's never going to happen in most cases.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#512

Post by pjmlp »

jimbokun wrote: post #345
ryandrake wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really not that deep, I'm worried if you really cannot understand. I don't code outside of work, I'm not interested in doing it. I'm good at software engineering, not passionate about it. I have a bunch of other hobbies. There's no reason I'd have any code to show now or at any point in the future. It's like asking a dentist interview candidate to show you examples of fillings and crowns they did at home as a…

[flagged]

I have written software for laboratory devices on similar price levels, that will never run on home computer.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#513

Post by macintux »

eikenberry wrote: post #422
codr7 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring doesn't scale, period; deal with it.

IMO interviewing is the biggest bottleneck and if interviewing was decoupled from hiring then it wouldn't be a problem. But this requires a Guild-like organization to manage interviewing/vetting and for companies to use said Guild for hiring. The companies could then do a single team culture meeting (if they wanted) before hiring.

I wish I could remember who, but there is a company out there who conducts tech interviews to create a pool of candidates for their customers. Pretty sure there was a post here about it, but it's lost in my ocean of unread favorites.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#514

Post by ivanjermakov »

esafak wrote: post #202
ivanjermakov wrote: post #40

In my uni days, I respected professors who designed exam in a way where students can utilize whatever they could to complete the assignment, including internet, their notes, calculators, etc. I think the same applies to good tech interview. Company should adapt hiring process to friend with AI, not fight.

What would you suggest?

Ask questions that are tricky to cheat, evaluate candidates by their thought process in solving a problem and ability to clarify, discuss and justify their decisions.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#515

Post by pjmlp »

cess11 wrote: post #330
ryandrake wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really not that deep, I'm worried if you really cannot understand. I don't code outside of work, I'm not interested in doing it. I'm good at software engineering, not passionate about it. I have a bunch of other hobbies. There's no reason I'd have any code to show now or at any point in the future. It's like asking a dentist interview candidate to show you examples of fillings and crowns they did at home as a…

I ask for code, and if they have none prepared I ask that they spend at most two hours building something they enjoy. I expect a decent developer to be able to bootstrap and write most of a fun toy project in a domain they know well or at worst some kata from the Internet within half an hour. Then we spend some time screen sharing and talking about it, similar to pair programming but less problem focused. If you can'…

Which is fine, you don't have to take in every candidate, nor do we need to apply to every company.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#516

Post by camdenreslink »

siva7 wrote: post #206
perlgeek wrote: post #132

Company A wants to hire an engineer, an AI could solve all their tech interview questions, so why not hire that AI instead? There's very likely a real answer to that question, and that answer should shape the way that engineer should be assessed and hired. For example, it could be that the company wants the engineer to do some kind of assessment whether a feature should be implemented at all, and if yes, in what way.…

> For example, it could be that the company wants the engineer to do some kind of assessment whether a feature should be implemented at all, and if yes, in what way. Then you could, in an interview, give a bit of context and then ask the candidate to think out loud about an example feature request. So a Product Manager?

In most companies every engineer above a junior level is expected to pass features and bugfixes through their common sense filter and provide feedback. Product managers and designers aren't infallible and sometimes lack knowledge about the system or product that an engineer might have.

You can't just take requirements and churn out code without a critical eye at what you're doing.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#517

Post by michaelcampbell »

open592 wrote: post #285
m11a wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike pair programming interviews - as they currently exist - because they usually feel like a time-crunched exam. You don't realistically have the freedom to actually think as you would in actual pair programming. i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview, but it's pretty realistic of real life work and entirely a non-problem. It's probably even good to test for at i…

> i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview In all pair programming interviews I have run (which I will admit have been only a few) I would fail myself as an interviewer if I was not able to guide the interviewee away from a dead end within 15 minutes. If the candidate wasn't able to understand the hints I was giving them, or just kept driving forward, then they would fai…

> I would fail myself as an interviewer

You are not most interviewers, alas.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#518

Post by pjmlp »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #80
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these "most people"? School was over 10 years ago for me when schoolwork was not posted on GitHub nor is it relevant to my current job anymore, and I don't do hobby coding since I have other hobbies and responsibilities. WTF is this hobby coding bullshit expectations? What other professions expect you do more work after work as a hobby and show it? Do bus drivers film themselves driving busses after work as a…

> WTF is this hobby coding bullshit expectations? What other professions expect you do more work after work as a hobby and show it? Do bus drivers film themselves driving busses after work as a hobby? Do surgeons cut up people in their spare time as a hobby? I think programming has more commonality with other creative, 'soft' jobs like graphic design (which itself can involve programming), architecture, media, market…

I got to see where architects build bridges over weekends as an hobby.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#519

Post by lubesGordi »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #498
samr71 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have different definitions of "marginally qualified"? Idk, I feel I'm a decent engineer - I can certainly do whatever leetcode medium they throw at me, as much as this counts of anything - and can actually code, but I still get maybe 1 callback per 50 applications. Does "marginally qualified" mean "Ivy League Competitive Programmer PhD" or something?

> Do we have different definitions of "marginally qualified"? Not every candidate is an interview. I recently hired. I got 90 applications and from these, 80% were an instant "No". They didn't match the job description or had no permit to work in my country. I invited the rest. Simple interview, pair-program a dead simple App with a prebuilt skeleton with me with any framework of choice. Make one GET request, render…

Who are you interviewing? Do these people who can't do this have any experience at all?

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#520

Post by Tade0 »

michpoch wrote: post #347
Tade0 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to understand the entire business to start being productive. Particularly when you have experience from other, similar businesses.

I am not sure I follow - when you hire you search for someone who has 100% coverage of the tech you're using and also already works for your direct competitor? Let's say you're hiring manager for a company that compares flight tickets, something similar to Google Flights or Skyscanner. You need three additional Rust engineers. You're located in Palermo, Italy. How do you hire people that would not only know Rust, be…

> when you hire you search for someone who has 100% coverage of the tech you're using and also already works for your direct competitor?

Ideally, yes. It's a common occurrence among large organisations. Google and Apple used to even have an anti-poaching agreement.

> How do you hire people that would not only know Rust, be willing to move to Palermo, or at least visit occasionally, but also know the airfare business?

Rust isn't Boring, which is why you don't do that and hire one of many Java developers and do Java, unless the tradeoff is really worth it.

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