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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#561

Post by dilyevsky »

solarmist wrote: post #463
dilyevsky wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a former gig we had a newly hired ex-facebook employee give notice within a month because she didn't like that dev setup had bugs that devs themselves had to fix. At fb they obviously can spend millions of dollars for a whole team that ensures that working dev env is always a button click away, a startup (even a scaleup) usually can't afford to. This is just one example out of many I can tell...

And I’ve heard just as many horror stories about companies hiring from small companies that the engineers haven’t kept up with engineering, culture and practices and are coding like it’s 2004. Also, those types of stories tend to pop up with any engineer who’s only worked at a single place. My point isn’t that there’s not bad engineers at Facebook it’s that there’s bad engineers everywhere and filtering based on rand…

> And I’ve heard just as many horror stories about companies hiring from small companies that the engineers haven’t kept up with engineering, culture and practices and are coding like it’s 2004.

Big cos can afford to onboard their engineers for months, sometimes years. Startups usually can not

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#562

Post by drdaeman »

apwell23 wrote: post #549
drdaeman wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would it be different for humans. Because animals typically live in a way more static and uneventful environments, and they have much more limited mental capabilities? Humans (and other animals) aren't a completely black slate - but unlike most animals, humans have very complex societies that affect their behaviors throughout their entire lives. A few years in a different environment start to change people. Kid…

base temperament is irrelevant then? My shy cat could've been a party animal like her sister :)

Of course it's relevant, by definition of "temperament". The question is how much of our (very complex) behavior is biologically based and independent of learning.

For a cat, it probably plays a significant role. Cat behaviors are complex but still much more simpler than humans. And changes are rare. Although I've heard of a "lazy" apathetic cat moving into a house with giant outdoor catio and becoming drastically more active, almost like a different kitty.

I'm not sure about humans - how much of our behavior is a true temperament and how much isn't despite tending to not change throughout one's life. I've seen introverts becoming eager activists after they went through some bad things, like war and prison. I've seen people who were jumpy and always nervous becoming relaxed after many years in safety.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#563

Post by [deleted] »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #307
placardloop wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to all this. It still surprises me how many people, even after being in the industry for years, think the goal of any interview is to “write the best code” or “get the right answer”. What I want to know from an interview is if you can be presented an abstract problem and collaboratively work with others on it. After that, getting the “right” answer to my contrived interview question is barely even icing on the cak…

I think you're severely underestimating how much just about every software company has bought into the FAANG philosophy, and how many candidates they get who can answer those questions correctly. Yes if you don't communicate clearly, you will get points deducted. But if you can't answer the question nearly perfectly, its basically an immediate fail.

[deleted]

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#564

Post by joshdavham »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #381
joshdavham wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've (unfortunately) been interviewing the last two months and the main pattern that I've noticed is that a) big companies have terrible interview processes while b) small companies and startups are great at interviewing. Big companies need to hire tons of people and interview even more so they need some sort of scalable process for it. An early stage startup can just ask you about your past projects and pair program…

What exactly does "scalable" mean here? If a startup can spend 20 man-hours filling a single position, why can't a big company spend 1000 man-hours filling 50 positions?

> If a startup can spend 20 man-hours filling a single position, why can't a big company spend 1000 man-hours filling 50 positions?

Huh. That’s actually a great question! I actually don’t know.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#565

Post by swatcoder »

hirvi74 wrote: post #539
serial_dev wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a small company, you can tell your buddy “just have a chat with the candidate and if you like them and you think they can do the job, hire them”. If the person interviewing your candidates messes up, you’ll know soon enough. In a large company, the bad people will take over and your company is dying a slow death. That approach doesn’t work on a large scale. Some interviewers are too nitpicky, elitist, others appro…

I'm quite conflicted on this. While I do not think one needs to remember/memorize a bunch of brainteasers or past computer scientists'/mathematician's PhD discoveries in order to build CRUD applications. However, I do feel like there is perhaps some amount of truth to the thought behind the interview questions, no? As in, I would imagine someone that could invert a binary tree in 15 minutes on a whiteboard could prob…

No, it's not actually about mastery of binary trees or other abstract computer science concepts.

leetcode is really a culture fit test and success points to the combination of "smarts", diligence, and conformity to some acceptable degree. It shows you have some baseline of familiarity with computing, can focus on an arbitrary task to pursue a goal, and will conform to an arbitrary process when it's asked of you.

Those are genuinely essential skills in an organization with 1000's of white collar professional workers.

More precise insight is gained when the test covers a binary tree inversion than that were it just some contrived logic puzzle like the LSAT or a critical reading exercise. The computer science bit does provide some signal and isn't completely arbitrary, but it's only a small part of what's being evaluated.

Among otherwise strong engineers, it tends to filter out the especially willful, prideful, independent, meandering, creative, and pragmatic ones. These personality types can be extremely valuable in some work environments and can still sometimes in through leetcode challenges, but spoil big bureuacratic systems like FAANG's when they're overrepresented.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#566

Post by zensavona »

karaterobot wrote: post #184

The best interview process I've ever been a part of involved pair programming with the person for a couple hours, after doing the tech screening having a phone call with a member of the team. You never failed to know within a few minutes whether the person could do the job, and be a good coworker. This process worked so well, it created the best team, most productive team I've worked on in 20+ years in the industry,…

I work at a company which has 11 engineers and competes with companies with 100s. The hiring process was a screening call with the CTO to not waste the prospective team's time, then a call with 2 of my prospective colleagues to gauge competence and cultural fit. Since then I have been involved in hiring most of the team I work with now. The CTO is one of the most competent engineers I have ever met and he designed this process. He also has very high EQ. One of the points I sell to prospective hires is him as a person to work with, as well as our team. He has also flatly denied people I suggested before and that's fine.

I have been here 5 years now and I'm working with the most competent team I have ever worked with. My take away from this is that hiring doesn't need to be commoditised and scale, it just needs to find good people and give them an opportunity to show you that you do or don't want to work with them.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#567

Post by callingbull »

tptacek wrote: post #551
callingbull wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly legal and reputational risks, considering some groups do badly on IQ tests.

No, this is a message board canard. IQ tests are used at a variety of large companies with deep pockets for discrimination settlements. If there were real legal risks, that wouldn't be the case.

There are real risks for companies without deep pockets (for settlements or public relations). People I know, responsible for hiring, have told me they won't use IQ tests because of how it would come across, so the concern at least exists but how widespread is the question.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#568

Post by codr7 »

solarmist wrote: post #542
codr7 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you would need to change your expectations, I figured that much was obvious.

I felt like I was doing that with what I described. What changes to expectations are you talking about?

You seem stuck on the idea that you need to verify an employee to hell and back before investing anything, that's not what I mean by committing. If they look like they might be a reasonable fit, give them a month to prove it, then you'll know for sure. One interview per person should be enough to make that decision.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#569

Post by alsobrsp »

LPisGood wrote: post #506
alsobrsp wrote: post #113

I mostly skipped the technical questions in the last few interviews I have conducted. I have a conversation, ask them about their career, about job changes, about hobbies, what they do after work. If you know the subject, skilled people talk a certain way, whether it is IT, construction, sailing. I do rely on HR having, hopefully, done their job and validated the work history. I do have one technical question that st…

> Manager level to replace the dumb question manager. His were all Mac terminal eye candy. He did not get the job Huh? Please explain

We hired the guy who said it was a dump question, he became our manager. He then decided to retire and we had to replace him. One of the candidates answered the 5 cli question with terminal eye candy, not functional commands. He was not hired for the job.
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