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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#501

Post by ltbarcly3 »

throwaway3572 wrote: post #494
jjav wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. Think about this contradictory statement for a while. Can it actually be true? Or is there something else going on? If the interviewee has nothing but sub-1yr stints on their resume, perpetually getting fired before vesting at any company, then yes, it's very possible they actually can't code and just fake it…

I’m an electrical engineer who does circuit design. I’ve interviewed many electrical engineers over the years and the situation of applicants having “years” of experience while simultaneously not knowing how to design a single circuit is real. In our field it’s usually because although the person’s title is engineer, in practice, they don’t do any engineering. There’s just a ton of peripheral work (basically paperwor…

10% of applicants that make it to a phone screen. I estimate that the number is much lower than 10% overall because incompetent people with good looking resumes tend to do a lot more interviews than good candidates.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#502

Post by quinnirill »

hibikir wrote: post #289
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

What is really crazy about this though is that sometimes it really is the interview setting, as people unused to interviews can, at times, emotionally collapse. I have seen people who are actually good programmers get wrecked by simple questions because of their inability to handle stress, and how the lack of interview practice turns a simple exercise into a hellscape. It's not as if testing for performance under str…

It’s also not the same kind of stress. I’ve interviewed many a candidate who were sweating and/or shaking at some point of the interview (with heavy reassurance and me trying to to steer the conversation towards and area where they feel stronger), but they can often end up being calm and reliable alert responders nonetheless. So far I’ve seen very little if any correlation between being able to handle interview stress and on-call stress.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#503

Post by suzzer99 »

throwaway151883 wrote: post #325
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

> check if text has mismatched parens I always try to give everyone I’ve interviewed the benefit of the doubt. You never know what’s going on in their lives, and even if they fail a trivial question it doesn’t mean they are faking the ability to code. I joined Facebook back in 2018. Didn’t study at all for the interview and passed somehow. Then I probably conducted 200-300 interviews in my time there, so I became qui…

Welcome to the wonderful world of coding under pressure, which almost never occurs in the real world. It's a non-issue when you're young and don't feel the pressure. But when you have grey hairs in your beard and know you're already walking in with two strikes, all of a sudden the fog of war kicks in.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#504

Post by deviantbit »

eikenberry wrote: post #403
deviantbit wrote: post #334

This is a terrible opinion piece. Layoffs do work. Cutting hours does not work. I am always amazed how few people understand how a business operates. They think its a community organized event where there is unlimited revenue. There are a few basic accounting principles employees need to understand. It all revolves around Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. If you think otherwise, take a "Cost Accounting" course.…

> If a company is bleeding revenue, it cannot sustain the overhead of employees. They have to go. No, they don't. During the dotcom bubble my company gave us 2 choices, layoffs or 20% pay cut. We took the latter. Everyone stayed and we had our pay back to previous levels in a couple years and the company remained profitable. You can, in fact, treat people as people and still run a company. > Employees feelings don't…

Which dot com was that?

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#505

Post by WalterBright »

alabastervlog wrote: post #328
momocowcow wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are still not testing if they can code. But whether under the scrutiny of another person, they can code. Maybe this is important to you, maybe peer programming is important to you for example. I remember a young dev who couldn’t pass such tests, as he would get too nervous, yet he had written the core tech for many shipped products. The type of guy you would just stick in dark room. With age this type of stuff se…

“Scrutiny of another” who’s a peer or even a client is super different from an interview. The latter has more in common with an open mic night, the prospect of which the vast majority of people are terrified and would break down if they attempted it.

My first attempts at public speaking were a frozen horror. But I kept doing it, and it kept getting easier and easier.

I recommend that when there's an opportunity to get up in front of a mike, take it, and get comfortable with it. It's a skill that will serve you well.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#507

Post by ltbarcly3 »

ryandrake wrote: post #358
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have connections from previous jobs who will vouch for them.

How does this work, though? Every company I've worked for has an HR system, and resumes flow through it, and there's a set process. If I have worked with a candidate in the past and highly recommend them, all I can do is submit their resume into the great void and check a box "Recommend". I don't have any other power. There is no "Skip the interview, I vouch for him!" button that I can push.

If you are regarded very highly, if you suggest to your manager there's another person out there like you they will work the system to get that person lined up for an interview ASAP. If you aren't very highly regarded, your suggestions will be put into the HR system and never looked at.

If your manager is inexperienced or not very good then there's nothing you can do about that.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#508

Post by bodegajed »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

It's an outlier because unlike other service industries the software has global presence. An app written by software engineers laid-off 3 years ago will still run by itself with exceptions like servers running out of disk space. Unlike other services industry tech workers get laid off for:

1. When the product has failed market-fit and company is not raising anymore capital.

2. When the backlog has been cleared.

Tech workers get more pay by job hopping.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#509

Post by neumann »

bloomingkales wrote: post #424
yodsanklai wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, maybe that's how people in their 30s living in NYC or bay area feel about layoffs. But when you're older, have a family, and live in an area with a less dynamic job market, you may see things differently.

Why does it have to be an age thing? Some men and women are players and the game is the game to them. Those who are naturally monogamous would be stressed in a game like that. Constantly uprooting is a stressful lifestyle and can truly be torture (as evidenced by constant anxiety, no way to be). I can promise you people who are job hopping are hopping around other things in life (friends, family, relationships, proje…

Doesn't have to be an age thing, but it often is an age thing. Because lots of us were carefree before dependents and a mortgage as well.

Unexpected or deliberate change was an opportunity, a challenge, a stimulant! Job hopping (or hopping around relationships) when young can be about exploring the world, finding yourself and your values and isn't inherently bad.

Then you discover what you are good at doing and that you like doing and dedicating time to (or perhaps another person with whom you want to spend all your time) and your priorities change.

Then you might have kids and the work becomes more about financial security for the family then about your personal growth. And so you aren't looking at layoffs and unexpected change as opportunity because you are happy with what you've got.

It just often is an age or 'stage of life' thing for many people.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#510

Post by ltbarcly3 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #461
mixmastamyk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are good coders but can’t do it with an adversarial person watching. I’m often one of them. Might as well put a suitcase with $200k and a copper clock ticking away on the table next to them.

As someone who does these types of interviews on both ends, something like this is why I like to start with an outrageously simple question to break the ice. Surprisingly, I have an 80% fail rate on the first question usually, which is just “find the second largest number in an array of numbers” for a 5 YOE role.

I just saw that this comment was fading from downvotes.

I think HN is just overwhelmed with people who somehow got hired into technical jobs but can't do them. Anyone who thinks that 'finding second largest number in an array' or 'finding if a string is a substring of another string' are hard, or that the pressures of an interview are a valid excuse for being unable to do it are simply not intelligent enough to be successful in this field and they are casting about for some excuse to protect their ego. These are problems that a bright 12 year old with no programming experience could do for fun, and these folks are purporting to be educated, experienced, professional programmers.

As much as people like to say 'muh anxiety', I've yet to meet someone who can't do very basic coding in an interview but also they are capable of basic coding in any other context. I would suggest that this sort of person is so rare that you will probably never meet one over the course of a normal career.

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