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AI Broke Interviews

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Re: AI Broke Interviews

#121

Post by neilv »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #116
neilv wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False choice. The reality of these "rigorous, systematic technical interviews" is that we have a ton of companies doing nonsense theatre that isn't actually about "fundamentals", is also easily biased (as even some purported Google interviewers have admitted on HN), and have almost nothing to do with how effective a software engineer will be (as even Google's own stats show).

There is no alternative. So you may not think they’re predictive of success, but you should see how much less predictive everything else is. Hiring is always a risk. It will never be a perfect science. That’s why it’s important to have a quick off-ramp for those who aren’t working out. Edit: BTW, where did you see Google saying their interview process doesn’t work? Other than some a few anonymous devs venting on HN,…

I've been doing this awhile, and I've seen hiring work really well without the LeetCode grilling.

And I've almost always seen the LeetCode grilling be administered by someone who doesn't know what they're doing (and often also tainted with ego, despite the strange claim of some that a LeetCode grilling is objective).

That said, if you're sourcing random people, good luck, it's a flood of LeetCode gamers to wade through, and too much of your staff interviewing them might also be LeetCode gamers with no experience doing non-LeetCode interviews.

> Edit: BTW, where did you see Google saying their interview process doesn’t work?

I have a bunch of notes on Google hiring I'd have to dig through, but the first link quick at hand is this retrospective by a hiring committee person who left (and I have a note about 8m50s being a funny story of the hiring committee realizing that they would've rejected their own packets): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RxkpUvxK0 (IIRC, I don't agree with all the beliefs he still holds, but he calls out a lot of problems they found.)

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#122

Post by bluGill »

itronitron wrote: post #119
bluGill wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have interviewed and hired plenty of people even older (age is not something ever known/discussed and illegal to factor in - but it isn't hard to make a good guess anyway) senior engineer could be a project manager who never wrote code. i remember this because it is one of the faw 'no' I have had where it wasn't proved the person would be bad at the job. Normally the no hire signal is because the person would obvi…

Why, after interviewing them, were you unable to figure out if this person can still code?

Because we didn't ask the right questions. We changed the process to require some questions. Which isn't perfect either, but we don't get months to interview someone so.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#123

Post by czep »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #92
nunez wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Casual interviews definitely still exist, though the companies those jobs are attached to are typically not tech and pay less. Consulting positions also don't have much leetcode BS. These have always focused much more on practical experience. They also pay less than Staff+ roles at FAANGs.

Most of the consulting positions I’m aware of also hire a far lower talent caliber than FAANG, so they need bodies, not top talent. I have worked at a company who had a casual, experienced-based, conversational interview. The engineering there was atrocious, and I left as soon as I could. If you can talk your way into a position, that says a lot about the level of talent there. Top talent wants to work at a place tha…

If you’re referring to body shop consulting agencies this may be true, but IME as an IC consultant in DS/ML, my rates are well above Staff+ at FAANG, and nobody has ever tried to leetcode interview me. Yes, I have to do a lot of smooth talking, but performance is extremely transparent: if I don’t deliver, I don’t get paid. Honestly I doubt I could pass a leetcode style interview, and I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#124

Post by floundy »

amrocha wrote: post #79
floundy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most departments at companies run on zero to two good engineers anyway. The rest are personality and nepotism hires limping along some half-baked project or sustainment effort. Most people in my engineering program didn’t deserve their engineering degrees. Where do you think all these people go? Most of them get engineering jobs.

I’m gonna assume you’re being facetious here. I’ve been in tech for 15 years and I’ve never met a “nepotism hire”. Most of my coworkers have been incredible people. But in case you’re serious, there’s an old saying that says if everywhere you go smells like shit maybe it’s time to check your shoes.

I don’t work in tech.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#125

Post by amrocha »

floundy wrote: post #124
amrocha wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m gonna assume you’re being facetious here. I’ve been in tech for 15 years and I’ve never met a “nepotism hire”. Most of my coworkers have been incredible people. But in case you’re serious, there’s an old saying that says if everywhere you go smells like shit maybe it’s time to check your shoes.

I don’t work in tech.

Why are you commenting on a post about technical interviews for engineers then

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#127

Post by Esophagus4 »

kyleee wrote: post #120
Esophagus4 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few months with the wrong hire is detrimental to the team. Your stars will get annoyed that you have someone not pulling their weight, your team will have to clean up the mess of bugs and incomplete stories, and the mentors will spend more of their time supporting an engineer that will not come up to productivity no matter how hard they try. If it’s really a bad hire, you can’t be afraid to move quickly. If it’s no…

“You will never regret firing somebody, but you will regret not firing somebody.” Dumb over generalized piece of advice.

Man, I wish I could downvote this knee-jerk, reactionary comment.

I’m guessing you’re neither a successful founder nor executive from your comment?

If your comment is really good faith, why don’t we try this exercise: you tell me why it wouldn’t be “dumb overgeneralized advice” to make sure you understand it fully.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#130

Post by Esophagus4 »

neilv wrote: post #121
Esophagus4 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no alternative. So you may not think they’re predictive of success, but you should see how much less predictive everything else is. Hiring is always a risk. It will never be a perfect science. That’s why it’s important to have a quick off-ramp for those who aren’t working out. Edit: BTW, where did you see Google saying their interview process doesn’t work? Other than some a few anonymous devs venting on HN,…

I've been doing this awhile, and I've seen hiring work really well without the LeetCode grilling. And I've almost always seen the LeetCode grilling be administered by someone who doesn't know what they're doing (and often also tainted with ego, despite the strange claim of some that a LeetCode grilling is objective). That said, if you're sourcing random people, good luck, it's a flood of LeetCode gamers to wade throu…

I watched the video, and he makes some fair points... but like, I don't think he's proven what he aims to prove.

He said the interview scores weren't predictive of performance at Google, but his data is highly biased: they didn't hire people with cumulative low scores. So I could easily imagine a world where, let's say, some of the people with good scores were successful and some weren't, but ALL of the people with bad scores were not successful. We just don't see those whether the bad scores performed well because they weren't hired.

I'll note that my process doesn't give numeric scores, I give only written feedback with a hire / pass decision, which is discussed by a committee.

Re: not being able to pass our own hiring process - I've felt the same at my company, but isn't that a good thing? That means I'm doing my part to hire people even better than me, which is good for my team and the company. I'm raising the bar. A Players hire A Players.

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