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My Startup Job Interview

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Re: My Startup Job Interview

#51

Post by redfhendrix »

[deleted] wrote: post #27
Tichy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asian ladies tend to look different from Caucasian ladies. So it evokes a different picture. I don't think racism or sexism or anything needs to be cited. Sure, you can point out that he seems to be writing from the default perspective of a white Caucasian (assuming everybody else is also a white Caucasian, unless mentioned otherwise). Is that a crime? I think not. If you are from a different background and curious a…

[deleted]

The point of a story is painting a picture. Adding additional descriptors paints a clearer picture in the mind of your reader. The author wanted you to call up in your mind's eye a man in a t-shirt, a man in a polo, and a woman of Asian descent. Maybe that's his experience with start-up interviews, maybe he wanted to force "diversity" upon the reader. Either way, the author chose to describe the Asian woman to you because he wanted you to picture an Asian woman. Why is that a problem?

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#52

Post by bookface »

Every "bad interview" story that graces the front page of HN has this common theme that the interviewee is an infallible genius who aces every question.

I know there's a bias here (better engineers are probably more likely to blog in the first place and most people would rather write about an experience where they're the "victor"), but it would be nice to read an article from someone acknowledging their own failure just once.

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#53

Post by jzwinck »

facorreia wrote: post #10

> Wait, it's on production? What is this, Ender's Game? Great description of surprise push-to-production.

This happened to me once, as in my first month at a new job, I came in one day to find I had caused a bug in production. But I hadn't deployed any software!

It turned out that the department had carefully orchestrated a system whereby all checked-in code would move automatically to alpha the next day, then beta, then production the next week. But nobody told me.

A manager there later told me, "If the code we write is strong enough, it does not need to be released--it will escape."

And the student understood.

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#55

Post by kdavis »

redcan wrote: post #4

What was the closed form expression for the number of rabbits?

My guess is that you'd model the troll as a 2D simple symmetric random walk with the rabbits and black holes stationary and distributed randomly with some densities R and B.

As a first go I'd assume that the topology was that of a torus, so as to not deal with the boundary. Now, as the exact definition of a "round" wasn't specified, I'll just assume the troll can walk forever.

Now, it's been proven that a simple symmetric random walk on a 2D lattice has probability 1 of reaching any given point as the number of steps goes to infinity. So, ignoring the teleporting, the closed form answer for the number of rabbits eaten is mnR.

With teleporting, I'd guess the Markov chain would mix better. So, the closed form answer would again be mnR.

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#56

Post by enry_straker »

jzwinck wrote: post #53
facorreia wrote: post #10

> Wait, it's on production? What is this, Ender's Game? Great description of surprise push-to-production.

This happened to me once, as in my first month at a new job, I came in one day to find I had caused a bug in production. But I hadn't deployed any software! It turned out that the department had carefully orchestrated a system whereby all checked-in code would move automatically to alpha the next day, then beta, then production the next week. But nobody told me. A manager there later told me, "If the code we write is…

What did you understand?

- That the manager decides what gets pushed into production?

- That the manager decides not to inform the programmers concerned?

- That you have a clown for a manager?

- That it's probably time to quit the company?

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#57

Post by mathattack »

kazagistar wrote: post #19
facorreia wrote: post #10

> Wait, it's on production? What is this, Ender's Game? Great description of surprise push-to-production.

So much so that I feel the birth of a new slang expression.

Does this make Facebook the ultimate expression of Ender's Game?

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#59

Post by mathattack »

soneca wrote: post #54

This is the first post of their "saga": http://blog.galler.io/startup-dialog Maybe it will help everybody understand that this is a satire...

Ahh... The rabbit hole question seemed like a hint too, but this confirms it. Unfortunately this means that the Enders Game line wasn't said in reality. Though perhaps in the future it will be.

Re: My Startup Job Interview

#60

Post by smtddr »

bliti wrote: post #2

A guy in a shirt, a guy in a polo, and an Asian lady. Why not a lady? Not calling you racist, but it is interesting how the race of non-whites seems to be included in some manner like it is always relevant. Why not mention the race of the two other people? Is it less relevant? You only mention the lady once. What role did she play in the situation? Just curious.

You need to chill out. That is a seriously gigantic leap & stretch of logic to bring the word "racism" into. You do nothing but harm the foundation of the people pointing out real racism/sexist incidents. CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING(I'm saying that a lot these days), this is a satire story about a start-up's interview process. Good Story-telling causes the reader to bring up images in their mind. Simply mentioning a race isn't racism in this context. The story wasn't even using it in a negative way or anything.
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