On the next episode, I guess the character Mike will get an offer, and will be asked to move-in to the company house where all 5 employees of the whole company live in the same big apartment?
My Startup Job Interview
91–100 of 108 posts
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#92I know this is satire... But quite literally, at a place I worked at (for two months, I quit) they actually did push code that wrote in the second interview to production.
I was at a talk last week where pushing interview code to production was highlighted as a good lean practice and recruiting tool
Someone in the audience asked if they made the interviewees sign anything since the company was using their unpaid labor and the guy giving the talk was seriously dumbfounded as if the idea had literally never even occurred to him.
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too. Just after reading redfhendrix comment that I actually realized "Oh... indeed". I read it first as a description, not satire.
No, I really don't get it. It doesn't seem that unlikely to me that some goofballs somewhere would actually push interview code to production, I have come pretty close to that situation myself. (Not saying it's a good idea, just that it could happen)
I commented elsewhere that I was at a talk last week where they presented pushing interview code to production as a great recruiting tactic.
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do understand that. It is a good technique to use. But my question is: Why mention the fact that the lady was Asian, when she is not mentioned again in the story? I feel that providing the extra detail without further involving the character takes away from the story. What does the Asian lady do in the scenario? Does her being Asian somehow influence? People from some Asian countries are very polite and reserved. D…
Look, this stuff is subjective and I'm barely a novice. But.. any choice of detail you make is going to have a lot of influence on how the reader sees that room. They carry their own biases and associations. I saw two 28 year old white guys, kinda of californian looking, clear "non formal workplace' subcultural affiliation. The Asian lady, I imagine as a little older, more formally dressed and not saying anything. Th…
You are right. I will say that I had not noticed this story being fictional. Makes me feel rather stupid. Why did I not notice? I have been in this situation many times. We often read about how perfect startups are. How nothing in Silicon Valley stinks. But life has had me participating in scenarios similar to what the OP described. Which is the point of the post itself. The path to understanding makes shreds of the ego.
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I imagine that the answer would be "Yes".
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#96On the next episode, I guess the character Mike will get an offer, and will be asked to move-in to the company house where all 5 employees of the whole company live in the same big apartment?
And then there will be a reality show called "Six is a Company".
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#97What was the closed form expression for the number of rabbits?
I'll give it a try... The number of rabbits at the (i+1)'th step is equal to the number of rabbits at the i'th step minus that one rabbit which is /maybe/ being eaten. And the "maybe" I think can be quantified as the probability the Troll has to find a rabbit at the i'th step. So: R_(i+1) = R_i -1 * P(Troll finds a rabbit) And now we have to calculate the probability of the event "Troll finds a rabbit" (i'll call it…
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Re: My Startup Job Interview
#98Every "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 j…
I see what you're saying, but I can provide at least one counterexample. This was on the front page whenever: http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055 There were loads of interviewee issues that occurred in the article. Hopefully that balances things a little.
Good read. Thanks for that.
edit: HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, this stuff is subjective and I'm barely a novice. But.. any choice of detail you make is going to have a lot of influence on how the reader sees that room. They carry their own biases and associations. I saw two 28 year old white guys, kinda of californian looking, clear "non formal workplace' subcultural affiliation. The Asian lady, I imagine as a little older, more formally dressed and not saying anything. Th…
You are right. I will say that I had not noticed this story being fictional. Makes me feel rather stupid. Why did I not notice? I have been in this situation many times. We often read about how perfect startups are. How nothing in Silicon Valley stinks. But life has had me participating in scenarios similar to what the OP described. Which is the point of the post itself. The path to understanding makes shreds of the…
nice answer
Re: My Startup Job Interview
#100What was the closed form expression for the number of rabbits?
I've made a good living as a programmer for a decade now, and I'm not afraid to say I don't even understand the question. It's a silly question unless it's for a quantitative role.
Good to hear. I'm working as a Jr. Software Engineer now, and I don't consider mathematics one of my strong points. Do many positions actually expect people to know these kinds of questions? I'd crash and burn here.