Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#211

Post by driverdan » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #6

rdtsc wrote: post #2

Two possible reasons: 1) I think a lot of start-ups want to hire "smart" people. Because they expect the new person to eventually wear many hats. Objective-C, Java, Android, CSS, server side concurrency, monitoring. An we've all seen Hunter and Schmidt reference that tokenadult usually posts when talk about interviewing comes around and it does seem that a general mental ability test (like an IQ test) combined with a…

I think (1) is probably the primary reason, along with the fun factor I mentioned above. But honestly, why can't we just start giving IQ tests? Or at least asking for SAT scores? We shouldn't have to run through training puzzles just to prove we're smart enough to build a site.

Standardized tests like SATs and school grades are a terrible way of ranking a potential employee and have significant biases such as income and age.

I didn't have very good grades and my SATs were ok but not great, both primarily because I didn't study or apply myself. I was completely uninterested in school. Get me to write code and you'll see what I'm capable of. I'm certainly not unique in this regard.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#212

Post by gboudrias » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

DigitalSea wrote: post #171

I failed mathematics in school, for the life of me I can't grasp them beyond the basics, but give me laptop and a copy of Sublime and I'll code anything you want. I can code, but I would fail any mathematical test given to me. This kind of approach has always bothered me, there are a lot of good developers out there bad at maths but posses strong problem-solving and highly analytical skills. Being a developer is 80%…

I've always felt like I was supposed to like maths, but I learned (basic) programming before I learned algebra, and I couldn't figure out how I would be using it.

After years of being a programmer, I still can't.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#213

Post by pjungwir » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

After reading the OP I immediately thought of your standard hiring advice and wondered if the folks asking math questions aren't on the right track after all. (Thank you for your persistence posting it, btw.) At least half of my daily work requires learning new things on-the-fly, and I bet in 5 years most of my technical knowledge is turned over anyway--except the math and CS fundamentals. In programming aptitude matters way more than current knowledge. I think IBM discovered the same thing in the 60s when they were hiring chess players and crossworders. So if math puzzles serve as a legal(ish) proxy for an IQ test, aren't they just what interviewers should ask? Of course I'd rather have someone who knows Ajax and 3NF if I can get it, and not lose any time to up-front training, but that may not be realistic, and those things can be learned if the person is smart. Particularly for an entry-level hire, I'd rather hire someone who can solve graph theory problems than knows the command-line options for git.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#214

Post by fnbr » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

I found that Facebook was really bad for this. I'm a math undergrad, and I applied for a bunch of data analysis positions with them.

I was asked, as part of my application, to take a programming quiz. The quiz consisted of a graph theory problem. I did pretty poorly on it, given that I have no real knowledge of graph theory.

Had they asked me a question about statistics (or something similarly related to data analysis), I think I would have actually been able to answer, or at least been at a point where my programming knowledge- not my math knowledge- was what was holding me back.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#215

Post by driverdan » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:19 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #7

I actually like asking math questions on interviews. It shows how people approach a problem. Asking code questions in an arbitrary interview setting shows just about nothing - no access to a reference doc, somebody peering over your shoulder. Heck, I couldn't code my way out of a wet paperback in that setting. Certainly, asking only math questions is stupid as well, people should know at least a little about the stuf…

What kind of math questions do you ask? Are then relevant to the job? Is it knowledge that the employee will need to have for their day-to-day tasks?

Asking math questions that are unrelated to the employee's tasks has strong bias for recent graduates. Ask a 40 year old a question about an equation they haven't used since they were 19 and they won't remember.

I was once asked to do binary math on a phone interview. I hadn't had to do binary math since I was in school 10 years prior. I was pretty much guaranteed to fail. This was not a good test. If I needed it I could easily relearn binary math in a few hours at most.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#216

Post by fnbr » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

mrcactu5 wrote: post #158

It looks like Emma's math prowess is working against her. It's ironic the app developers - who need her help the most - are pushing her away. OK, so there is a difference between computer science and programming. that's why there are two different stack-exchanges: cs.stackexchange.com stackoverflow.com And we can make even finer distinctions if we wanted to. it's actually really fucking INCREDIBLE that * you can know…

Hey, I'm a math major looking for jobs/internships in data science. Any chance I could ask you a few questions about your experience finding work?

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#217

Post by michaelpinto » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:22 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #82

michaelpinto wrote: post #26

After reading this I have a dumb question: The person behind the post is a CS major but only played a little bit with the C programming language in college — is this pretty common these days?

Yes, I have seen many CS graduates who couldn't write C or C++ if their life depended on it. In fact, I have seen CS graduates who could explain the theory behind, say, parallel computing in detail, but could barely write scripts. Knowing everything about painting doesn't make you a good painter :).

You've just shocked me! I went to art school and back in the day even if you studied say graphic design or fashion they actually taught you basic foundation skills which included painting and life drawing. Of course that was in the better schools, so maybe CS faces the same issues.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#218

Post by sejje » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #139

bolder88 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR , those people are wealthy because they have a high IQ, and are likely to give birth to children with a high IQ. I would bet that's far more likely.

Except that being poor taxes intelligence: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/national/41584... So in fact, it is more likely that people from wealthy backgrounds are able to better utilize their intelligence, and thus retain their wealth and status, whereas people from poor backgrounds are at a disadvantage when it comes to escaping their position in life.

Whereas the wealthy are more advantaged to "escape?" Where do they escape to?

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#219

Post by bradleyjg » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

It seems awfully rude to cut and paste this gigantic comment, which is now virtually pinned to the top of a discussion thread of a blog post to which it barely responds.

There's nothing in this that indicates it is at all customized for the article it is attached to. Especially given that you and the author seem to have some things in common (connection to small-town Minnesota & love of mathematics) it seems like you could have done a lot better than just re-posting virtually the same comment for the 11th time.

You have to go about half way down the page to find a comment that actually engages with the article. The way the HN system works out in practice the "winning" top level comment determines the entire structure of the ensuing discussion. I think that means that top level commentators have a particular responsibility to comment well.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#220

Post by lawnchair_larry » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 4:33 PM UTC

nappy-doo wrote: post #157

epo wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am an excellent developer, with years of experience", but seemingly unable or unwilling to complete a small practical test. Sounds to me like they are good at weeding out the wrong people.

Check my comment history. I work at Google. I stand on that.

What makes you think "I work at Google" provides sufficient data to an interviewer such that they should exempt you from their interviewing process? The fact that you have a job somewhere else says very little.