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

#301

Post by kenrikm » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 11:14 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #17

deluxaran wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of IQ tests? Math thinking? Language? Other? These tests are kinda old and don't prove anything besides the fact that the person has a certain level of intelligence but that doesn't mean they can code.

> What kind of IQ tests? Math thinking? Language? Other? Both. They're not perfect, but I'm going to be picky and look for people who can generally reason well (both mathematically and verbally). > but that doesn't mean they can code. That's why you pair it with work samples. The ideal hire would be an impressive GitHub + evidence of intellect. The GitHub shows they have coding chops, while an IQ test usually means t…

GitHub is a false profit. Almost every excellent programmer I know has almost nothing in their public GitHub. I've been doing this for a great many years however going off my GitHub I'm barely a programmer if that's the metric you're tracking.

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

#302

Post by brspangler » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 11:21 PM UTC

thraw wrote: post #117

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…

1) I think a lot of start-ups want to hire "smart" people. What does it really mean to be smart? Lately I cannot stop thinking about it. I have always been considered a 'smart person'. I am a self-taught freelance developer now - it used to be my hobby and somehow (mostly because I needed location-independent work quickly) it became my profession. I get by because everybody thinks I am smart but I feel like an impost…

> * I get by because everybody thinks I am smart but I feel like an impostor*

That's a real thing. Almost all of the wildly talented people in my life feel Impostor Syndrome[0] at some level. Three Panel Soul even did a spot-on comic about it [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

[1] http://threepanelsoul.com/2013/10/14/on-impostor-syndrome/

edited for sane line breaks

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

#303

Post by tylerkahn » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 11:28 PM UTC

swelly127 wrote: post #253

I have the exact same problem as OP. Getting tons of job offers because I've been doing competitive math and algorithms since grade school but really have hard time understand technology. I'm pretty ambitious and I want to join a small, high growth startup and have the excitement of being part of a founding team but I'm afraid of letting people down. I could learn heroku/RoR/whatever other technology but news things…

You say that unix is confusing. Unix isn't confusing. It's just unfamiliar to you as it was to me at one point. The way you get better is that you push through the unfamiliarity and keep going until you solve the problem you're facing. Sometimes it's painfully slow to acquire the knowledge you need, but that's just part of the process.

All that knowledge accumulates over time and you build skills about how to learn new things.

That's what allows people to pick up new technologies easily. Hard work, previous experience with similar technologies, and some intelligence (which you obviously have already).

I would recommend that you install Ubuntu in a virtual machine (VirtualBox is a good choice) and see if you can get some Python programs running. That process alone will teach you a lot.

For what it's worth, RoR and the Heroku stack are not basic and you shouldn't feel bad for not picking the up quickly. There's so much context that you need to have to understand what's going on and to use those technologies effectively. I bet if you polled your classmates the majority of them haven't even heard of Heroku.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 11:49 PM UTC

jacalata wrote: post #258

NAFV_P wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"filter out (gently fire) the ones that aren't as good." If the employee finds out you "hire more than you need of the top performers", you end up with a potential court case. If I found this out about a former employer, I would have pursued them to the end of hell.

how is that breaking any law?

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by taurath » Mon, Oct 21, 2013, 11:52 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #270

tommorris wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, smart includes some kind of experience-derived common sense that isn't measured well by IQ tests...? Perhaps someone should tell the people who want to use IQ tests to measure the quality of programmers...

Paul Graham uses the word "smart," essentially, to mean someone who "works smart" rather than simply "working hard." In other words, it's someone who won't build a 12-foot fence if a 6-foot fence is sufficient. And it's someone who's capable of realizing as much in the first place. This isn't "common sense," per se. It's more like uncommon sense. Most people follow an effort in -> result out paradigm, believing the t…

I use the word efficient instead of lazy. If I can do x and 1 other thing if I do x efficiently, why not strive to find as many things I can do efficiently as possible?

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

#306

Post by taurath » Tue, Oct 22, 2013, 12:27 AM UTC

thraw wrote: post #117

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…

1) I think a lot of start-ups want to hire "smart" people. What does it really mean to be smart? Lately I cannot stop thinking about it. I have always been considered a 'smart person'. I am a self-taught freelance developer now - it used to be my hobby and somehow (mostly because I needed location-independent work quickly) it became my profession. I get by because everybody thinks I am smart but I feel like an impost…

I've been thinking about the same problem for a while, and I'm also a self-taught developer that looks way towards sociology. I have a little different spin on the main hurdles of doing programming. With proper tools and the right mindset, the entire goal of the organization process is that you DON'T have to think and hold 100 things in memory at once. It works okay for some problems, but any problem with a sufficient complexity (like, say a full rich website with lots and lots of features) will be nearly impossible to work with if everything was intertwined.

I find the hardest park of programming is getting over hurdles as they come up, over and over and over again. It takes a while to get over fear of small failure. Also, if you're constantly reanalyzing and have a perfectionism streak you can be paralyzed quite frequently. Have you run into the same problems?

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

#307

Post by derekp7 » Tue, Oct 22, 2013, 12:55 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #293

LukeShu wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't provide any specific laws, but the general objection is that they were hired in bad faith. If I hire 15 people with the intention of firing 5 of them (and don't tell them that), that's a dick move. I misrepresented their opportunity at my company.

It depends what you tell them. If you said, "I'm hiring you" and you expected to fire 5, that's a horrible move. But if you told them, "We have a contract for you now, and might have more work later." Now the fact that you're intending to give 10 of them full time jobs is a very nice move! The difference is not just semantics either. If they have other work already, the odds that they accept your first contract will…

This can work if there is a large enough pool of quality applicants that are either currently unemployed or are already contractors. If they are contractors, they may not be seeking full time employment (they like the mobility of contracting). But if you want to recruit someone who has a full time job, lots of luck convincing them to leave a good position (or any steady position) for a 6-month contract that "may" turn into a full time job.

This is how I was hired at my current job though. I was laid off for a few months, and a contract to hire position opened up. I took it, because it was better than not working -- but I would have never considered it if I was working at the time (they ended making me a permanent offer after 3 weeks, instead of 6 months, and I really like the place, so it ended up working out).

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

#308

Post by mtdewcmu » Tue, Oct 22, 2013, 1:29 AM UTC

jaredmcateer wrote: post #177

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I don't believe in comments because they slow the PHP interpreter down." For some bizzare reason, a lot of PHP devs obsess over mini benchmarks and tiny speed issues while ignoring massive latency factors (like the DB). I find it amusing, though, as PHP hasn't been a direct interpreter for years. It compiles to an internal opcode array and interprets that. While its opcode compiler is silly (it doesn't build an AS…

> For some bizzare reason, a lot of P̶H̶P̶ devs obsess over mini benchmarks and tiny speed issues while ignoring massive latency factors (like the DB). This sort of behaviour isn't unique to PHP Devs, not even close.

No, it's not unique to PHP devs. I've encountered C++ programmers that obsess over pass-by-value versus pass-by-reference and strings and minor things like that, even after that code has been written and proved to be fast enough, while ignoring the real bottlenecks that demonstrably hurt performance. A lot of times when there's a big glaring bottleneck, it needs to be solved at the macro level, by reworking the approach to macro-level features, seeing how you can get to the same place by doing fewer time-consuming operations. Those folks are penny-wise, pound-foolish.

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

#309

Post by jasey » Tue, Oct 22, 2013, 1:32 AM UTC

The interview is a 2 way street. While the company makes you jump through hoops to see if your good enough, you also have a opportunity to determine if you want to work for them.

I like to ask "what will I be working on in the next 6 months" that way you don't rock up and than the second day they through you in the deep end of building a iPhone app.

Granted, startups only have a vague idea of what they will be programming with short periods but it helps.

Also ask "what will be my performance indicators". If they don't include "being able to very quickly learn new technologies" its hardly your fault.

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

#310

Post by smm2000 » Tue, Oct 22, 2013, 1:42 AM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #225

sejje wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you read more than half of one sentence that I wrote? The poor are at a disadvantage when it comes to escaping their position in life ; if you need this spelled out for you, the poor are disadvantaged when it comes to making decisions about saving money that could help them improve their financial situation . Wealthy people are better able to make rational decisions about their money, which helps in retaining wea…

If you are hiring for start up, you do not care why they are dumb. Potentially you can save money by hiring non traditional candidates and paying them less, but any advantage you get this way will be short lived. Unfortunately diamonds in a rough are rare and finding them cost more than their value.