The Hiring Post • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hiring Post

#131

Post by eru » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:37 AM UTC

bootload wrote: post #105

cableshaft wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they passed, but invited me to apply again in a year and a half. That was a couple years ago, and their recruiters have started emailing again, so I guess I didn't do too terrible. When they told me they passed they also told me that "some people get passed the first time and then study for the next 18 months and do amazing the next time!" and I just don't have the time for that. I already worked myself half to d…

"... I already worked myself half to death in my twenties for two startups, I'm not going to study for a test as a second job for a year just to get a job at Google, although I still think it'd be fun and clearly challenging. ..." What's "good for google" right? @cableshaft how would you rate @tptacek s observations on hiring with what you observed at google?

Google still does interviews. They try to do them better --- eg separating the hire / no hire decision maker from the face to face interviewer. But I'd like to see them try out more work samples.

I'm going through interviewer training at Google at the moment. (There's a few courses they like you to take before letting you loose on candidates.)

Re: The Hiring Post

#132

Post by kasey_junk » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:38 AM UTC

avalaunch wrote: post #80

The same kind of process works for pure dev jobs. So, you’re a Rails shop? Take a Rails application you’ve actually built and deployed. Carve out some functional areas from the application: remove the search feature, or the customer order updater. Bundle up the app with all its assets, so that a single “vagrant up” gives a candidate an app that runs. Have them add back the feature you removed. How would you compensat…

Two different approaches:

1) If you think that the language/framework is intimately important to the hiring process (I don't but I'm not judging) then you don't compensate for that. It's an important data point.

2) If you don't think its important, you don't worry about matching "idiomatic" practices. You don't judge on obvious library mismatches, etc. If you don't feel confident doing that. Don't have the challenge interact with any language specific code. Let them do it in any language you feel confident of judging.

Re: The Hiring Post

#133

Post by kasey_junk » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #108

MichaelGG wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the candidate gets to do this at their own pace, from home. If so, a good dev shouldn't have trouble learning enough Ruby/Rails to figure this out.

How then do you control for time pressure?

Are you asking how do you judge if someone performs under time pressure? If so, my first answer is don't. If that is a serious part of your real world work, you are doing it wrong.

The less flippant answer is, you give them a deadline but it is both A) flexible in the face of their "real life" (ie if they tell you they are going on vacation next week deal with it) and B) it deals with realistic time horizons (ie a week, not 4 hours).

Re: The Hiring Post

#134

Post by kasey_junk » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:43 AM UTC

bsdpython wrote: post #89

My biggest issue with the work sample tests is the companies that waste your time with them. I've had 3 cases over the years where I was asked to work on something, I did it quickly, with quality and exceeded the specs and I was still turned down at that point (I confirmed that the code was good in at least 2 of the cases). As a senior technical person at this point in my career I simply have very little stomach for…

I completely agree with this, and would love to say that as the hiring side you should always give back the feedback to the candidates. I have actively pushed for that every time I've implemented work sample workflows. But it gets trumped by legal/HR. I think they are being overly cautious, but if you talk to HR folks much you will find they all have a crazy candidate lawsuit story.

Re: The Hiring Post

#135

Post by ska » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #118

ska wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're more wrong than right, and it's selection bias that gives you confidence here. There are people from all sorts of backgrounds that can become very good developers, but their common feature seems to be that they were already the sort of person who could become a good developer, not any methodology used to train them. For example, I'm confident most talented physics Ph.Ds[1] can make decent developers of…

> Given a random person, hell given a random person who is already decent developer in a different domain, my confidence in their ever becoming very good at that domain is much lower. I don't think anyone was saying a random person but someone wanting to get into the field or is already in the field but perhaps not in the right spot when you pick them up. I can't imagine anyone would mean a random person here, that w…

My wording was bad, but I meant a random developer who was not already highly skilled (in another domain)

Re: The Hiring Post

#136

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:56 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #108

MichaelGG wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the candidate gets to do this at their own pace, from home. If so, a good dev shouldn't have trouble learning enough Ruby/Rails to figure this out.

How then do you control for time pressure?

[deleted]

Re: The Hiring Post

#137

Post by dpweb » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

Software development (please, not "coding").. It's a skill like other skills. It's not magic. Being able to practice medicine or law is a skill. Being able to architect a building is a skill. Being able to effectively develop software is a skill.

You judge someone based on their skill level. You have to know what require('fs') is in Node, but you also have to understand truths like the concept of technical debt and so forth.

Not everything is broken or "needs a new paradigm". Know what programming is. What high skill means. If you're any kind of leader - TEACH someone younger or less experienced. When you need to judge, for hiring or otherwise, measure against those truths about what good software development is.

Re: The Hiring Post

#138

Post by hoboon » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 2:59 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #39

drewcrawford wrote: post #32

As a vote of confidence, this article moved me from "I would never ever interview at Matasano" to "I don't want a full-time job at a security firm, but if I did, I would probably start looking here."

Thanks! I hope that carries over to the new firm we started, too. :P

Hi!

I interviewed at matasano before and regret not really getting it. I think I came close but I'm eager to try again.

Re: The Hiring Post

#139

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 3:04 AM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #104

MichaelGG wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about kind 3, the ones that can derive the solution from scratch, in their heads? I thought that was the point of most of those questions. Like "given two linked lists, what's the fastest way to determine if they share any nodes (not values, but actual nodes)"? MS gave me that one in a phone screen and I'd never written a linked list before. But if you actually know what a linked list is, this should be simple f…

> But if you actually know what a linked list is, this should be simple for you to derive relatively quickly (not Googling for a day). Actually I think this is the worst kind of question to ask, because it measures: can the candidate code under pressure? Not "we need to get this done by launch/before client meeting" pressure, but right now pressure. If a company wants literal coding ninjas who can reason about comput…

OK, so make it a conversation. Have them draw on paper, or talk it out.

I'm probably on the wrong side of reality since plenty of people make lots of usable stuff while using vastly suboptimal approaches. OTOH if someone doesn't known very basic stuff, it seems unlikely they're gonna Google stuff and become wise. We're not talking about anything advanced; these are basic algorithms and data structures. Some people just aren't going to be able to handle the concept of memory layout so might as well figure that out sooner than later, right?

Re: The Hiring Post

#140

Post by maxbrown » Sat, Mar 07, 2015, 3:18 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #50

drewcrawford wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah! Don't be afraid to plug your new firm in the blogpost :-) I doubt I'm the only one to mistakenly ascribe your new hiring policy to your old company.

No, you're not mistaken! That's how Matasano has hired for something like 2.5 years. I left the company to do hiring-related things, after feeling like I'd more or less disposed of the challenge completely at Matasano/NCC. There's a pretty big plug coming next week, though not from me. What we're doing meshes well with the worldview in my post, but it isn't a productization of it. This is just what I really think abo…

Can't find a lick of information about Starfighter online - is that on purpose right now then? (Pre-"plug"/launch?) Definitely curious, give us the 2-sentence version if you can?