What skillset do participants have to have to play this game? Is it purely security stuff?
Enjoy programming in any language. Be fearlessly willing to pick up programming in new languages. No security knowledge is required. Security is a backdrop for what we're doing, but not the only backdrop; it is one of two problem domains we're starting out with. We use security mostly as a venue for systems programming.
This has piqued my interest more than any other similar challenge/game I've seen in the past.
What's the second problem domain you're starting out with?
I hope it's to do with graphics/parallelized matrix math sort of stuff.
> We’re not here to fix the technical interview: we’re here to destroy it, and create something new and better in its place. That sounds pretty bold - some of us are kind of happy to go in and do an interview and talk about our experience and not spend a lot of time playing a game. I could see the game as more likely to work for people with lots of time and not as much experience or proficiency with the typical proce…
If the only reason you'd mess around with Starfighter is to get a job, we've done something wrong. This isn't one of those sites where you solve discrete programming puzzles for badges, or in lieu of a whiteboard interview.
I'm super excited about it even though I'm happy where I am. I've been doing devops for a while now and I can feel my other dev skills slowly atrophying. This will be (hopefully) a great way to help keep those skills as current as possible.
I’m curious as to how much this will select for people with free time. Many of the CTFs I’ve played in required a quite non-trivial amount of investment of time (which I didn’t mind, as they’ve been quite enjoyable), but there are certainly people who can’t afford n dozen hours to solve problems due to family/work/other obligations. I do think this is significantly better than the alternative, but I’m also concerned…
Good point. Something I'll keep in mind as we go forward. I got so far through microcorruption and ran out of time. Thanks.
I’m curious as to how much this will select for people with free time. Many of the CTFs I’ve played in required a quite non-trivial amount of investment of time (which I didn’t mind, as they’ve been quite enjoyable), but there are certainly people who can’t afford n dozen hours to solve problems due to family/work/other obligations. I do think this is significantly better than the alternative, but I’m also concerned…
Why is it unfair to hire people who spend large fractions of their free time honing their skill over those who don't? I mean, if it shows in the quality of their work...
Edit: I know this comment is unpopular, but every craft industry does work like this to some extent. As a programmer you have a portfolio, and all else being equal those who spend their free time coding have larger and more impressive portfolios. That's the career advice you always give someone on getting their feet into the industry: code more on your own.
I'm all, involved? and stuff? You can, like, ask us stuff, I guess. Let me answer the most frequent questions we're getting right here: "CTF" stands for "Capture The Flag". Conventionally, it's a contest with a collection of "flags" each of which is guarded by a programming puzzle; teams of people compete to collect flags. What we're doing is not a conventional CTF, but if you want to get the flavor of what we're doi…
Disclaimer: I have only skim read the article, so this is for my laziness and the benefit of all Apart from the gameplay mechanism with code challenges, how is this better / different to HackerRank for a) "programmers" b) companies?
Enjoy programming in any language. Be fearlessly willing to pick up programming in new languages. No security knowledge is required. Security is a backdrop for what we're doing, but not the only backdrop; it is one of two problem domains we're starting out with. We use security mostly as a venue for systems programming.
This has piqued my interest more than any other similar challenge/game I've seen in the past. What's the second problem domain you're starting out with? I hope it's to do with graphics/parallelized matrix math sort of stuff.
We'll send a reading list out to the subscriber list, sometime soon. It'll be pretty obvious from that.
From the blog post it sounds like you primarily plan to be used as a "funnel" for employers that engage you, where you are like a super-recruiter bringing candidates that you have qualified yourself.
Do you plan for there to be an option for employers that aren't asking you to refer candidates to still see some view of the performance of a player? Either by paying some smaller fee or by allowing players to have public profiles with some sort of scores?
I’m curious as to how much this will select for people with free time. Many of the CTFs I’ve played in required a quite non-trivial amount of investment of time (which I didn’t mind, as they’ve been quite enjoyable), but there are certainly people who can’t afford n dozen hours to solve problems due to family/work/other obligations. I do think this is significantly better than the alternative, but I’m also concerned…
Why is it unfair to hire people who spend large fractions of their free time honing their skill over those who don't? I mean, if it shows in the quality of their work... Edit: I know this comment is unpopular, but every craft industry does work like this to some extent. As a programmer you have a portfolio, and all else being equal those who spend their free time coding have larger and more impressive portfolios. Tha…
Because free time is something disproportionately available to the privileged. I grew up in a household where money, even if it wasn't abundant, wasn't a huge concern, so I could spend my time outside of school learning math/computers. I've never had to keep a part-time job to put food on the table, spend anhours walking because I couldn't afford gas, or generally be forced to trade my time for money at a terrible ratio. There are people who have, many of whom are likely a better candidate than me, who might just not have the time or mental energy to get home and spend 6 hours hacking on microcontrollers.
I wonder if the authors are fans of Stargate Universe. The show's premise involves a key character being identified by success on a puzzle embedded in a video game.
I'm sure the name is from a much earlier movie (mid-80s), The Last Starfighter.
Why is it unfair to hire people who spend large fractions of their free time honing their skill over those who don't? I mean, if it shows in the quality of their work... Edit: I know this comment is unpopular, but every craft industry does work like this to some extent. As a programmer you have a portfolio, and all else being equal those who spend their free time coding have larger and more impressive portfolios. Tha…
Because free time is something disproportionately available to the privileged. I grew up in a household where money, even if it wasn't abundant, wasn't a huge concern, so I could spend my time outside of school learning math/computers. I've never had to keep a part-time job to put food on the table, spend anhours walking because I couldn't afford gas, or generally be forced to trade my time for money at a terrible ra…
I think I see what you mean: if this replaces interviews entirely then some people just won't be considered for the job because they have children. To me that sounds like a policy issue (it's illegal to discriminate based on irrelevant features to the job). I.e., not something that the designer of the CTF should be responsible for, but something a company could be very liable for if they aren't careful in how the apply the CTF.