Announcing Starfighter • Hacker News Board

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#31

Post by Kalium » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

japesinator wrote: post #14

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…

If people have neither the skills you need nor the free time to learn and demonstrate new skills, then there's few good ways to identify them.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#32

Post by jameshart » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

One of the conventional complaints against CS-algorithm-heavy interviewing is that companies ask all these tough questions about distributed cache latency in red-black tree optimizations, then once they hire people, they're just bashing out PHP and MySQL. How do you make sure that the companies hiring your services have challenges that live up to the skills you're selecting for?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#33

Post by mathattack » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

Hidden in the article is a real gem:

The science of hiring practices is settled: work-sample tests are the most effective way to assess skill in potential hires.

This is one of the most obvious, yet under-applied truisms in hiring.

If they can apply Starfighter beyond Games, or enable non-Game skills to shine while working on Games, it will be industry changing.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#34

Post by chipsy » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

Sounds very competitive, achiever-focused. Do all organizations want programmers who are viciously determined to win? Does that lead to society-efficient solutions?

(To elaborate a little, Richard Bartle noticed four types of players of MUD. Achievers are just one.)

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#35

Post by tptacek » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

hundt wrote: post #27

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 publi…

There is a long-term PVP element to what we're doing, so we want as many players as we can get. We'll play with a number of different ways of matching talent to very smart employers, but our #1 overriding dominating design goal has to be to make players comfortable, so the game works.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#36

Post by paulhauggis » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #12

davidw wrote: post #6

> 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.

If it's not going to help me get a job (and increase my exposure to companies that might look at my stats), then why, as a developer, would I play it?

I know you mean well, but I improve my development skills by developing applications.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#37

Post by ratsimihah » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

Is it significantly different from topcoder?

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#38

Post by hodder » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

I am a beginner programmer, but I am curious what this is all about so I have signed up. Hopefully I can learn something from this even if I am just am just a fighter but no star.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#39

Post by icco » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

I get what they're trying to do, but did this read like a rant from a crazy person to anyone else?

Just the first header block read like they were creating some kind of videogame company... and then finally at the bottom of that text block, "Oh, it has something to do with interviews..." and then halfway down the next section, "oh, it's that kind of CTF".

Anyway, seems cool if they can make applying for jobs more interesting.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#40

Post by bearclough » Mon, Mar 09, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

Wonderful, let me add this to the list of things I need to do in my spare time to remain a hire-able resource .... GitHub, Meetups, reading hacker news, preparing for puzzle interviews, , HackerRank, conquering a CTF. Jeez, can we say dance monkey dance.