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Announcing Starfighter

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Re: Announcing Starfighter

#131

Post by tptacek »

defen wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #2

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…

Can you talk at all about the pricing structure for companies that will use your app for recruiting?

Patrick can, at patrick-at-starfighters.io.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#132

Post by elptacek »

careersuicide wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #2

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…

Is this a reference to "The Last Starfighter"?

Back to sleep, Louis, or I'm telling Mom about your Playboys!

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#133

Post by everyone »

javajosh wrote: post #104
bmelton wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, for those of us who fit your archetype, that mostly build web apps in high-level languages like Python, haven't touched Assembly in a decade, but do not have a team of seasoned hackers hanging out with us in our living rooms, what are the odds that we're going to be able to use it to refine our skills in isolation? I fully understand that if your company is looking for pen testers, I'm not the guy you'd hire. Tha…

This game is not for people who like you (or me) don't have much interest in assembly, systems programming or pen testing. (This group includes, by the way, a large group of very talented programmers who've shipped most of the software the world uses). It is troubling that the language they use on the site implies that systems and security programming is what all programmers aspire to do , but that's just an unfortun…

I find this to be an issue with many of the articles linked on this site. They refer to 'hackers' or 'programmers' .It usually means people doing some sort of web app, or related thing, and it usually doesnt apply to me at all though I know I'm a very good programmer. I make games.

I have a background in architecture, its a mature industry and there are architects, structural engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers, architectural technologists, quantity surveyors, project managers etc.

Perhaps as coding as a job matures over the decades this process will also take place.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#134

Post by tptacek »

pnathan wrote: post #117
tptacek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some things you'd worry about a company like this doing that would increase dance-monkey-dance factor? What are some things a company like this could do to decrease dance-monkey-dance factor? We're not interested in making monkeys dance, unless they want to, and enjoy it.

> What are some things you'd worry about a company like this doing that would increase dance-monkey-dance factor? Not the OP, but anything where a recruiter can go look my rating up, they will. And then that becomes a positive signal, increasing the speed of the rat race, because to be "hip", you have to do the N+1 things. Blech. If you want to reduce the "dance" factor, have a sheltered tunnel from Starfighter to th…

Microcorruption player identities were totally private. There's no way for a recruiter to look someone up, unless they used a very-identifiable username. Privacy is important to us.

How would you imagine the bizarro-world third party recruiter that would emerge from something like Starfighter could interoperate with employers to shield you from the kind of BS you're concerned about? We're interested in ideas!

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#135

Post by georgemcbay »

jasonlotito wrote: post #86
patio11 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll try to make Starfighter maximally useful for casting as wide a net as possible in the candidate pool, including folks who have demanding career/family/etc situations. I'm an ex-salaryman, believe me, I know the frustration. That said, the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good here. The hiring process as it exists on March 9th 2015 is already insanely hostile to people who don't have scheduling flexibility…

How do you ensure people won't be required to still fly out for 3 days of interviews? How do you prevent this from being just another filter before the "real" interview begins?

This was my immediate concern as well, though (to pre-answer the question Thomas already asked you) I don't have any good off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions as to how to stop it.

I think this sort of kick in the pants is exactly the sort of thing that has to at least be tried to sane-ify hiring in tech, but I'm oddly fascinated to watch the ways in which little bits of status-quo inertia and company politics may act to sabotage it.

It is very easy to imagine companies not really "getting it" and seeing it the way they see github contribs or stackoverflow scores or whatever other metric that some do use as a signal, but which very rarely actually gets someone in the door or even on a particularly fast track.

In an ideal world, any sort of testing like this plus a screen to make sure you're not a psycho, a narcissist or just a general pain in the ass on a personal level should be sufficient for virtually any programming job, but there are lots of obstacles without obvious technical fixes: HR dept politics, the hazing culture ("We all did this stupid interview thing, so should the new guy/girl!"), general distrust ("nobody ever got fired for hiring someone using the old method"), etc.

I will be watching this experiment with great interest (and hoping it succeeds).

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#136

Post by rakoo »

tptacek wrote: post #2

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…

Thank you for running a long-term CTF ! I've always been interested in those "improve your coding skills by playing" challenges but from my inexistent experience most of them fall in a combination of:

- They are timeboxed

- They are mostly (if not only) about cracking security

- They are targeted towards low-level languages

You've already stated that it won't be timeboxed (which totally makes sense as a hiring "middleman": you're interested in applicants at all times). You already said that security will not be the single domain. Now, will I be able to use Starfighter as an excuse to finally stop procrastinating and learn that shiny new language I've had on my to-learn list for far too long ? (Patrick more or less hinted it shouldn't be the case, but I'd like to know)

I'm really looking forward to this. On the overall point of breaking the interview standard we have, I'd like to say a huge "Thank you". The points you've made in your blog post really resonate with what I can see (the interview process is a joke if you want to hire actual programming engineers). I really hope we can move towards a model where applicants can show skills through a portfolio, of which Starfighter should be a part if I understand things correctly.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#137

Post by marssaxman »

001spartan wrote: post #97
marssaxman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely insane, yes! After reading this article, I have no real idea what they are doing, but it appears that they are related to an entire genre of games I didn't know about.

I think it's primarily written to a different audience than yourself, then. I mean that in the best of ways. As an infosec sort, it came across pretty clearly what they intended. I think it's just a culture difference between information security, and the rest of IT.

Ah, infosec. Yes, it was clear that it came from some other part of the computer universe, but I had no idea which one.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#138

Post by dsp1234 »

larrys wrote: post #119
bearclough wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I think I'm a bit of a cynic and a bit burned out. There seems to be at least an expectation in the tech industry of having to maintain certain after hours activities to make one self marketable. Personally having a 50+ hour a week day job + side projects + studying + leveling up in order to find new employment is exhausting .... I'm just concerned adding another implied responsibility to a candidates plate se…

"expectation in the tech industry of having to maintain certain after hours activities to make one self marketable" On hacker news you are getting a very small slice of the tech industry. And by reading HN you are subjected to repeated attempts to make you think there is a clear way to be marketable and to earn a living. Rest assured that there are people in tech that the HN crowd makes fun of that are earning fine l…

I work in a beautiful non-SV city, earn six figures, and enjoy my job. I am a Classic ASP developer.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#139

Post by digisth »

achompas wrote: post #78
bearclough wrote: post #40

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.

I think patio11 and tptacek hope this can replace those things, so that you can work towards a new gig on your own terms (instead of going through the usual song-and-dance).

There are lots of ways to acquire and prove skill and knowledge; ultimately, they are all monkey dances to at least some degree. Until we develop a way to read minds (and it'd be great to also do the reverse: give everyone the ability to insta-learn, Matrix-style), we will continue to have to use some kind of signaling mechanism. Right now, there are many of them, all with various levels of difficulty, entrance requirements, and resource requirements. Many are only available to those with various types of scarce resources: free time, supportive parents and family members, and money. Let's list some examples:

- get a degree in any subject (money, family support)

- get a degree in a more pertinent subject (money, family support)

- continually learn new theory/techniques/technologies on your own (time)

- write FLOSS code (time)

- get industry certifications (money)

- get achievements with HackerRank and other 'challenge' services (time)

- go to interviews, answer questions (time, possibly others)

Not to mention all of the 'administrative' things people do to communicate their capabilities (as another comment noted. Those take time, too.)

Something like this seems like it is taking a stab at replacing at least a few of these, but of course it still requires at least some extra resources (in this case, time.) The go-at-your-own-pace nature of it definitely works in its favor. Things like this evolve similar to technology, and its cycles of consolidation and deconsolidation; where once we may have used separate devices (for music, video, reading, etc.), we now use just a couple, or increasingly, one. Perhaps we could think of things like this as the next steps in 'skill and knowledge acquisition consolidation.' Hopefully, things like this will reduce the need to spread efforts so thinly, and save us more of those scarce resources. So while it may be another monkey dance, perhaps it will allow us to dance less, but in a more focused way. Or at least stay on a smaller number of simian dance floors.

If nothing else, it'll be another fun way to learn new things and experiment with theory/techniques/technology you ordinarily wouldn't.

Re: Announcing Starfighter

#140

Post by fsniper »

This whole interview process is broken. Even with this mind of ctf game, one should not be expected to race through peers with different kinds of tools.

Developers are expected to build resumes at work via daily routines, then at home via github, hackerrank, side projects. System administrators are expected to do daily system administration routine, know OSes, tools, cloud/iaas/paas providers inside out and code side projects and build a coding portfolio.

With years of experience, one expects to be respected and not lose time on games, tests, unwanted side projects. Interview process is built towards young gals/guys.

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