I am lulzing a bit that the top Google result for Starfighter starts "Official website for Starfighter, an erotic sci-fi m/m webcomic" Kind of like when Django Unchained came out and it got a lot harder to debug one of my projects...
Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
61–70 of 125 posts
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#62While the efforts of Matasano to make wargaming cool and hip again certainly is commendable, I think HR drones of the world also appreciate a game of "pretend to be sociable teamplayer/brogrammer".
Too often hackers don't get the job because of being overqualified and prima-donna, rather than lack of technical skill - a game teaching/testing the art of office politics could be applicable to wider market [outside of infosec].
tl;dr: Perhaps less of http://alexnisnevich.github.io/untrusted/ and more of EVE online.
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#63This is awesome. I'll definitely become an avid player, right after I contribute meaningfully to several open source projects, have an active GitHub profile, while keeping my Stack Overflow reputation high, and having a fleshed out CodeCombat profile, and of course making sure my LinkedIn page is up to snuff. I hope when I get this awesome job my employer doesn't mind me keeping all my profiles updated on company hou…
Don't forget to have had a >3.5 GPA from a top university!
Even if you have been working for the last 15+ years (hopefully you don't have gray hair)
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#64This is awesome. I'll definitely become an avid player, right after I contribute meaningfully to several open source projects, have an active GitHub profile, while keeping my Stack Overflow reputation high, and having a fleshed out CodeCombat profile, and of course making sure my LinkedIn page is up to snuff. I hope when I get this awesome job my employer doesn't mind me keeping all my profiles updated on company hou…
No CodeJam victories or at the top of the TopCoder leaderboard? Extensive Coursera certificates? No-hire. Plus I'm beginning to doubt that you've even solved several Project Euler problems in a variety of functional programming languages.
He probably hasn't even implemented a brainfuck interpreter in Scala's type system.
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#65Patrick gave an interview to The New Scientist when we announced last week. We're a little worried about Starfighter Fatigue and are definitely trying not to get too much onto the front page (Erin's diligently writing the game details post, which we want to be the next thing people see from us). In the meantime though, if any of you have questions, we're watching and will answer.
Why does the story say "video game"? I wouldn't call Microcorruption a video game. Was this your word choice or something New Scientist did on their own? Or is Starfighter actually going to be something I would call a video game (instead of what I was expecting which was an experience akin to Microcorruption)?
> Why does the story say "video game"?
I would be because for a large number of people, including the people writing the New Scientist story, games played primarily on or with dedicated or general purpose computers are all "video games".
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#66Patrick gave an interview to The New Scientist when we announced last week. We're a little worried about Starfighter Fatigue and are definitely trying not to get too much onto the front page (Erin's diligently writing the game details post, which we want to be the next thing people see from us). In the meantime though, if any of you have questions, we're watching and will answer.
I'm not impressed that your submarine PR effort lead with a marketing line / hope, presented as established fact. That's crossing the line from self-promotion to skeeziness, especially in a publication that calls itself "Scientist", and attracts readers who don't know it doesn't respect the culture of scienctific communication.
I wrote this story, and can confirm what Thomas says (although I suppose you have no reason to believe me).
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#67Such a cool idea, and I enjoyed Microcorruption, but ended up getting stuck in the second or third level and couldn't even figure out the right questions to ask to get help. (I stepped into the irc channel at some point and asked some simple question, but got an answer that I couldn't even parse. So I realized I was out of my league and needed to learn more basics first.) My one concern is about something that was me…
I was worried about this too, but when I think about how many times I've shared my Github profile/projects and not had people look at it, I doubt it's a real concern. At most people will look at your score, not at the details. That doesn't mean it won't be in the back of my mind adding anxiety while I'm playing the game though.
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#68Because IT worker shortage, right? (Now with more flaming hoops!!)
More like a unicorn 10X Developer shortage. Companies will be pleased to find candidates who are eager and willing to jump through yet another proving ground, after having had so much fun with commit histories and stars on GitHub, SO points, and what have you[1]. They'll find smart candidates who are willing to work for them in exchange for being able to work on Interesting Problems and the occasional you-are-so-smart implicit approval.
[1] Meet the new standard; same as the old standard, and in addition to it.
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you. There's no way I'd play a game where my every move was fair game for employers to scrutinize. That's too much stress and it would suck the fun out of everything. The thought of a game like that irritates me to no end. This is one reason I pay for a private github. I hate that if I'm learning a new technology, have "too many" commits on something simple, or am generally messing around it looks "bad" to e…
I'd argue that if an employer cares about public repo commits to personal repositories, one is probably better off not working for them (at least from my perspective of an ideal employer). If an employer thinks all their developers are infallible and instantly experts in everything they're learning, that sounds like a pretty awful culture. I know I've made silly/trivial commits to my github and it has yet to hurt my…
>If they care about X, it's better if your don't work there.
Not speaking about private repos per se, but whether it comes down to a close call between you and another candidate, or one person on the hiring team is looking to make a quick decision, it's just smarter to avoid meaningless points of contention.
Sure, it's likely you'll never be hurt by this, but it would be sad to miss out on a great opportunity because of some flotsam... and you'll never know why.
Re: Video games beat interviews to recruit the very best
#70This is awesome. I'll definitely become an avid player, right after I contribute meaningfully to several open source projects, have an active GitHub profile, while keeping my Stack Overflow reputation high, and having a fleshed out CodeCombat profile, and of course making sure my LinkedIn page is up to snuff. I hope when I get this awesome job my employer doesn't mind me keeping all my profiles updated on company hou…
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2yhcqn/were_not...
I especially like your point there that this will highlight people who don't have a spectacular Github profile. Lots of people complain that they have a great track record writing proprietary code and the recent focus on Github profiles is unhelpful to them. Hopefully a Starfighter score, compared to a Github profile, is more fun to develop, less intimidating to share, more meaningful when still "unfinished", more digestible by hiring staff, less entangled with employer IP, and perhaps most importantly requires less "vision" to get started.