Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

Post by alok-g » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

robbrit wrote: post #324

I'd like to present HN with a challenge. Come up with an interview process that matches _all_ of these requirements: Objective - the process avoids human bias (this guy was in my frat, therefore is awesome). Inclusive - someone doesn't need extensive past knowledge in a particular area of coding to do well in the interview. Risk Averse - Avoids false positives. Relevant - it properly tests the abilities needed for a…

Post by nulltype » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 2:03 AM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #45

bstamour wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's avocado: if they're truly CS fundamentals, then they should be baked into you good and deep during the course of your college education. It shouldn't be painful at all.

I took CS 101 classes almost a decade ago, and since then, I have never once needed to write a binary search tree outside of an interview. I think "CS Fundamentals" are really just "abstract concepts used to teach programming", and calling them fundamentals is disingenuous.

Post by krschultz » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

chrismsnz wrote: post #209

falcolas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only whiteboarding interview processes actually weeded out false positives. In practice, they select for people with good memorization skills. If you can remember the details on a ten dozen different algorithms and data structures, you can pass one of these without having a single lick of creativity or skill. I say this as an employee who has worked alongside many unskilled drones who made it past the algorithmic…

That's not what the interview process is like at all. They're more interested in how you approach real world issues (the questions I got asked were conceivably real-life issues a company like Google would face with its products). If you can solve that issue by applying efficient and well understood data structures and algorithms, then that indicates you understand the problem space and solutions that may apply. It's…

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

iopq wrote: post #398

ricardobeat wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about numbers. A bad hire can easily cause more friction than if nobody was hired at all. Net effect for the business is negative. You're also probably severely overestimating the likelihood of a bad hire going through.

You can fire a bad hire. You can't hire someone you already rejected because a few weeks later they already have a job.

Post by derefr » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 2:17 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #405

MaysonL wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad hires can be fired. Bad rejections poison the well for hiring the good candidates who never apply because of hearing about all the bad rejections.

Bad hires can be fired. But the cost and other effects of doing so vary significantly depending on where you are. Most of the US may have at-will employment, but much of the rest of the world does not.