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We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

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Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#111

Post by dev_throw »

skookumchuck wrote: post #46
MikeTaylor wrote: post #2

Obviously interviewing isn't 100% accurate. Almost nothing is. You definitely can't tell in 60 minutes whether someone will be a success at your company. But you often can tell, with very very nearly 100% confidence if someone will not be a success. And that is the purpose of the interview. To filter out the "definitely not"s — the programmers who can't write fizzbuzz. And yes, I have seen plenty of these. And interv…

An awful lot of programmers have very high and entirely unjustified view of their programming abilities. I'm sure they find the hiring process weeding them out to be very frustrating.

This would be more applicable if the interviewing process had any correlation with on the job expectations. Working on a job also requires: 1. Communication about expectations with team lead, PM and other stakeholders, vetting requirements, and pushing back where necessary. 2. Writing tests that cover as many edge cases as possible (This actually takes just as long as coding a feature if done right) 3. Understanding the pipeline and release cycle, and being able to build new hooks 4. Look at stack traces to debug application crashes. This usually involves debugging code that other people have written. 5. Review other engineer's merge requests, and communicate in a emotionally aware manner.

A leetcode/hackerrank type interview does not test any of these skills. If I work on improving these skills that make me an amazing engineer, it does not get me far in a typical interview, hence my frustration with their "weeding".

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#112

Post by twblalock »

thatoneuser wrote: post #19
MikeTaylor wrote: post #2

Obviously interviewing isn't 100% accurate. Almost nothing is. You definitely can't tell in 60 minutes whether someone will be a success at your company. But you often can tell, with very very nearly 100% confidence if someone will not be a success. And that is the purpose of the interview. To filter out the "definitely not"s — the programmers who can't write fizzbuzz. And yes, I have seen plenty of these. And interv…

How would you know if you failed in identifying someone as not being able? You wouldn't hire them so you wouldn't know when you were wrong

Hiring a bad person is worse than passing on a good person. You have to optimize your interview process to account for this, and that means you will almost certainly pass on some good candidates.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#113

Post by sureaboutthis »

Stratoscope wrote: post #38
sureaboutthis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 35 years and I can't fizzbuzz cause I don't know what it is. Yes, I've heard about it before cause it's mentioned on forums, and I even looked it up once, but I always consider such things childish. (I honestly don't remember anything about it.) Ask me about an algorithm and I'm there but don't play games with me. EDIT: Just looked it up. Yep. A game. Now compare that to my years of accompli…

No sane interviewer says "write Fizzbuzz" as if you should already know what the name means. They give you the specification.

That's what I'm saying.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#114

Post by sureaboutthis »

dtech wrote: post #47
sureaboutthis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 35 years and I can't fizzbuzz cause I don't know what it is. Yes, I've heard about it before cause it's mentioned on forums, and I even looked it up once, but I always consider such things childish. (I honestly don't remember anything about it.) Ask me about an algorithm and I'm there but don't play games with me. EDIT: Just looked it up. Yep. A game. Now compare that to my years of accompli…

FizzBuzz is much less of a game and much simpler of an algorithm than e.g. looking up something in a sorted binary tree. Do you have a problem with the latter as an interview question?

No I don't and that's my point.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#115

Post by toast0 »

sidlls wrote: post #48
terryschiavo22 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you can't FizzBuzz, you definitely aren't going to be able to pick up the codebase in a satisfactorily short amount of time. If you come in in gross clothes and swear, you're not going to fit the company culture. If you're rude to your interviewer, you're not likely to be less rude to your other coworkers. etc.

I cannot recall the last time I interviewed someone for a position other than intern who could not at least muddle through a FizzBuzz problem. I'm talking hundreds of candidates. The likelihood of a "lucky streak" as long as that if "can't FizzBuzz" is common (i.e. not an outlier) is small. Usually when I dig into a person claiming "can't FizzBuzz is common" the result is I find what they're calling "FizzBuzz" is not…

I've gotten enough candidates who can't FizzBuzz to say you can expect to get at least a couple in a group of 100 candidates. More or less depending on what screening you do before interviews.

There is definitely a second line above the simple FizzBuzz many more candidates would have a lot more trouble with two nested loops.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#116

Post by Balgair »

andrewstuart wrote: post #97
danieltillett wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they reject him the first time around? As a recruiter what percentage of the time are you throwing candidates at jobs to see what sticks?

>> Why did they reject him the first time around? Because most people do a really bad job at technical interviewing and selection - there's so much to say about why it would take a book to explain it all. BUT importantly - everyone thinks they do a great job at interviewing and selection. >> As a recruiter what percentage of the time are you throwing candidates at jobs to see what sticks? I'm not sure I understand th…

In your opinion, do you think that the hiring manager rejected the applicant because that hiring manager thought the applicant was too good? As in, that the applicant was a possible threat in the company hierarchy to the hiring manager?

Asking because I've seen that one play out a fair few times.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#117

Post by mattrp »

andrewstuart wrote: post #90

I am both a recruiter and a highly experienced developer and software designer. I once sent one of the very best programmers I know for a job interview. I have met a small handful of outstanding programmers in my > 30 years in IT and this guy was in the top five, near the top. I had personally worked directly with him for 5 years and he was unquestionably one of the most talented programmers there is, and a nice guy,…

I’ve seen this so many times as well where candidates under sell themselves or key accomplishments never get brought up. Even Elon Musk in the most recent Autonomy day had to say to Karparthy “introduce yourself and don’t be bashful.” Even then, I’ve noticed, I’ve noticed that people don’t “hear” things until a second or third conversation. The idea that you can absolutely hear everything a candidate has to say in 60 minutes is just unreasonable. At the same time, I think you did the right thing: you helped your client make a better decision but not letting them rely on a first look exclusively.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#118

Post by hayksaakian »

enraged_camel wrote: post #103
taormina wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can this person code at all? How well? He's trying to draw the distinction between these two questions.

The distinction is meaningless. No company wants someone who can merely code (as determined by their ability to solve fizzbuzz-type stuff). They want someone who can code well.

I think you're missing the point.

The purpose is to Filter out people who can't code at all.

If you've ever hired developers you know how many people show up to interviews and genuinely cannot program to save their life.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#119

Post by andrewstuart »

Balgair wrote: post #116
andrewstuart wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why did they reject him the first time around? Because most people do a really bad job at technical interviewing and selection - there's so much to say about why it would take a book to explain it all. BUT importantly - everyone thinks they do a great job at interviewing and selection. >> As a recruiter what percentage of the time are you throwing candidates at jobs to see what sticks? I'm not sure I understand th…

In your opinion, do you think that the hiring manager rejected the applicant because that hiring manager thought the applicant was too good? As in, that the applicant was a possible threat in the company hierarchy to the hiring manager? Asking because I've seen that one play out a fair few times.

>> In your opinion, do you think that the hiring manager rejected the applicant because that hiring manager thought the applicant was too good?

Not in this case, but I definitely think you are correct, that some people don't want to hire someone who might be smarter than them and therefore be a threat to their position in the hierarchy/sense of belonging/job security.

Re: We can't judge another programmer's abilities in a 60 minute interview

#120

Post by gumby »

I feel that the best we can do is "does this person look good on reference and/or paper? Then if so, in the phone screen and then interview: is there any reason to believe the stuff on paper might not be true?" (that latter happens a surprising amount).

Also: "is this person a jerk?" though you have to account for the awkward things someone might accidentally say when they feel they're in a high-pressure situation.

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