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Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

joshcarter.com

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Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#181

Post by bitL »

GordonS wrote: post #177
bitL wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...unless the person you are interviewing decides you are childish, immediately walks away and doesn't respond to your mail ever again, and your business goes belly up as you can't find anyone on the market with the skills that person was bringing, essential to your business. Frankly, not sure why anyone competent in the current climate should take you seriously if you attempted that. It's equivalent to asking a part…

> unless the person you are interviewing decides you are childish, immediately walks away and doesn't respond to your mail ever again, and your business goes belly up as you can't find anyone on the market with the skills that person was bringing Literally not sure of this was meant to be ironic?

Why? You mean showing right away reflection of your childish behavior so that you have some food for thought on how you appear and repel potential employees? :D

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#182

Post by bitL »

GordonS wrote: post #176
ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. If the candidate can solve fizzbuzz but fails at more difficult coding challenges you won't hire him/her. Therefore, the fizzbuzz test is not useful and it's offensive (or at least, boring) to any good candidate.

It's useful as a gatekeeper, to quickly weed out the chaff - I'm not saying it's the only test I do. > it's offensive (or at least, boring) to any good candidate Personally, I find this preposterous. When I get a CV, I don't know the person, and I need to decide if they are worth spending time on. FizzBuzz is a simple filter that I've found to be very effective the fact is that a lot of candidates just aren't up to e…

Imagine your candidate studied at best schools, worked at best companies, contributed to some popular open source projects, now you lucked out and for some reason she ended up interviewing for your team. You examine the CV, and decide "it's Fizz Buzz time!". Now what kind of reaction would you expect from the candidate, whose CV is screaming "I worked super hard to be able to handle the most difficult tasks with enormous responsibility, often life or death situations", and now she needs to "get down to the basics" or no job in your team :DDD What do you think will she tell to her network when they ask her why didn't she end up working for you?

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#183

Post by bostik »

wccrawford wrote: post #19
spyspy wrote: post #3

> So, your code isn’t working, what do you do? Stare blankly at the monitor? This always gets me. When the interviewer asks a question, the correct answer is literally never, “let me think about it quietly for a moment”. This is one of the disconnects between interview programming and real programming people get frustrated over.

While I wouldn't consider that a "correct answer", I'd be willing to be patient and let them think about it for a minute or 2. I may look annoyed, or even pull out my phone and start browsing news, but it's not actually taking points away from them until it drags on too long. Of course, there's not really a way to tell in advance if you get an interviewer like me, or a jerk that insists you know everything off the to…

> * I may look annoyed, or even pull out my phone and start browsing news*

If I, as an interviewer, ever did that I would:

a) expect the candidate to walk out, and

b) get told off by pretty much everyone in the company. Deservedly.

I really cannot think of a ruder way to express "you do not matter" sentiment than completely ignoring the candidate and flip through random stuff on my phone - while conducting an interview.

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#184

Post by GordonS »

bitL wrote: post #182
GordonS wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's useful as a gatekeeper, to quickly weed out the chaff - I'm not saying it's the only test I do. > it's offensive (or at least, boring) to any good candidate Personally, I find this preposterous. When I get a CV, I don't know the person, and I need to decide if they are worth spending time on. FizzBuzz is a simple filter that I've found to be very effective the fact is that a lot of candidates just aren't up to e…

Imagine your candidate studied at best schools, worked at best companies, contributed to some popular open source projects, now you lucked out and for some reason she ended up interviewing for your team. You examine the CV, and decide "it's Fizz Buzz time!". Now what kind of reaction would you expect from the candidate, whose CV is screaming "I worked super hard to be able to handle the most difficult tasks with enor…

That's a fair point, but I thought exceptional scenarios were implied and didn't think I needed to add a disclaimer - if I receive a CV from someone with a good OSS profile, that alone is enough to avoid silly tests. The whole point of FizzBuzz is to act as a crude filter - it's only employed where it's required (which for me is > 90% of CVs).

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#185

Post by GordonS »

bitL wrote: post #181
GordonS wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless the person you are interviewing decides you are childish, immediately walks away and doesn't respond to your mail ever again, and your business goes belly up as you can't find anyone on the market with the skills that person was bringing Literally not sure of this was meant to be ironic?

Why? You mean showing right away reflection of your childish behavior so that you have some food for thought on how you appear and repel potential employees? :D

The idea of walking out and ghosting a company for daring to ask a (very) basic technical question before/during an interview seems very childish.

And the "imaginative" notion of a company going under because they dared to not hire you - a guru above all other, resplendent in technical magnificence - is, frankly, ridiculous.

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#186

Post by walshemj »

detaro wrote: post #82
walshemj wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not for realy good Engineer in my book.

Why is "unix server administration in an environment that doesn't have other options" such a critical skill for all engineers? Or why else is vim experience required? Sure, many are going to have it, but it doesn't mean anything in itself.

I said really good for a reason and vi is used for other things than pure sysad work

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#187

Post by walshemj »

yoz-y wrote: post #69
panpanna wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very easy way to find the 0.5x engineer. But I agree, it should not be a show stopper. (Emacs and vscode user here)

I believe todays programming field is vast enough that you can actually have a really good engineer that never needed to touch a command line editor. An iOS or android developer with 8 years of experience for example. Other front-end positions too. I love vi and set it as editing mode everywhere, nevertheless I accept that it might not be something people actively seek. If I was looking for a unix server admin then I…

Says a lot about googles recruiting standards you do know until recently "front end developers" were designers.

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#189

Post by sureaboutthis »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #180
sureaboutthis wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The default vi config that comes with FreeBSD will get out of insert mode if you use the arrow keys to go beyond the end of the line No it doesn't.

No it doesn't. I checked before I made the post on a FreeBSD 12 machine. The stock vi on OSX (vim 8) behaves more "normally".

I'm on FreeBSD 12 now. No it doesn't. And vim is not vi but vim doesn't do that either.

Re: Dear Programming Job Applicants (2010)

#190

Post by slyall »

Jemm wrote: post #154

"if you haven’t been programming for a while, you can’t program anymore." I do not agree with this at all. For a person who has a proper understanding of how a computers works from the basics, getting up to speed on any language and paradigm might take a short time but telling a person they cannot program anymore is complete BS. Ok, object oriented environments are now more common but so what; they were invented 50 y…

He doesn't mean that you don't know the JavaScript framework of the week.

He means if you have not been writing any code regularly recently (because you have been a Manager or Architect or whatever) then your programming skills will be rusty. You will struggle with FizzBuzz because you have have spent less than 5 hours programming in the last 12 months.

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