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Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

triplebyte.com

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Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#191

Post by sunir »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
on_and_off wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a perverse effect on the profession as a whole. In the silicon valley I have a fair amount of colleagues that expect of any dev to spend a fair amount of their free time grinding on even more dev. No surprise that there is a lack of diversity in the profession as a result.

Except for people over 50 who have probably realized there is more to life, why would some demographics be willing to grind less than others? Edit: By "over 50," I mean age demographics in general, which is the main thing that raises your family obligations. The only demographic division that I can think of that would reduce someone's willingness to abandon their personal life would be age.

They have kids. Developing a sentient being is a higher priority and more difficult than developing React Redux.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#192

Post by Apocryphon »

gonehome wrote: post #94
griffinkelly wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with some folks who were decent engineers who originally didn't get offers from FANG companies because they blew the interview; they later studied their ass off on leetcode and got offers. This did not make them better engineers at all. Ultimately, its just studying for the test, very much like the ACT/SAT in high school. You can be great at taking tests but ultimately a terrible student or vice versa.

It feels very much like that to me which is why it’s strange there isn’t a Kaplan equivalent. There’s interview cake and leetcode, but I think people would pay $2k for a class that focuses on the questions and in person whiteboard practice. They could collect information about the interviews at the major companies and then use those to create the program. For payment could also help candidates negotiate and then take…

The major ones seem to be Outco and Interview Kickstart. But agreed, there's far fewer whiteboarding/interview process-specific bootcamps compared to web/mobile bootcamps.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#193

Post by pcstl »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
on_and_off wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a perverse effect on the profession as a whole. In the silicon valley I have a fair amount of colleagues that expect of any dev to spend a fair amount of their free time grinding on even more dev. No surprise that there is a lack of diversity in the profession as a result.

Except for people over 50 who have probably realized there is more to life, why would some demographics be willing to grind less than others? Edit: By "over 50," I mean age demographics in general, which is the main thing that raises your family obligations. The only demographic division that I can think of that would reduce someone's willingness to abandon their personal life would be age.

People from some demographics are less likely to have the option to spend all their time grinding. Spending all your time grinding means that you don't need to work toward supporting yourself or others.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#194

Post by mtberatwork »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
on_and_off wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a perverse effect on the profession as a whole. In the silicon valley I have a fair amount of colleagues that expect of any dev to spend a fair amount of their free time grinding on even more dev. No surprise that there is a lack of diversity in the profession as a result.

Except for people over 50 who have probably realized there is more to life, why would some demographics be willing to grind less than others? Edit: By "over 50," I mean age demographics in general, which is the main thing that raises your family obligations. The only demographic division that I can think of that would reduce someone's willingness to abandon their personal life would be age.

Well, kids, family obligations and any other non-work related stressors that zap your free time.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#195

Post by pmiller2 »

acroback wrote: post #172

What is important to employers? 1. A candidate who can solve puzzles but is not willing to do the dirty work with team, solving production issues, doing debugging, bug fixing with usual stuff. 2. Another Candidate, who is willing to learn, is ready to work with team and do the dirty work. I am on a hiring committee as a Tech Lead, and I always try to weed out 1. Works great, we hire as interns and then assess them. S…

I didn’t interview with Facebook or Google either, both because I didn’t want to grind leetcode, and because those companies are pure evil.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#196

Post by Apocryphon »

chooseaname wrote: post #177
gonehome wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels very much like that to me which is why it’s strange there isn’t a Kaplan equivalent. There’s interview cake and leetcode, but I think people would pay $2k for a class that focuses on the questions and in person whiteboard practice. They could collect information about the interviews at the major companies and then use those to create the program. For payment could also help candidates negotiate and then take…

The only way I would consider paying for a course like this is if, upon successfully completing it, I would not have to do the technical portion of the interview at companies I applied to. They would accept this cert and just do the soft skills interview.

Sounds like a neat segment for Triplebyte to move to- or for a competitor to capitalize upon.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#197

Post by jonahhorowitz »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
on_and_off wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a perverse effect on the profession as a whole. In the silicon valley I have a fair amount of colleagues that expect of any dev to spend a fair amount of their free time grinding on even more dev. No surprise that there is a lack of diversity in the profession as a result.

Except for people over 50 who have probably realized there is more to life, why would some demographics be willing to grind less than others? Edit: By "over 50," I mean age demographics in general, which is the main thing that raises your family obligations. The only demographic division that I can think of that would reduce someone's willingness to abandon their personal life would be age.

People who have other responsibilities have less time to grind - and those other responsibilities fall more heavily to under-represented folks. Consider things like taking care of children (including siblings), elder parents, and other household work.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#198

Post by jorblumesea »

taylodl wrote: post #31

Another solution to this problem is contract to hire. I realize this is kicking the can down the road to the contracting firm but hear me out: that's the business the contracting firm is in. They can get really good at their hiring practice since that's their core business. That's not our core business. We've been doing this for the past two years and it's worked out great. Now you can see how well people do the actu…

This is dangerous because it will just create a shadow workforce of contractors without any health benefits or rights as an employee. We already have this issue in tech.

Many companies are "contract to hire" but never hire and keep contractors on as long term employees.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#199

Post by [deleted] »

whatshisface wrote: post #179
on_and_off wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a perverse effect on the profession as a whole. In the silicon valley I have a fair amount of colleagues that expect of any dev to spend a fair amount of their free time grinding on even more dev. No surprise that there is a lack of diversity in the profession as a result.

Except for people over 50 who have probably realized there is more to life, why would some demographics be willing to grind less than others? Edit: By "over 50," I mean age demographics in general, which is the main thing that raises your family obligations. The only demographic division that I can think of that would reduce someone's willingness to abandon their personal life would be age.

[deleted]

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#200

Post by geoka9 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #162
chillacy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like an industry hazing ritual. How bad do you want it?

Hmm. Y'know, that's a great point. I could build a whole conspiracy theory off of that idea: If I'm a FAANG, I'm simply not using my normal interview process to hire for the really interesting jobs. I reserve those ones for people who got the job by virtue of their publication history in the academic literature, or because they built some well-known cool thing, or because they got promoted into the position. Those pe…

But they are not supposed to be boring? At least to me they never are, it's just that they are rarely high on my list of important (or fun) things to do on my self-improvement time.
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