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The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

manuel.darcemont.fr

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Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#21

Post by hooverd »

Jensson wrote: post #18
jdlshore wrote: post #9

These sorts of “gotcha” tests are silly. People are complicated, with many different personalities and behaviors. I can think of many reasons an excellent engineer might choose not to fix a broken coffee machine, especially in the stress of an interview. If you want to know how somebody will work on the job, ask them to demonstrate the skills used on the actual job. This is called a “work sample interview.” (Leetcode…

> This is called a “work sample interview.” (Leetcode problems don’t count, because most jobs don’t look like that. Neither do whiteboard interviews, for the same reason.) They do count, job sample tests doesn't need to be exactly like the job just similar. There is correlation between performance on those tests with performance on the job, far from perfect but its much better than the zero correlation you get from t…

They're good for seeing how someone approaches a problem. Although with Leetcode everyone is just testing to see if you remember the One Simple Trick for that case instead of being able to talk through it.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#22

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

> Why not start by observing how they would react to a broken coffee machine?

Because you’re not hiring someone to fix your coffee machine which can’t be fixed without knowing the insides of the specific model of that specific brand.

I would offer to buy instant coffee at the local supermarket. What kind of bullshit trap is this? Do you really want to hire people by confusing and scaring them? It’s on the same level as the LinkedIn crap I see once a week.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#23

Post by gabaix »

tgv wrote: post #6

Is that a LinkedIn post? It's wordy, doesn't explain anything, and tries to be a simple remedy to a complex problem. A problem irrelevant to the task to boot.

These tests are often done by people with a high image of the charge. Despite all the research showing futility, they are used in startups time and time again. They do go away with experience.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#24

Post by hooverd »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5
geraldwhen wrote: post #2

Anyone who spends time fixing a coffee machine is not earning their extremely high staff engineer salary. My time is not suited to fixing coffee machines. People paid literally 1/6th what I am are tasked for that.

From TFA : “if the office coffee machine broke down, how would the candidate react? Would they try to fix it, or would they wait for the office manager or the founder to do it instead?” I guess we know what kind of candidate you would be :) The engineer in me would at least try to characterize the problem. It might be something simple! And to flip your argument around, if it’s something you can fix in a minute, it’s…

I don't trust most software engineers around physical machines.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#25

Post by Enginerrrd »

jdlshore wrote: post #9

These sorts of “gotcha” tests are silly. People are complicated, with many different personalities and behaviors. I can think of many reasons an excellent engineer might choose not to fix a broken coffee machine, especially in the stress of an interview. If you want to know how somebody will work on the job, ask them to demonstrate the skills used on the actual job. This is called a “work sample interview.” (Leetcode…

Yeah this test is terrible honestly. I fix all my own appliances and vehicles including complicated and time consuming repairs and at the office I'd be the first in practice to fix the coffee machine myself too if I thought I could.

But in an interview is almost certainly say something like "after checking for a few obvious things related to normal operation of the machine per the owners manual, I'd inform and defer to my supervisor." Or something like that.

Because anything else is a liability. I know that in fact, no corporate manager wants to go on record authorizing someone who isn't a certified repair technician to attempt repairing an appliance. Some may not want me as an expensive guy wasting my expensive time fixing something that a cheap guy can. It wouldn't take long before the correct aanswer is: order a new one.

Now you could nitpick that how I'd act in actuality doesn't match what I'd say I'd do, and in some contexts that's fair, but most of the time, an interview is about saying the "correct" answers even when you know that's not how the world actually works.

That being said, there is ONE trait I think is a good universal gotcha if you can find a way to test it. To borrow a term from the Army: is the person a BF? ("Buddy Fucker"). I e. The same person who will use the last of the coffee grounds without telling anyone or replacing them is the same person that will leave your team hanging in other contexts. It's a personality thing and it leaks out all over the place. Not that that's the best example, but the type of person to be incredibly inconsiderate to the person that comes behind them is not the guy you want on your team messing up your codebase.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#28

Post by Aaargh20318 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5
geraldwhen wrote: post #2

Anyone who spends time fixing a coffee machine is not earning their extremely high staff engineer salary. My time is not suited to fixing coffee machines. People paid literally 1/6th what I am are tasked for that.

From TFA : “if the office coffee machine broke down, how would the candidate react? Would they try to fix it, or would they wait for the office manager or the founder to do it instead?” I guess we know what kind of candidate you would be :) The engineer in me would at least try to characterize the problem. It might be something simple! And to flip your argument around, if it’s something you can fix in a minute, it’s…

> The engineer in me would at least try to characterize the problem. It might be something simple! And to flip your argument around, if it’s something you can fix in a minute, it’s going to be more expensive to call someone else to do it.

The engineer in me would report it to the office manager so they can deal with getting the right people to do it.

We have fancy/expensive/complicated superautomatic coffee machines at work. I know nothing about how those things work. I also don't know if that machine is even owned by the company or if it's leased. Do we have a service contract? Are we even allowed to touch it when it breaks?

Now, if it was my personal machine and it was out of warranty, sure I'll have a look. But knowing nothing about this machine my instinct would not be to tinker with it, but at the very least first get the answers to the questions above. I'm sure we all have experience with well-meaning laypeople trying to 'fix' a problem and making it worse. I don't want to be that person.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#29

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5
geraldwhen wrote: post #2

Anyone who spends time fixing a coffee machine is not earning their extremely high staff engineer salary. My time is not suited to fixing coffee machines. People paid literally 1/6th what I am are tasked for that.

From TFA : “if the office coffee machine broke down, how would the candidate react? Would they try to fix it, or would they wait for the office manager or the founder to do it instead?” I guess we know what kind of candidate you would be :) The engineer in me would at least try to characterize the problem. It might be something simple! And to flip your argument around, if it’s something you can fix in a minute, it’s…

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

Same shit.

Re: The Coffee Machine Hiring Test

#30

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

hooverd wrote: post #24
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA : “if the office coffee machine broke down, how would the candidate react? Would they try to fix it, or would they wait for the office manager or the founder to do it instead?” I guess we know what kind of candidate you would be :) The engineer in me would at least try to characterize the problem. It might be something simple! And to flip your argument around, if it’s something you can fix in a minute, it’s…

I don't trust most software engineers around physical machines.

As a software developer, I don’t even trust my own code. That’s why I rely on unit tests, integration tests, specifications, and 20 people who have never programmed in their whole life.

I still don’t see how it’s related to coffee.

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