You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview • Hacker News Board

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#221

Post by divbit » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:09 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #185

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just three sorting algorithms anyone cares about, and they're not particularly complex. Someone with a math background should be able to pick them up in a few hours at most.

And outside of interviews, you will, with high probability, never, ever, have to code one yourself. You'll just call sort(), or OrderBy(), and rely on the battle-tested and bullet-proof standard library implementation.

Exactly, I used python heavily for a while, so don't think I've ever even coded my own for anything 'real' (e.g. outside of project euler or something) - I think the closest I've done on a real project is to code the comparison function and feed that to a sort.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#222

Post by morgante » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:10 AM UTC

jryan49 wrote: post #182

groby_b wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... FizzBuzz still works. A large percentage of phone screens fails it. It's not meant to be a signal you're a good developer if you pass, it's meant as a signal you're an atrociously bad one if you fail. Most people don't bother to even memorize it, and those who memorize are thrown by slight variations.

When's the last time you had to modulo a number? I feel like when I was first asked this question I got hung up on that more that anything.

You don't need the modulus operator to solve FizzBuzz.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#223

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:10 AM UTC

throwaway420 wrote: post #148

I'm waiting with great anticipation for the politically correct outcry to solve the problem of not enough women being represented in the mining, construction, sanitation, logging, or deep sea fishing industries, or for there be a popular movement to get more men into teaching or nursing where they're also dramatically underrepresented there. Let's see if there's any intellectual honesty here, or maybe there's somethi…

When you have an argument that's A) deeper then a copy/paste soundbite, B) doesn't contain an informal fallacy ("how dare you try to fix this one instance of a problem until you've fixed every other instance of it first, and I'll use this no matter which instance you go after first"), and C) doesn't require you to look like a 1990s $la$hdot u$er talking about Micro$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$oft, maybe we could have a constructive conversation. But the tone of your comment suggests you're not really interested in it, y'know?

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#224

Post by sjburt » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:10 AM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #145

trhway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This seems to imply that these technical interviews are skills that you don't really gain on the job. the technical interviews skills are gained, at least in my experience, as result of the technical interviews - which normally implies, and did happen in my case, high rate of interview failures initially. Taking failures hard would naturally lead to Catch-22 here.

the biggest catch 22 for me is when you work with someone for years at a job. at this job you have a strong interview process. you reject the same 80%+ of candidates. then you move somewhere else. you refer your friend. they get rejected. were they a bad employee? did they sneak in the door at the last place? Is there a problem with how we do interviews?

Speaking as someone who has taken on a lot of hiring responsibility: the cost for rejecting a good applicant is 4-5 hours of my teams time while they interview someone else. The cost for accepting a bad applicant is several months of salary, reduced productivity for my team, risk of a discrimination suit if I don't put them on a PIP, etc.

So as a hiring manager I am pretty OK with rejecting a lot of good applicants just because some little part of the interview didn't go well, if it means that I never hire anyone really bad. The good applicants will get jobs somewhere else, it's OK.

The technical interview is part of that. The coding test is part of that. Sitting down with them and making sure they can talk through a problem with their future teammates is part of that. There's no one piece.

And finally, if your career is to write code and solve problems, and someone gives you a test where you have to write code and solve problems, you should be elated. Is there anyone that wants to answer the "Tell me about a time where you had a disagreement with a supervisor"-type questions that the rest of the world has to deal with?

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#225

Post by generic_user » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:13 AM UTC

markonthewall wrote: post #179

ucarion wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just political correctness. The socially optimal future is one in which anyone, regardless of race and gender, can become a software engineer. Someday, we're going to put in effort to move from our current world to this better future. Software engineering is a highly-desirable, well-paying, forward-looking job and it's still early days. Why not give it a shot? There are of course many PC-police types who can…

Sometimes I wonder if software engineers are half as smart as they think they are. I can't think of any precedent or similar situation: a corps of highly skilled workers pro-actively sabotaging themselves in order to share the fate of their country's dying middle class: longer hours, shrinking salaries and cut-throat competition for employment. I am glad that I have some fuck-you money now. Because the prospects as s…

There is a reason why the software industry and many others try hard to keep a young 'fresh' workforce even tho it contributes to more inexperienced and costly labor force.

After a few years the stars in the eyes ware off. You realise that all the idealism and hype is simply marketing a dream that will get you in the door. Your a cog in the wheel of a rather boring pedestrian industry and replaceable.

At that point you might start to realise that all that overtime is just wasting your life away not work that is going to change the world. All the free food and drink you get at work is just making you fat and you don't have a social life anymore, etc, etc.

We are all like that to one degree or another in the beginning. But the level of sugar coated frothy idealism laid on the SJW's at university now is going to cause serious mental problems for these kids when the sugar high starts to ware off after a few years in the real world.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#226

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:14 AM UTC

rjbwork wrote: post #166

bit_logic wrote: post #146

This is because the technical interview has completely degenerated into an arms race. It started with good intentions. It used to be just, here's a problem, try to solve it and let's discuss. And at first it was fine. But then knowing Big-O, algorithm, data structure, etc. became a way to "show off" and impress the interviewer. So everyone started to focus on those to impress the interviewer. Then the interviewers no…

> But then knowing Big-O, algorithm, data structure, etc. became a way to "show off" and impress the interviewer How is knowing the very basics of CS a way to show-off? It should be requisite shouldn't it? That said, I agree with the degeneration to arms race. I'm awaiting an interview question on Shor's algorithm. "We like to be ready for whatever the future may bring here at LolCorp."

How often, in your day job, is it a necessary job-related task for you to be pop-quizzed on the Big-O characteristics of half a dozen data structures and then have to draw out manipulations of a binary tree on a whiteboard?

Somehow we decided to never test for the things we actually do at work, and instead to invent an entirely new discipline (whiteboard interviewing) and test for competence at that, in hopes it would translate to doing well on the job.

Thus far the empirical evidence is not particularly great that testing for the skill of whiteboard interviewing translates to success on the job, and there's a growing body of evidence that it excludes the most desirable people (since experienced high-quality candidates are likely to have been out of school, or whatever they used to learn "fundamentals", for long enough that the things tested in a whiteboard interview are not close enough to the top of their minds to consistently pass).

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#227

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:16 AM UTC

treehau5 wrote: post #4

I agree that tech interviews are terrible, and you cannot do any sort of self-reflection on them (especially if they are these q/a and or puzzle types where they don't give you answers or feedback of what you are looking for, despite being reasonably confident you answered correctly -- even after having requested the feedback -- I had this experience at GitLab) > We believe that technical interviewing is a broken pro…

There's a reason why coding bootcamps now tend to have a section at the end, entirely separate from teaching coding, on how to pass technical interviews, because technical interviews are increasingly completely divorced from the skill of knowing how to code (despite the claim that failing a technical interview is unimpeachable proof that a candidate was an impostor who was "lying" and "couldn't really code").

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#228

Post by weberc2 » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:17 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #202

mzw_mzw wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why not give it a shot? A) because the evidence of institutionalized discrimination in the field is scanty at best. B) because the techniques suggested for "giving it a shot" frequently involve cruel social manipulation, elimination of meritocracy, and accusing innocent people of sexism or even sexual assault. C) because "giving it a shot" also suspiciously often involves handing over money and power to sociopaths w…

With regard to getting responses to job applications, there's plenty of evidence that women and people of color face systemic discrimination: - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/st... - http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-...

He did say "in the field". Further, I remain skeptical toward sociology departments until they bump their reproducibility up a bit above 50% or bring their ideological homogeneity down below 90%. And I don't trust gender studies departments at all ("glaciers are sexist" and whatnot).

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#229

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

aantix wrote: post #113

pj_mukh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly empirically provable [1]. Diverse teams come up with better ideas that apply to a larger swath of markets (an immediate payoff for companies). [1]: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-...

Maybe the larger the body of employees, this becomes more and more the case. But if you're hiring your second engineer on the team? Hire the absolute most productive engineer. Even if that turns out to be a white male. And don't feel guilty.

Your statement to "hire the absolute most productive" implies that no woman or black or hispanic person can be "the absolute most productive", because there is no reading of your comment which makes sense without the assumption that you believe this.

Congratulations, you've exposed yourself as possessing irrational biases and allowing them to influence how you'd hire, while showing no desire to eliminate, overcome or compensate for those biases. As a result you are unqualified to ever make a hiring decision.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#230

Post by rjbwork » Thu, Nov 03, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #226

rjbwork wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then knowing Big-O, algorithm, data structure, etc. became a way to "show off" and impress the interviewer How is knowing the very basics of CS a way to show-off? It should be requisite shouldn't it? That said, I agree with the degeneration to arms race. I'm awaiting an interview question on Shor's algorithm. "We like to be ready for whatever the future may bring here at LolCorp."

How often, in your day job, is it a necessary job-related task for you to be pop-quizzed on the Big-O characteristics of half a dozen data structures and then have to draw out manipulations of a binary tree on a whiteboard? Somehow we decided to never test for the things we actually do at work, and instead to invent an entirely new discipline (whiteboard interviewing) and test for competence at that, in hopes it woul…

I mean, I think the whiteboard thing is pretty lame, and would prefer to give and get coding tests on my own machine and environment.

But yeah, I expect someone to be able to tell me what the complexity of various algorithms when shown them is and how to manipulate common data structures. At the very least one ought to be able to walk a tree don't you think? My front end engineer has to walk a tree of JSON on a project right now. I'm glad she can do it.