Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Last Technical Interview

steve-yegge.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 291 posts

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#251

Post by WorldMaker »

chihuahua wrote: post #58

The "provisional employment" idea sounds good at first, until you think about how it would actually work in practice. You have 100 applicants for 1 position. Which one do you provisionally hire? Ah of course, we have to do a traditional interview loop to evaluate 10 candidates before we can pick one. So you do the traditional interview loop, and then you have 6 months of provisional employment. You haven't replaced a…

You could scale "provisional employment" by making use of "past employment" as a weighting mechanic. Let other companies do the "is employable" and "works on a team" checks. I believe that is called "a resume" and "references". "Let's add stamps and maybe a star system for these references" sounds like just reinventing LinkedIn with a slightly more Uber-like UX. LinkedIn already exists? Resumes already exist?

It seems to me like a lot these problems start and end at "we don't trust resumes and past employment history" and "we highly prize 'cultural fit' but think there needs to be a technical component to 'cultural fit' interviews rather than just doing proper 'soft skills' interviews". Maybe we all should just straight up stop pretending like we are looking for anything more than soft skills and vibes?

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#252

Post by wffurr »

QuiEgo wrote: post #237
dnnddidiej wrote: post #85

Seems a bit detached from the real world. If I am doing a 6 month contract which is what he is proposing then yeah I want a great day rate and to earn 12 months salary in those 6. It basically means I invest in a company that doesn't believe in me and probably wont try to help me succeed. Also mortgages, car loans, life and health insurance etc. are harder to get on a short contract. Hiring is broken (maybe) but 6 mo…

The only way provisional works is if your survival (food, health insurance) is not tied to having a job at all times. Once you're past 26 and can't be on your parent's insurance it's a total non-starter in the USA.

This is an underrated point. Healthcare especially is tied directly to employment in the US and basically kills this idea all by itself without major reform away from employer provided health care.

I think it might actually be a good thing for both employers and employees if health care, housing, and food access was secure enough to give people the freedom to take six month internships, but I have no idea how we get there from here.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#253

Post by musicale »

tcdent wrote: post #202
musicale wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have 100 applicants for 1 position. Which one do you provisionally hire? Sample size of 100 seems like overkill for finding a 6-month contract employee. How about starting with a sample size of 1: Sort the applicants (ether randomly or by criteria of your choice, pre-filtering as desired) and hire the first one who meets the minimum qualifications, based on a streamlined interview process of your choice. You co…

Losing two weeks while you try out a candidates fit has way less cost than bringing the wrong person on formally and spending the next year debating wether they were the right choice or not with all of the associated "soft" overhead.

I think so. 6-month contract with 2-week (or however long) vetting period seems like it might work.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#254

Post by musicale »

mplanchard wrote: post #194
kevin_nisbet wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little bit more on the fence with the work sample interviews having designed them and also interviewed through them. I've also done my fair share of "traditional" tech interviews, all at startups, never FAANG. As an interviewer, I much prefer the signals generated through a work-sample interview. I'm much more confident in the hiring recommendation than I get from a 1 hour zoom session. However, if I look at te…

Going through the interview process now for the first time in half a decade, and while I already would have said five years ago that I preferred work samples, that opinion is only growing stronger as I go through the process again. Leetcode style interviews feel so stupid and divorced from the reality of the job, especially the “one weird trick” kind where you’re expected to discern the best possible solution to a pr…

> the “one weird trick” kind where you’re expected to discern the best possible solution to a problem on the spot and in a pressurized situation.

Those were (and are) absolute rubbish; "in 20 minutes please come up with something that took [Knuth, Dijkstra et al.] years to come up with."

Fortunately AI seems to have killed them (leetcode interviews, that is - Knuth is very much alive and seems to be happily coexisting with AI [1].)

Disclosure: I did enjoy Google Code Jam as a fun thing (even though AI killed it as well), but it's useless as a model or method for hiring.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47306926

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#255

Post by mgfist »

Yhippa wrote: post #162
mgfist wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must've read 2 different posts. And even if you're interpretation is correct, you sound pretty rude. You're really gonna mock someone for not liking the interview process and trying to make it better?

An equally rude and aggressive response.

In what way? I didn't attack his character like he did to the blog author.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#256

Post by cherry_tree »

QuiEgo wrote: post #250
yawnxyz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory, you CAN fire anyone for any reason the article is wrong here

You can, but most places would rather spend months building a legal shield through a PiP rather than risk a lawsuit.

Most places? Are you a human? Have you been to the United States?

Do you genuinely think McDonald’s is building a months long case against a fry cook? That Amazon is building a months long case against a delivery driver or warehouse worker who refused to pee in a bottle? That target is putting a cashier on a pip for months and allowing lost sales or theft?

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#257

Post by kristjansson »

spit2wind wrote: post #233
yawnxyz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory, you CAN fire anyone for any reason the article is wrong here

Dead wrong. Because I see so many people who believe otherwise, here's a direct quote from a prior contract: > I UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPLOYMENT WITH THE COMPANY IS FOR NO SPECIFIED TERM AND CONSTITUTES "AT-WILL" EMPLOYMENT. I ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT ANY REPRESENTATION TO THE CONTRARY IS UNAUTHORIZED AND NOT VALID UNLESS SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT OR CEO OF THE COMPANY. ACCORDINGLY, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPL…

Whatever clause in whatever contract is just the starting point for negotiations if things go south.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#258

Post by cherry_tree »

Schnitz wrote: post #229
yawnxyz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory, you CAN fire anyone for any reason the article is wrong here

In practice, at any larger corporation with an HR department, despite the law saying so, you can absolutely not fire anyone for any reason. As a manager you’ll have to go through a 1+ month process of documented coaching, performance improvement plan, etc to gather evidence in case the employee sues after being let go. So not sure if Steve is technically correct here, but he is very much practically correct. It’s bee…

>at any larger corporation

Like walmart, mcdonalds, amazon, target, home depot? It’s incredible how insulated the HN audience is to the real life day-to-day concerns of workers in the United States.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#259

Post by kristjansson »

cryptoboy2283 wrote: post #75

Signals I've got from this post: - Steve's company got acquihired by Amazon, granting him a free ticket in without all the torment of the multi-stage interview pipeline. - It's a well known fact that it's easier to jump from one FAANG to another, so while interviewing at Google he had significant advantage, plus the blog gaining popularity. - All of this has caused a deep down imposter syndrome, which resulted in an…

Per TFA Steve got hired by Amazon and then kicked off the acquisition of his former company.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#260

Post by cherry_tree »

mooreds wrote: post #245
sitzkrieg wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this sarcasm? tech industry has some of the worst layoffs ever. i have personally seen several different employers notify employees day of firing they no longer have a job

Not sarcasm. I guess I've just had different experiences than you. The larger point of the effort involved before the employees' last day still stands. But that's a hard one to speak to generally, since most folks in layoffs or firings don't talk about the process used to arrive at the decisions.

You haven’t experienced the last 2 years of layoffs across the tech industry? Do you have any friends in the industry? Do you avoid news about the industry?
Post reply on HN