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Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

jarednelsen.dev

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Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#261

Post by james_s_tayler »

scarface74 wrote: post #30
rekabis wrote: post #23

The “hopeless list”, no. 3: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” This pretty much sums up my impression of these hiring managers that crank the bar sky-high: they are assholes through-and-through, and are full of shit to boot. If you crank the bar sky-high, all you will get are two kinds of people: those that interview/test well, b…

But while they are getting guidance and mentorship, they are not being a productive member of the team, taking time away from experienced developers and as soon as they level up they will change companies and the next company didn’t have to invest training time. I know everyone has to start somewhere but from the company’s perspective, hiring a junior developer doesn’t make sense.

There's plenty of work that doesn't require an experienced expensive senior level dev to do it. If you have no juniors you have to have your seniors doing that work.

So, it makes sense somewhat.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#262

Post by lifeisstillgood »

ScottFree wrote: post #256
biztos wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." Other than asking about failures (not everyone does) it was just "eh, wing it, tell us what you think." The hiring manager had to then weigh the responses and convince his/her manager if it was a go (we once rejected someone on ethical grounds aft…

> we once rejected someone on ethical grounds after they passed all the interviews What did they do? Suggest sacrificing a puppy to moloch to make a feature release go smoothly?

Does that work? It might be worth a try?

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#263

Post by primrose »

thebean11 wrote: post #242
achievingApathy wrote: post #238

I will never forget the time I was given a coding "challenge" and sent home with the instruction to send it back whenever I felt it was complete. This sent my OCD into overdrive, of course. For the better part of two days straight I coded my heart out and came up with this (what I thought perfect) robust system with all the bells and whistles. Heard nothing back. At all. My calls into the recruiter went unreturned an…

Name the company

Please!

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#264

Post by ScottFree »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #152
gavinray wrote: post #42

Is it really that rare that companies have legitimate hiring processes and realistic interviews? Take this with a grain of salt, because my experience may differ from many here (never worked at FAANG, I spent a lot of time at smaller startups in Boulder and am currently in Miami) but I have only been put in front of a whiteboard one time during many dozens of interviews and it was a generic logic puzzle to see how I…

> Is it really that rare that companies have legitimate hiring processes and realistic interviews? In my experience, the gap between the HN comments section and the real world is massive when it comes to hiring practices. In the world of HN comments, most people tend to identify with the candidate rather the interviewers. The interview candidate is the hero, the underdog, and the person we're supposed to root for. Th…

> most of the senior engineers I know have spent considerable time on both sides of the interviewing table. At different points in their career, they've been the ones asking questions as well as the ones being interviewed. This leads to a lot of cross-pollination of interview techniques as well as different perspectives on what works vs. what doesn't.

I'm one of those engineers. The company I currently work at has no problem finding and hiring competent engineers. I also have no problem suggesting something better than what most companies do. And yet, whenever I interview at other companies[0], the most common interview experience I still have are the horrible ones described time and time again here.

The sort of "cross-pollination" you refer to is not widespread.

[0]: A few times a year, just to keep my feet wet.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#266

Post by throway1n »

deanCommie wrote: post #150
aerovistae wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, let's start with the obvious one-- why do you believe focusing on excruciatingly difficult algorithmic problems totally unrelated to the work you do is a good way of finding people?

Because we want to find the best people at solving difficult problems with limited time, and maximum ambiguity. At a high level that reflects the work that we do. The project scale may be 20 weeks instead of 20 minutes, but the level of complexity is scaled accordingly. Of course, we miss out on some candidates that could be great at executing on a large timeline but can't demonstrate it in a short in person intervie…

this is so wrong i cant believe i am reading it. solving imaginary problems is not the same as being good at your job as an engineer. if google expects people to solve issues at a machine gun rate, it means google wants brick layers that lay bricks constantly. not people who need to stop and think about design issues over time. it wants workers to implement poorly sketched requirements and execute instructions on the assembly line.

i look more after how people approach problems at a high level, where they show how they build the whole system and how they interact with peers and other departments to tell if they can gather data, organise it in specs, and then fine tune nicely build parts of a system. not code monkeys.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#267

Post by drunkpotato »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #241
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and struct…

I have a very simple solution to this problem. It frequently evokes an instinctual negative reaction, for understandable reasons, but I truly believe it would be both equitable and effective. Ready? You want your company to be 50% women? Tell your teams that at least 50% of their hires must be women. That's it. To me, formalizing the quota but keeping the overall hiring process looser makes a lot more sense than the…

I’ve proposed this as well and it went over like a lead balloon. As did the very idea that more diversity would be good for the team. Ah well.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#268

Post by scarface74 »

wpietri wrote: post #136
scarface74 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But while they are getting guidance and mentorship, they are not being a productive member of the team, taking time away from experienced developers and as soon as they level up they will change companies and the next company didn’t have to invest training time. I know everyone has to start somewhere but from the company’s perspective, hiring a junior developer doesn’t make sense.

Sure, you can't invest a ton in mentoring employees if people don't actually want to keep working there. But one of the best ways to ensure programmers stay is to make sure they keep learning. And one of he best ways to make sure your senior people always have something new and interesting to tackle is having them mentor junior people to take over the things seniors are bored with.

And why would they stay just to “keep learning” if they could both keep learning and make more money?

Corporate America is infamous for HR policies where they will only give current employees a maximum percentage raise while hiring new people at market rates (salary compression and inversion). Even if you as a manager want to keep good developers who were juniors but have now leveled up, your hands are tied.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#269

Post by heavyset_go »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #165
LordFast wrote: post #61

I've personally seen no correlation between people who can solve problems and program when watched by another person versus people who can solve problems and program when left alone with a real problem, and ample of time to noodle on and resolve it on their own. The same is true for writers: most are likely not to be interested and/or able to do their best work when watched over the shoulder by another person. The /r…

> I've personally seen no correlation between people who can solve problems and program when watched by another person versus people who can solve problems and program when left alone with a real problem, and ample of time to noodle on and resolve it on their own. At most of my companies, we tried moving exclusively to take-home interview problems for this reason. Short problems that could be solved in 2-4 hours of t…

> Or we had people refusing to do the toy problem (not real work, same test for all candidates) unless we paid them hundreds of dollars to compensate their time.

It's otherwise billable time, don't see why you'd have a hard time respecting that from a candidate.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#270

Post by polishdude20 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #241
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and struct…

I have a very simple solution to this problem. It frequently evokes an instinctual negative reaction, for understandable reasons, but I truly believe it would be both equitable and effective. Ready? You want your company to be 50% women? Tell your teams that at least 50% of their hires must be women. That's it. To me, formalizing the quota but keeping the overall hiring process looser makes a lot more sense than the…

"If we're naturally inclined to skip people who are black.."

The evidence for that is dubious

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