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

The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

kranga.notion.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 460 posts

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#261

Post by arp242 »

alkyon wrote: post #247
arp242 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like they're currently unemployed(?) But even if they weren't: going from 22k to 50k is a massive difference. People are willing to put up with a lot of bollocks for it. Dismissing that so easily is a really privileged attitude.

"I could already see my salary doubling in front of my eyes" Where do they mention that they're unemployed now? A sufficiently strong candidate can afford to wait a litle bit more.

They also mentioned being fired. But who knows. It's not that important for what I wanted to say.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#262

Post by pclowes »

croes wrote: post #24
sjducb wrote: post #12

I think you’re an A player. You were rejected by a B player that was looking to hire C players. Apply to other companies. In this case it’s not you, it’s them.

To be fair, we only heard one side of the story

I think if that was an honest description of the interview question then that alone indicates insecure B players _at best_.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#263

Post by isaacremuant »

34hadsF wrote: post #117

[flagged]

> are sticklers (mierenneuker), focus on irrelevant things, operate in cliques and have gigantic egos while pretending to be humble.

I'd say these weaknesses are common among many cultures and definitely a thing from people with authoritarian mindsets ("leadership is right because they're leadership").

The same company might employ these people in one team and not in another.

You don't really know until you're dealing. Minimizing their ability to stand in the way of progress is key.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#264

Post by quietbritishjim »

alkyon wrote: post #247
arp242 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like they're currently unemployed(?) But even if they weren't: going from 22k to 50k is a massive difference. People are willing to put up with a lot of bollocks for it. Dismissing that so easily is a really privileged attitude.

"I could already see my salary doubling in front of my eyes" Where do they mention that they're unemployed now? A sufficiently strong candidate can afford to wait a litle bit more.

"I could already see my salary doubling in front of my eyes"

I thought by this they meant (half jokingly) that this potential employer would double the eventual offer because at that point they had just proved how amazing their skills are. Not that they would double their existing salary, and so it doesn't necessarily imply they have an existing job.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#265

Post by cgriswald »

James_K wrote: post #234
wiseowise wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by job you mean acting as a circus bear.

This reply seems very witty until you realise that there are actual people whose job it is to act in a circus. In the real world, a job is mainly being told to do things that you don't really want to do, but deciding to do them anyway because you're getting paid.

I wouldn’t accept an employee or a boss who thought this was a reasonable definition of a job.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#266

Post by pclowes »

bootsmann wrote: post #38
jcz_nz wrote: post #2

Very clever! Also, I’d steer absolutely clear of any company that does this. This doesn’t assess anything meaningful, it’s an ego trip for the interviewer. Ugh.

Disagree, this is a significant step up from the leetcode-style programming puzzles that other companies do. It doesn't bank on the interviewee knowing the specific trick that makes the puzzle work and instead tries to somewhat test the skills that are more significant for the job at hand like debugging, refactoring and dealing with changing requirements.

Most leetcode questions are just asking if you can recognize the same 15 core CS algorithms in different situations and pick the right one.

A few have a trick or insight but I haven’t ran across those in interviews.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#267

Post by airforce1 »

z3t4 wrote: post #168

I think this might be a troll post, but here's my comment anyway. The reason why you didn't get this job is because they filtered out themselves, it was not you that was bad, it was them thinking you where too smart for them. It took a lot of time for me to figure out this, that in a relation you want someone that are on the same level. I used to think that companies want to hire the smartest people... But no, they w…

My initial thought is that it is a troll post as well. All interviewers had to say was "ok, but your program needs to be able to take input from a file and write output to a file" and OP would have been caught with his pants down.

Instead OP is a hero who bests the interviewers at every turn with his cleverness.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#269

Post by James_K »

cgriswald wrote: post #265
James_K wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reply seems very witty until you realise that there are actual people whose job it is to act in a circus. In the real world, a job is mainly being told to do things that you don't really want to do, but deciding to do them anyway because you're getting paid.

I wouldn’t accept an employee or a boss who thought this was a reasonable definition of a job.

Why? It is a simple fact that people only go to work because they get paid. You can verify this for yourself by seeing how many people continue to work for a company after it has stopped paying them.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#270

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

It reminds me of Typing the Technical Interview (highly recommended if one is unfamiliar) but seemingly more likely to be non-fiction, given the difference in storytelling style. I wish the author luck in their search.

https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview

Post reply on HN