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Enough with the Programming Puzzles

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Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#31

Post by seren »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #27
jarcane wrote: post #16

If you want to find out if a programmer can actually do the job, then it seems to me that the way forward is to have them do something that actually resembles the job. In the high-end cooking world, it's not uncommon to do one of two things when looking to hire a new cook: 1) Make me a dish. Present the chef with the kitchen, and possibly a specific main ingredient(s), and have them make the best dish they can with t…

> If the candidate seems to know what they're talking about in the interview, maybe just hire the fucking person, and if they suck, fire them. In some countries, employment laws are so crazy, that it's almost impossible to fire someone willy nilly because they "suck". You have to give them written warnings, re-"skill" them, move them to different departments, etc. It's such a pain in the ass and then they still take…

Even in countries with labor laws, people usually have a 3 to 6 months trial periods where they can be fired at will.

I think the true deterrent is not the law, but that it is rather expensive to train someone for 2 months then have to fire him/her, and find someone else.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#32

Post by laichzeit0 »

greggman wrote: post #25
laichzeit0 wrote: post #19

Do you really need to test whether a candidate is technically competent if they have a degree from a well respected university like MIT, etc? You already know he has the discipline and academic requisites. Interviewing someone at that point, I'd expect the employer would be more interested to see if they're a good fit for the company culture and not waste time on academic trivialities.

Well, Laszlo Bock claims Google looked at the data and found zero correlation between having a degree from a well respected university and being useful at Google http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman... So no, using a degree isn't useful for hiring engineers apparently

That's pretty weird though.

Is using a degree useful for hiring medical doctors, mechanical engineers, actuaries? It's really hard to believe that only Computer Science as a field has a problem where it's churning out people who are technically incapable of programming to such a degree that you need to explicitly test them in interviews through "puzzles".

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#33

Post by sandworm101 »

So I guess we know the answer to the "How would you react if assigned a task you didn't enjoy?" question. A: Rather than spend two hours getting the job done, an hour is spent doing a write-up on why the task wasn't done.

A job, any job, will involve thousands of hours with at least a few hundred of them on tasks you really do not appreciate. A candidate not willing to suffer for a couple hours during the interview probably wouldn't have lasted very long anyway.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#34

Post by majewsky »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #27
jarcane wrote: post #16

If you want to find out if a programmer can actually do the job, then it seems to me that the way forward is to have them do something that actually resembles the job. In the high-end cooking world, it's not uncommon to do one of two things when looking to hire a new cook: 1) Make me a dish. Present the chef with the kitchen, and possibly a specific main ingredient(s), and have them make the best dish they can with t…

> If the candidate seems to know what they're talking about in the interview, maybe just hire the fucking person, and if they suck, fire them. In some countries, employment laws are so crazy, that it's almost impossible to fire someone willy nilly because they "suck". You have to give them written warnings, re-"skill" them, move them to different departments, etc. It's such a pain in the ass and then they still take…

In Germany, new employees typically have a trial period where they can be fired on short notice. Usually 3-6 months, depending on the wording of the contract. Dismissal protection only kicks in after the trial period.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#35

Post by corecoder »

m0nty wrote: post #12

Do people applying for other roles get treated to tests like this? Seems peculiar to IT afaict. Having worked in IT for > 25 years, I would have thought my track record would speak for itself, but still I'm treated as though I've been lying and cheating my way through my career. It's not like just asking questions, either: it's a test of basic aptitude and (like the author) I'm at the stage of refusing to do them.

A friend of mine is a seller in a big firm and was asked to guess how many golf balls exist in the world and other such questions.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#36

Post by ZeroGravitas »

greggman wrote: post #25
laichzeit0 wrote: post #19

Do you really need to test whether a candidate is technically competent if they have a degree from a well respected university like MIT, etc? You already know he has the discipline and academic requisites. Interviewing someone at that point, I'd expect the employer would be more interested to see if they're a good fit for the company culture and not waste time on academic trivialities.

Well, Laszlo Bock claims Google looked at the data and found zero correlation between having a degree from a well respected university and being useful at Google http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman... So no, using a degree isn't useful for hiring engineers apparently

The common response to various claims that Google make based on their HR data is: "But they only looked at the people who succesfully got hired at Google".

Which seems a fair criticism to me. Google's hiring process may be as wacky and broken as any other corp, but they're a big name, and will attract a lot of very good applicants.

So "People who got succesfully got hired at Google, and don't have a prestigious degree, do about as well as people who got hired at Google and did have a prestigious degree."

If you're on the outside looking to get a job, you'd probably want to know what percentage of Google employees had prestigous degrees, and what other resume filling achievements the non-prestigious degree crowd had before basing any life decisions on this data point.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#37

Post by Bromskloss »

catnaroek wrote: post #26
kinkdr wrote: post #9

Us, software engineers, start to sound like spoiled kids when it comes to interviewing. We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. We complain about everything. Well, hiring is a difficult problem, and nobody has a universal solution yet. But the truth is that if I want to get a job, I will need eat the humble pie and get out there and try t…

> We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. I love all of those things. In fact, dare I say I like them more than the job itself: (0) The given task is usually short, self-contained, and has a single best solution that can be found purely by logical reasoning. (1) There are no requirements of the form “you have to use this obviously misdesi…

We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. You even index from zero. You're hired!

I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#38

Post by kriro »

gaius wrote: post #22
kriro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's assessment centers for most decent entry level management jobs which usually involve grouping tasks by importance and team oriented tasks. They can last a day, sometimes two. Typical consulting gigs have case studies and market size guesstimating (the dreaded how many lawnmowers in NYC etc.) Typical office secretary jobs here require a work sample so you'll get a typical task for the job and have to do it on…

After entry level...it's usually just an interview and references. Except it's not, that's the problem. But this is not a matter of incompetence on the part of the employer, but of deliberate and calculated policy.

Just to clarify. I was referring to the non-programming jobs. So for an entry level management job you'll do the assessment center and jump through all sorts of hoops. For your next job it's usually a basic discussion. It'll get more rigid again higher up as there will be a vetting process etc. But beyond entry level there's usually no skill tests in the domains I know outside of IT. I think that's the main point. Most people could accept all sorts of programming and possibly even logic tests for entry level IT jobs but after you've shipped software it becomes a bit ridiculous in many cases.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#39

Post by catnaroek »

Bromskloss wrote: post #37
catnaroek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. I love all of those things. In fact, dare I say I like them more than the job itself: (0) The given task is usually short, self-contained, and has a single best solution that can be found purely by logical reasoning. (1) There are no requirements of the form “you have to use this obviously misdesi…

We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. You even index from zero. You're hired! I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer.

> We should get together and just give each other such puzzles.

Would be nice.

> I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer.

Using blackboard and chalk is indeed nicer. The unpleasantness comes afterwards, when you have to wash the chalk off of your clothes.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#40

Post by philbarr »

sandworm101 wrote: post #33

So I guess we know the answer to the "How would you react if assigned a task you didn't enjoy?" question. A: Rather than spend two hours getting the job done, an hour is spent doing a write-up on why the task wasn't done. A job, any job, will involve thousands of hours with at least a few hundred of them on tasks you really do not appreciate. A candidate not willing to suffer for a couple hours during the interview p…

> A job, any job, will involve thousands of hours with at least a few hundred of them on tasks you really do not appreciate.

But you get paid to do those tasks. And remember that those 2 hours are an estimate, which means it'll probably take longer. Then multiply that by the number of interviews you have and you can quickly see why it becomes unfair rather than 'lazy'.

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