I totally agree, so how can we interview for this?
It's basically "what big projects have you done a ton of work on". Have them design something not straight forward or posted online in front of you as well.
Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#32I totally agree, so how can we interview for this?
Please no! Tech interviews are already steaming hours of worthless horse shit as they are.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#33Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#34Why the f k do these stupid companies then ask really hard Algorithm puzzles in interviews? This is insane, what is imp? Giving too much info or not, asking more questions or not? Oh man, sometimes I hate this process of interviewing.
What do you suggest they should ask instead?
- what do you like doing?
- how are you as a person, a coworker
- are you able to ask for help?
- can you hold a conversation?
- how do you learn?
- describe a failure in your career and how it went from there
all this is for the interviewer and the interviewee to get to know each other each other and see if the candidate is a good fit for the company culture and values. If the recruitment lets in a narcissist or toxic person it will poison the well.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#35This reminds me of the PHD in the office, who was hired because of some mathematical related skill they specialize in, is never getting their hands dirty. They are off somewhere looking smart and protecting their allure, while us grunts are keeping the lights on. Broad stereotype here, but it is what I have experienced. To be very honest, being on Google searching constantly has been the most important skill. In this…
You're like the hospital janitor complaining that the doctor never wipes the floor. He's just off somewhere "looking smart". ... do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? Let me say that I get your point of view: I know of the existence of smart and educated people who are lazy, presumptious, have a superiority complex, talk down on everyone and/or are fakes. Do you understand my point of view though? Are you aware…
Since we're all throwing around anecdotes, I k ow both PhDs and long-time industry experts - gun to my head, one of them has to solve a problem or I die, I'm gonna choose the industry expert even if it's in the PhD guys field. Academic honours are very over-rated
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#36The tough truth is that you need to be able to do both, or your skillset will never be complete. If you specialise in algorithms, you might never be able to put a bunch of them together to build a system that works and does something interesting. If you focus on architecture but never understand how to read and implement algorithms and how to evaluate them, you will always be limited in what your systems can achieve and how well they work.
Additionally, most of us are limited in what we can learn in a lifetime. Talent is far from the primary limitation (most people will be average in terms of innate ability; my guess). Far more important is the time available to study and learn new skills and the motivation to do it. Then there are issues of personal preference: if you just love algorithms, you will tend to focus on them, if you love building systems, etc.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#37This reminds me of the PHD in the office, who was hired because of some mathematical related skill they specialize in, is never getting their hands dirty. They are off somewhere looking smart and protecting their allure, while us grunts are keeping the lights on. Broad stereotype here, but it is what I have experienced. To be very honest, being on Google searching constantly has been the most important skill. In this…
You're like the hospital janitor complaining that the doctor never wipes the floor. He's just off somewhere "looking smart". ... do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? Let me say that I get your point of view: I know of the existence of smart and educated people who are lazy, presumptious, have a superiority complex, talk down on everyone and/or are fakes. Do you understand my point of view though? Are you aware…
That is not nearly accurate analogy. Note that doctors in hospital do more then just looking smart.
And know multiple people who are like he described: generally keep aura of looking smart are are good in few selected areas and generally don't really do much work. And they always get absurd amount of benefit of doubt the same way you do here. Meanwhile anyone who criticize them is assumed to be stupid hospital janitor who don't get that they are the ones who do real work.
And know, they do not do "valuable complex things" nobody else cant grasps on the project. They talk about complex things around water cooler to impress people.
And yes I do know people who do complex things too.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the massive amount of churn in the web world is the exception rather than the rule. If you learned C programming 40 years ago it would still be relevant today. Even Android is almost 10 years old now.
If you learned Ada, Modula-2, Pascal, or BASIC, though, it might not be so relevant. COBOL, FORTRAN, Smalltalk, and Perl 5 are somewhat useful, akin to, maybe, jQuery in the web world.
You can use Perl instead of PHP, Python or Ruby. They all have their strengths and weaknesses but overall they are very similar when it comes to usefulness.
I prefer Perl.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're like the hospital janitor complaining that the doctor never wipes the floor. He's just off somewhere "looking smart". ... do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? Let me say that I get your point of view: I know of the existence of smart and educated people who are lazy, presumptious, have a superiority complex, talk down on everyone and/or are fakes. Do you understand my point of view though? Are you aware…
That is not nearly accurate analogy. Note that doctors in hospital do more then just looking smart. And know multiple people who are like he described: generally keep aura of looking smart are are good in few selected areas and generally don't really do much work. And they always get absurd amount of benefit of doubt the same way you do here. Meanwhile anyone who criticize them is assumed to be stupid hospital janito…
Right, so we both know both types. But the person I was responding to either doesn't, or chose to omit one to try and make a point about it.
> That is not nearly accurate analogy. Note that doctors in hospital do more then just looking smart.
That's precesily my point. Doctors in hospital do more than just looking smart, even though janitors may or may not realise it. It's really an excellent analogy.
Re: Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry (2015)
#40The tough truth is that you need to be able to do both, or your skillset will never be complete. If you specialise in algorithms, you might never be able to put a bunch of them together to build a system that works and does something interesting. If you focus on architecture but never understand how to read and implement algorithms and how to evaluate them, you will always be limited in what your systems can achieve…
> The tough truth is that you need to be able to do both
There are many, many more opportunities for organised people who aren't great with algorithms, than disorganised algorithm geniuses.