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Google stopping coding competitions

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#301

Post by moira11 »

eastWestMath wrote: post #80
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Before jumping on the "Google is now Oracle" bandwagon, curious with anyone with even a little inside baseball knowledge can comment on the reasoning behind this. Because if it's for penny-pinching, "we need to be more efficient" reasons, then yeah, I'm ready to jump on the bandwagon too. But someone else posited it may be more that they want to focus on new skills needed for AI, for example (i.e. "Software 2.0" vs.…

Yeah I’ve always been a bit leery of code competitions. I saw a lot of undergrads spend a lot of effort on these contests, and I was never convinced it was the best use of their time (especially because the university I did my graduate studies at had a professor who put a lot of effort into running the competitive programming club). I think a group of 15-20 bright and enthusiastic CS students under the guidance of a…

Such contests seem to be just a fun way to get students interested in algorithmics. Many of those who become passionate about Computer Science due to competitive programming go on to get PhD in CS and contribute with their research. Some highlights among Code Jam winners: Tiancheng Lou (won Code Jam in 2008 and 2009, went on to earn his PhD from Tsinghua University in 2012, currently start-up co-founder and CTO), Marek Cygan (won Code Jam in 2005, earned his PhD from University of Warsaw in 2012, currently start-up co-founder and CTO), Gennady Korotkevich (won Code Jam 8 times between 2014-2022, as of 2019 was a PhD student at ITMO University) (sources: Wikipedia and Linkedin)

The first two have published some influential works during their academic careers:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=df8TSy4AAAAJ

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Vjo4Tg4AAAAJ

I wonder what the total number of research papers and citations of all Code Jam winners would be. Sadly, it's hard to find reliable info on most of them.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#302

Post by anonyfox »

lwneal wrote: post #115
blindriver wrote: post #18

Thank you Sundar for getting rid of the frivolous, Silicon-Valley-esque things like coding competitions for kids, extricating all of the humanity and decency that made Google so inefficient with money, and for doubling down on your focus to turn Google into the next iteration of Cisco, Oracle and IBM. It's exactly what this world needs, so you are the perfect leader for this.

Sundar is the Steve Ballmer of Google. And that's fine! Ballmer was a competent if uninspiring CEO: Microsoft under his leadership missed many new opportunities, but still made lots of money. Most importantly, Ballmer's tenure is what made it possible for Satya Nadella to pivot Microsoft into what it is today. Realistically, Windows Phone was never going to beat Apple, Bing was not going to beat Google, Yammer was no…

1. The windows phone was actually well put (and I liked metro UI, as an apple person!), but suffered horribly from low population + tons of shit in their "app store" - iE: it was actually hard to find a non-scam facebook app!

2. Microsoft has an actual enterprise business that is stable and not prone to disruption, they can swallow huge projects that fail easily without endangering their cashflows. This is NOT true for google, search (their core channel for ads) is getting grilled in the new future by ChatBots + SocialCommerce + non-existing customer support + known to launch stuff only to kill it shortly after + many people hate/ignore google alltogether. It doesn't matter if they can build a better Bot on their own, these huge margins are gone now, innovators dilemma.

3. "post-AI world" for me means achieving technical singularity, and what comes afterwards is strictly not predictable, including the fact if humans continue to exist at all, let alone the concept of "programming jobs"

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#303

Post by neel8986 »

ramblerman wrote: post #277
shadowgovt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a long time coming. Google ran an experiment: "We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Can we build a company that isn't like that and is also successful?" For a long time, they succeeded. But I think that experiment has run to a conclusion and they've discovered for themselves why their competition became stodgy and calcified (it wasn't because that's what they wanted to be; it's because the…

> For a long time, they succeeded. I'm not sure I'd give them that much credit in executing on any strategy. Google sat on perhaps the biggest moat any recent company has known. They had cash to burn for decades and to their credit put a lot of that towards employee happiness. But I'm not sure they ever really got anything off the ground for the "post" search era.

youtube, android, chrome, maps, google doc, drive to name a few.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#304

Post by some_random »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #209
some_random wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that this triggers my fight or flight response https://getzipline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/rainbow-zo...

Lol, we're flyzipline.com

Oh that's way cooler!

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#305

Post by philwelch »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #123
CydeWeys wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact mechanism of employee compensation here doesn't matter. Either the tech worker pays $30+6 tip for a meal and the server makes $10, or the tech worker pays $36 with no tip for a meal and the server is paid more and still makes $10, it doesn't matter. The point is that a restaurant needs a large number of rich clientele in order for the restaurants' employees to make a lot of money.

My problem is primarily when the restaurants use tipping as variable compensation where the minimum compensation is arguably lower than it should be. There should always be a sane minimum wage, and it seems absurd to me that there are places where 1. the minimum wage is not substantial enough to live on and 2. servers aren't entitled to it, and rely on tips to attain a wage they can survive on. As such I really do pr…

> There should always be a sane minimum wage, and it seems absurd to me that there are places where 1. the minimum wage is not substantial enough to live on and 2. servers aren't entitled to it, and rely on tips to attain a wage they can survive on.

If you look into the details of those minimum wage laws that have lower minimums for tipped workers, it usually turns out that if their wage + tips turn out to be less than the ordinary minimum wage, they’re still entitled to the ordinary minimum wage.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#306

Post by vineyardmike »

moira11 wrote: post #289
vineyardmike wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve done a couple stints as an L4 SWE at Google I’m curious. Does this mean you’ve left Google and returned multiple times at the same level while having better jobs elsewhere? Not to be critical but why? (I ask because I’m considering returning to old places down/equileveled after being laid off somewhere and curious your reasons)

Internships? There are some people who spent every summer in college as Google interns

L4 at Google is basically “mid level” aka you’ve proven yourself past a college hire but you’re not a senior engineer with lots of experience.

So doing a few jobs as an L4 is what’s unexpected because after experience at another role, and additional knowledge gained, etc ideally they’d be able to return as L5+.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#307

Post by another2another »

hackernewds wrote: post #271
throwayyy479087 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIRA.

You gone and done it. Also JIRA is wack.

But can you actually name a competing product that does a better job?

I'll admit I've not looked particularly hard, but as far as I can tell nobody has a competing product, so Atlassian basically owns the whole field at this time.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#308

Post by philwelch »

diceduckmonk wrote: post #295
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tips create both performance incentives and price flexibility. In Europe, where tips are not customary, attitude from service workers is much worse than US. On the other hand, it's nice for someone of modest means to treat themselves to a restaurant or hotel at a lower price. Those are pro-consumer considerations, but service workers are also consumers of many other things.

> Tips create both performance incentives and price flexibility. In Europe, where tips are not customary, attitude from service workers is much worse than US. In Japan, where tips are prohibited, attitude from service workers is much better than US.

Because that’s Japanese culture.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#309

Post by jrm4 »

apetresc wrote: post #195
jrm4 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall, I don't understand this "that's fine." No. It's not. Which is to say, why do we value "CEO makes money?" That's NOT valuable to me. Microsoft doesn't pay me, therefore the pure question of whether or not they make money is literally meaningless to me, and should be meaningless to you if you are not in their employ. I'm not saying it's bad either, but it's such a weird gut reaction. Which is to say -- if you…

The CEO is answerable to the shareholders, who do get paid when the company makes money.

Right. A few more people that I also don't care about because I'm not one of them.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#310

Post by fenesiistvan »

md_ wrote: post #290
vineyardmike wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is still loads better than eg Amazon but its days are numbered. I’ve heard msft wlb is improving a lot. I think the next gen of employee- first companies will be wfh centric (or something new and flexible) and 4 day work weeks. People realized slides and food wasn’t as good as free time and flexibility. I expect maxing their employees 401ks and generous cultural WLB. Companies that are advancing technology and…

Fifteen years ago at Microsoft, most people worked ~40 hour weeks, there were shuttles between Seattle and Redmond, a good gym on campus, and (mostly) private offices. You'd come into work at 9, wander off campus to a nearby restaurant with coworkers for a relaxing lunch at noon (granted, because the food in the cafeterias sucked and cost money), and after a bit of exercise or a nice game of racquetball at the gym, y…

Gym after lunch? :)
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