The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job • Hacker News Board

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#331

Post by cgriswald » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

James_K wrote: post #309

cgriswald wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s absurdly reductionist and in my experience suggests either a poor work ethic or a lack of empathy or both. Additionally your argument isn’t logical. An unwillingness to do something for free isn’t equivalent not wanting to do it. You’ve moved the goalposts.

Well okay, let's walk the goalposts back. Suppose there was some radical UBI scheme in place and now you get paid the same amount for working as you would for not working. There is no financial incentive to do any piece of work, but also no financial punishment for not working. Do you think most people would still go to their jobs? I think no. Most people are only motivated to work by the financial reward they get fr…

You haven't moved the goalposts back. You just used more words to suggest that people won't be willing to do work for free. That doesn't speak to whether they want to do the work or not. People can want to have a job but also want to reap some external reward from that job.

But I know, you've reduced it to such a degree that you can't think clearly about it any other way. So, to humor you: I know a woman who won the lottery at a young age, but kept her job as a waitress for decades because she wanted to be a waitress. I know retirees who have started new careers. I know retirees who have gone back to doing the same work they did before. None of these people needed money. They all did jobs. Nevermind volunteering, which, while you will probably argue isn't a job, is evidence that people will work for reasons other than financial incentives. Please note, these people aren't outliers, they're just people who even you have to believe are working for reasons other than money.

Regardless, the fundamental problem with your argument besides trying to prop up a poor definition of 'job' is that you're conflating needing any job with needing a particular job. Lots of people are doing the job they want to be doing. Lots of people have other choices.

> Quite frankly, I see people with your attitude as the real bad ones to work for. Expecting people to have a work ethic beyond what you pay them for, or to pretend to be passionate about whatever you're selling, these are the real red flags you should look out for when applying to a job. Not someone expecting you to do what you're told. I am exchanging my labour for money, and I think both parties understanding that is the bedrock of good professional relationship.

We definitely do not have the same definition of 'work ethic' if this is what you took from my words.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#332

Post by zaruvi » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

guccihat wrote: post #136

spacechild1 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that they came up with this solution after the interviewers forbid the use of numeric types and math while still keeping a limit of 30 lines. What do you expect? I found the solution impressive given the circumstances. At this point I would have thrown the towel.

I think the interviewers were looking for the key insight that a number is divisible by 3 iff the sum of the individual digits is divisible by 3. That is easy to verify, even constrained to using single digit data types. To be clear, I am not saying this was a great interview question and I agree the solution OP came up with is impressive.

I would have failed this question badly. I'm curious, how would you check that without access to any number or math operations? I think I would try something similar to what he did with his sum_table, but that too was disallowed. They're constraints I've never had to deal with, nor seen before.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#333

Post by flimsypremise » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #290

constantcrying wrote: post #61

What a genuinely terrible interview. Seems like a great way to learn absolutely nothing about the candidate. I would have walked out half way through. These types of questions are very telling of an organization which is extremely insecure in its own abilities. For anyone who is a somewhat experienced programmer it is not hard to tell if someone else knows what he is talking about. You do not need to waste 45 minutes…

I argue the contrary case - the interview style is pretty reasonable, but the interviewers screwed up the process (and ultimately, the grading). "Adding additional requirements which test a candidate's ability to refactor code" is a pretty good exercise. And it's ok to force candidates people down a specific development path. The problem is that the interviewers didn't do this. They let the candidate pick a strategy…

Been interviewing for over a decade. Tests like this do not really tell you whether someone is a good programmer, they tell you whether a person has spent a lot of time practicing problems like this. The only way to tell if someone is good at the job is to have a conversation with them and pay attention to how they answer your questions. Ask your candidate their opinions on API interface design or whether they favor mono-repos. A good candidate will be able to speak legibly and at length about these things. The problem is that in order to judge those responses you also have to be very knowledgeable. So instead we have stupid little tests designed to let interviewers of varying ability screen candidates.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#334

Post by bhk » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 6:48 PM UTC

The interviewers were fans of Franz Kafka, I presume.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#335

Post by fhars » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

erikerikson wrote: post #318

stickfigure wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I argue the contrary case - the interview style is pretty reasonable, but the interviewers screwed up the process (and ultimately, the grading). "Adding additional requirements which test a candidate's ability to refactor code" is a pretty good exercise. And it's ok to force candidates people down a specific development path. The problem is that the interviewers didn't do this. They let the candidate pick a strategy…

I would have led with your skepticism. This story reads like concept art poking at our empathy to send us through an emotional journey. I know my reading journey took me through the sadnesses of so many of the interviews in my life and the dysfunction that gets pushed in our industry. I have wondered whether this is part of psychological positioning and pre-negotiation or simply emotional, psychological, or/and organ…

The concept art version is this one https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#336

Post by catlifeonmars » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 7:05 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #226

guccihat wrote: post #103

I will go against the grain and say I do not consider OPs fizzbuzz solution to score particular well on readability or maintainability. And these were the only two stated core requirements. The solution is clever and demonstrates solid knowledge of TS. However, in my experience getting too clever with the type system is not always a good idea for ordinary application code maintained by a team of average TS developers…

This is also one of those things that can be quite tricky to modify down the line when you need to add a new feature or whatnot. This problem is of course very artificial and it doesn't sound like the interview was particularly well done, but I can kind of see what they were trying to do with "keep code maintainable as it evolves". And even if you are a TS-wizard with a Ph.D. in typing: is it really worth all the cog…

> And even if you are a TS-wizard with a Ph.D. in typing: is it really worth all the cognitive overhead?

Yes, but only on the weekends :)

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#337

Post by erikerikson » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 7:06 PM UTC

fhars wrote: post #335

erikerikson wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have led with your skepticism. This story reads like concept art poking at our empathy to send us through an emotional journey. I know my reading journey took me through the sadnesses of so many of the interviews in my life and the dysfunction that gets pushed in our industry. I have wondered whether this is part of psychological positioning and pre-negotiation or simply emotional, psychological, or/and organ…

The concept art version is this one https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview

I don't think any art has only one form or rendering. Certainly not one subject. That said, I am familiar. That one evokes awe and mysticism whereas this one seems more grounded in life and more relatable.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#338

Post by catlifeonmars » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 7:08 PM UTC

ozim wrote: post #130

guccihat wrote: post #103

I will go against the grain and say I do not consider OPs fizzbuzz solution to score particular well on readability or maintainability. And these were the only two stated core requirements. The solution is clever and demonstrates solid knowledge of TS. However, in my experience getting too clever with the type system is not always a good idea for ordinary application code maintained by a team of average TS developers…

Getting clever with type systems is exactly why everyone hates Java and OOP. Fizz buzz is also much better treated like data stream and applying reactive programming.

Fizz buzz is a toy problem. I think it’s a mistake to read too much into anything but basic programming skills while using it as an interview question. If you want to test code quality and maintainability you are much better off with a more realistic problem.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#339

Post by beefnugs » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #61

What a genuinely terrible interview. Seems like a great way to learn absolutely nothing about the candidate. I would have walked out half way through. These types of questions are very telling of an organization which is extremely insecure in its own abilities. For anyone who is a somewhat experienced programmer it is not hard to tell if someone else knows what he is talking about. You do not need to waste 45 minutes…

The entire software interviewing mindset is horrible: the interviewee has no idea at any given time if the interviewer is actually looking for : versatility, years of experience in one particular language, generality, experience in their EXACT stack, the ability to follow exact dumb/arbitrary rules/procedures, social tolerance to managers making dumb and arbitrary decisions, will you spill the beans about your previous employers illegal and dumb acts, do you know about our exact industry, does it seem like we can exploit you for as long as possible with minimal raises, do you follow the same esoteric "clean code" rules we have chosen all of our previous hires for, or any other random thing that they will never articulate to you.

While good employees are always just thinking: cool i will try something smart to make them think i am smart, or ok i will follow these dumb exact things to make sure they know i am obedient, jesus christ why cant i just play a video of me doing this from last week, i guess i better try it a different way since that way didnt get me hired, i guess i need to dance this angle to the moon this time...

At least AI will stop all of this nonsense

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#340

Post by nrr » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 7:23 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #115

Since I'm in the process of seeking a job, I would like to share a somehow related experience in one technical interview, this time for a senior DevOps role. So, after the initial introductions and talking a bit about infra as code with Terraform, they interviewer asked a question: "What would you use if you cannot use Terraform for a project?" To which I initially answered, since it was a SENIOR position, with a war…

I've had a lot of experiences like this, and I wound up ducking out of the industry entirely in 2021 after having had my skillset reduced to dogmatic use of the infrastructure buzzword of the day.