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Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

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Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#331

Post by timedoctor »

mattjaynes wrote: post #202
tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

I can confirm this works in my own experience of trial-and-error interviewing over 2000 applicants and hiring over 200 for my clients and myself (since ~2006). Nearly 100% of the applicants were remote, so I think that helped me from falling into traps of poor "traditional" hiring practices. The point of hiring these remote folks was to help accelerate whatever team I was on. It can be a great way to scale your exist…

I've used a very similar method for myself in hiring remote workers, although my ratios are more extreme. In some cases we tested over 200 people and selected one person for the job.

Have not used math questions at this stage as it seems a bit too obtuse and not to-the-point. Better to ask an actual coding question if you are hiring a coder. However I have had success in hiring people that have been involved in maths olympiads or also in coding competitions.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#332

Post by gdy »

tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

>Because of a Supreme Court decision in the United States (the decision does not apply in other countries...) That's funny that you think this clarification is needed J (No offence intended)

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#333

Post by lportion »

bdg wrote: post #168
tommorris wrote: post #120

Here's the test I've used in the past: Before the interview, I ask them to write some code to access an HTTP endpoint that contains exchange rate data (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY etc.) in XML and to parse and load said data into a relational database. Then to build a very simple HTML form based front-end that lets you input a currency and convert it into another currency. I ask them to send me either a link to a repository (…

I love your interview style: actually test for things the dev will actually do. I've applied to other jobs who's owners frequent HN, and they did things like test my ability to write sort algos or data structures... but the job called for a good knowledge of JavaScript, Backbone and general knowledge of django to build a mix between a CMS and an elaborate voting system. They didn't hire me. I'm utterly trash at worki…

I've had similar experiences.

I went for a job a few months ago where I had to write a program on paper to produce report data from raw data collections, it was reasonably complicated. This is the type of thing I breeze through when I'm sat alone at my desk, but for whatever reason I just went into panic mode and couldn't think straight at all. I apologised and told them just that. It was frustrating to say the least.

The interview went ahead and we ended up talking about various architectures, design patterns, programming languages, functional programming and even HN, but I'm sure I never got the gig because of the technical test.

For the interview at my current gig they walked out of the room for 10 minutes while I had to write sorting algorithms and I was able to do it without a problem. So, for me at least, the element of being watched while I wrote the code seemed to be part of the problem.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#334

Post by icedchai »

chris_mahan wrote: post #261
evacuationdrill wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop sending paychecks, they figure it out eventually.

That is so wrong. They may have performed work for you, and they might not have gotten paid. You open yourself to so much liability it's not funny. A judge would look very unkindly to such practice.

You need to get a sense of humor. Remember, the internets are for lulz!

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#335

Post by Daniel_Newby »

Xixi wrote: post #319
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, why the downvotes? There are virtually no such Africans. It's an established fact, you just go around and take a census. Plenty of farm boys from Idaho, Japanese, girl engineers from rural China, guys from India with accents thick enough to stop bullets, you name it. All are welcome in the universities, all succeed and prosper. Just no Africans. You don't have to worry about illegally performance testing them dur…

I don't even know why I'm replying... But anyway back when I was living in France I've had the chance of studying and then working with a lot of great engineers (electrical engineers mostly) coming from Africa: Marocco, Tunisia, Togo, Cameroon, Rwanda, etc. This is neither a rare nor surprising occurrence: engineers coming from african countries are plentiful and very competent. Maybe you didn't find them because the…

If I was hiring, I would hire homosexual Martian Nazis if they made good employees. The few African colleagues I have had were skilled and pleasant. The trouble is that, at least in the U.S., that they are very rare.

I suspect that a lot of what you were seeing in France was selection bias. The most talented third-worlders immigrate at a very high rate to the former imperial states. France gets the Africans because they colonized Africa extensively and were not especially vicious. If you moved your company to Rwanda, you would find that very very few locals would be trainable for engineering work.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#336

Post by gpsarakis »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #181
alinajaf wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I asked him why the PHP code he sent me didn't have any comments. "I don't believe in comments because they slow the PHP interpreter down." Sorry, he can be smarter than Einstein but I ain't letting him near production code. This one wasn't smarter than Einstein. It's been a while since I've been near a live PHP installation, but IIRC running with an opcode cache like APC probably means the comments will be parsed…

This true - but without the opcode cache the slowdown would be minimal since all the comments are ignored. Plus, the comments are there for future developers to use as a reference. Nothing worse than having something break, cracking open a file and have to spend hours having to untie someone else's code. I'd rather have copious amounts of comments, then a minimal speed gain due to not having them at all.

I suppose someone could incorporate a procedure which strips down unnecessary strings from code files ("minifies"), especially comment blocks, during the deployment process, thus maintaining a nice development codebase while not having questions over performance.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#337

Post by [deleted] »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #314
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Duke Power decision was unconstitutional, and it involved total racial segregation and galling defiance of the courts. It has very little applicability to highly-educated employees, if for no other reason than there are virtually no Africans capable of doing the jobs.

Uh, why the downvotes? There are virtually no such Africans. It's an established fact, you just go around and take a census. Plenty of farm boys from Idaho, Japanese, girl engineers from rural China, guys from India with accents thick enough to stop bullets, you name it. All are welcome in the universities, all succeed and prosper. Just no Africans. You don't have to worry about illegally performance testing them dur…

[deleted]

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#338

Post by walshemj »

dagw wrote: post #326
smsm42 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they aren't as dumb - at least in the area that made them rich - as it seems. I can imagine someone bing smart in the university hall and dumb on the street, or vice versa.

Depressingly many people confuse someone making decisions they disagree with or don't understand and someone being "dumb".

oh really if the US had a system like we have in the UK the house of commons would have eaten quite a few high profile US polticians (including some presdents) alive.

Id love to see Paxman interview sarah palin or Ted Cruz for example.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#339

Post by GFischer »

hmsimha wrote: post #144
theanirudh wrote: post #123

Even after reading Jeff Atwood's post[1], it still amazes me how many programmers fail the fizz buzz test. We dont even get the chance to ask tough programming qustions. Simple questions like fizz buzz, loops and recursion were good enough to filter out a lot of applicants. [1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...

Is this really the case? I read this a lot, but have a hard time imagining that there exists a wealth of people who have such a hard time with such a simple task, and yet I am having a hard time finding an entry-level job when they are (presumably a substantial part of) my competition.

It is. There are a lot of really bad programmers out there.

However, you're probably not looking at the places where such programmers would apply... try an entry-level job here in Uruguay (pay: about U$ 800 / month after taxes), you'll get a lot of people that fail fizz-buzz .

The original poster (Imran Ghory) was from the UK, and Reginald is from Canada. Neither are Silicon Valley.

http://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-dev...

http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/01/dont-overthink-fizzbuzz....

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#340

Post by jtheory »

andrewflnr wrote: post #320
tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

Where is the line between a coding test and a "work-sample" test? Does a coding test become a work-sample test just by virtue of resembling a task you would do on the job? Is it a function of scale of the task?

A coding test in which they're writing code you could actually use in your business is a work sample test.

If it's more than a 10-minute job, you should be paying for them for the work.

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