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Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

triplebyte.com

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Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#371

Post by taurath »

vmasto wrote: post #360
toasterlovin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, the more likely explanation is that they would simply get too many false positives if they didn't use the algorithm stuff to filter potential hires. You lose a lot of potentially good hires that way, but the pool you're left with are all of a certain intelligence level. Whereas, if you don't use the algorithm stuff to filter, it's really hard to figure out who is even intelligent enough to do the job.

I'm not following, how does memorizing algorithms correlate with intelligence and skill in the engineering discipline of the job?

Not so much intelligence but applied diligence on top of intelligence is my sense. If you want what they’re offering and don’t want to jump through their hoops for it then they don’t want you. For those that ball at the hoop jumping as being beneath them, there’s probably additional characteristics that comes with that that they’re trying to filter out.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#372

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

kragen wrote: post #358
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probing someone with very technical conversation about past technical projects is a much stronger filter to prevent unqualified candidates than passing CoderPad tests, whiteboard algorithms, etc. The conditional probability you are hopelessly lacking software skills to do a job given that you nonetheless passed a TripleByte exam or something is quite high. Overfitting & memorization for the sake of the test is extrem…

Are you talking about TripleByte exams from experience, or are you speculating that they are similar to other software interviewing processes? The questions they asked me covered what I think of as a staggeringly wide range of knowledge, including sysadmin stuff, detailed knowledge of four or five programming languages, POSIX semantics, high-level scalable systems architecture, and so on. It seemed to me that it woul…

Maybe we just see it differently, but I’d consider everything you’ve listed as exactly the sort of stuff that just gets memorized. I don’t even think the breadth of what you listed is that bad actually. Especially for recent grad brogrammer types with no serious life obligation time commitments, memorizing an entire program of study like that is probably only an investment of ~1 month of time, and has practically no correlation to on the job effectiveness once hired.

I’m speaking from ~10 years of experience running my team’s recruiting in a quant finance firm, where many interview requirements / tests / etc., came down from executive managers, so I got to see a wide range of performance on tests of all sorts, riddles, hardcore algo trivia, etc.

The sum total of all that leads me to believe quite strongly that the best signal to noise comes from super careful and tedious resume selection followed by conversational and behavioral interviews that recursively probe into more specific technical details.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#373

Post by akvadrako »

toasterlovin wrote: post #344
warp_factor wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it clear, I absolutely hate coding interviews that makes candidate lose so much time restudying. I think having some critical-thinking is absolutely needed and way too many engineers lack some (especially those swallowed into FANGs) What I described on my previous post is a credible explanation that my group of engineer friends came up with on why all the FANG companies pursue those heavy memorization algorit…

To my mind, the more likely explanation is that they would simply get too many false positives if they didn't use the algorithm stuff to filter potential hires. You lose a lot of potentially good hires that way, but the pool you're left with are all of a certain intelligence level. Whereas, if you don't use the algorithm stuff to filter, it's really hard to figure out who is even intelligent enough to do the job.

If they cared about intelligence they would just give IQ tests.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#374

Post by [deleted] »

warp_factor wrote: post #335
drblast wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a naval officer in a prior life, and my current manager loves that I get the job done, whatever it is, without complaint. I'm pretty much the opposite of what you think, so if my desire to study for the algorithm interview is your litmus test for that, kinda proves my point. Not everyone that would be good for Google has a burning desire to work for Google. Google might want to consider that.

To make it clear, I absolutely hate coding interviews that makes candidate lose so much time restudying. I think having some critical-thinking is absolutely needed and way too many engineers lack some (especially those swallowed into FANGs) What I described on my previous post is a credible explanation that my group of engineer friends came up with on why all the FANG companies pursue those heavy memorization algorit…

[deleted]

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#375

Post by Chyzwar »

esoterica wrote: post #292
drblast wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already make plenty of money in my current job and I'm fairly happy. If I wanted to switch companies I'd be interviewed as if I were a recent college graduate. Anyone experienced and good at this isn't going to have time for that because they're not going to jump through hoops to increase a 275k salary to a 300k one. So what the interview selects for are people desperate enough to study hard enough to fool the inte…

If you're experienced and good you can do way better than 300k at some companies. Also if you think spending a few hours practicing leetcode makes you desperate, wait till you hear the hoops people have to jump through to become a doctor or investment banker.

There are more interesting things to do. Coding your side project, contributing to the opensource project, learning a new programming language or even reading random GitHub project code and issue trackers. All of these activities help to improve your programming skills more than leetcode. If I am making max for my local area and I am not willing to relocate, why would I waste time for interview preparation?

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#376

Post by fucking_tragedy »

akvadrako wrote: post #373
toasterlovin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, the more likely explanation is that they would simply get too many false positives if they didn't use the algorithm stuff to filter potential hires. You lose a lot of potentially good hires that way, but the pool you're left with are all of a certain intelligence level. Whereas, if you don't use the algorithm stuff to filter, it's really hard to figure out who is even intelligent enough to do the job.

If they cared about intelligence they would just give IQ tests.

Which is illegal to do, hence proxy IQ tests.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#377

Post by stellarays »

warp_factor wrote: post #309
drblast wrote: post #273

Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a senior developer. In my email I have an "interview prep packet" from them that essentially tells me to brush up on algorithms and read Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare for their interview process. I'm fairly happy in my job. If they offered more money or…

You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying…

I think the original point of these interviews was to see how much the candidate actually learned or retained out of university.

What happened was that the interview questions inevitably got leaked and accumulated (this is the result of a post-highly-super-indexed and centralized internet) and it became a race to the bottom for candidates.

Imho the test may have worked in year 1-4 of google but it no longer flies since college kids spend an eternity studying them at home. It’s like the SATs all over again for these kids.

I still think these tests are generally good for testing how good somebody is. If you somehow got through cs without knowing how to 3 color a map vaguely (not talking perfect answer here, just vaguely correct intuitive explanation) even if after 15 years of work, something isn’t right. These sorts of questions definitely will weed out your local web-dev baddy or even dev-bootcamp baddy, which Silicon Valley is starting to be flooded with now.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#378

Post by erik_seaberg »

ehsankia wrote: post #287
Gimpei wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because some people can't train themselves up through the gate. This is not because they can't figure out the leetcode problems, but because they have more difficulty dealing with the kind of pressure you see in interviewing situations than others.

If you have a hard time working under pressure, there's sadly not many viable alternatives. Any process that has a very low % success rate will inherently be stressful. Also, being able to perform under stress could be seen as a desirable skill too.

If you can't handle stress, you can't join an oncall rotation, which would have ruled out eleven years of my career so far.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#379

Post by meko »

bunderbunder wrote: post #162
chillacy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like an industry hazing ritual. How bad do you want it?

Hmm. Y'know, that's a great point. I could build a whole conspiracy theory off of that idea: If I'm a FAANG, I'm simply not using my normal interview process to hire for the really interesting jobs. I reserve those ones for people who got the job by virtue of their publication history in the academic literature, or because they built some well-known cool thing, or because they got promoted into the position. Those pe…

Something about your comment instilled a sense of dread and hopelessness within me.

I don't know if I can ever be one of those 'built cool things/get published' guys, so I guess that means I'm destined for grunt work. Fk.

Re: Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

#380

Post by pseudalopex »

ehsankia wrote: post #287
Gimpei wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because some people can't train themselves up through the gate. This is not because they can't figure out the leetcode problems, but because they have more difficulty dealing with the kind of pressure you see in interviewing situations than others.

If you have a hard time working under pressure, there's sadly not many viable alternatives. Any process that has a very low % success rate will inherently be stressful. Also, being able to perform under stress could be seen as a desirable skill too.

The pressures of this kind of interview have very little in common with the pressures of the job.
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