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Enough with the Programming Puzzles

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Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#41

Post by Teeboo »

pandaman wrote: post #14
kinkdr wrote: post #9

Us, software engineers, start to sound like spoiled kids when it comes to interviewing. We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. We complain about everything. Well, hiring is a difficult problem, and nobody has a universal solution yet. But the truth is that if I want to get a job, I will need eat the humble pie and get out there and try t…

It seems that other professions have solved this. Nobody is asking lawyers to run a trial on a whiteboard or solve a whodunit mystery in 2 hours. And I don't think that licensing process for lawyers guarantees anything other than the right to practice law (there are pretty bad licensed lawyers out there). Do construction workers draw diagrams of installing drywall in their hiring process? Do plumbers get challenged w…

Lawyers do not investigate crimes; solving a whodunnit is a terrible comparison.

Plumbers, unlike computer programmers, are typically hired purely by referral or a small amount of marketing. Again, you make a terrible analogy.

A plumber got hired because

A) The risk of a bad plumber is less threatening than the leaking faucet I have right now.

B) a friend said they were a good plumber.

Since JavaScript refactoring is not as pressing as a leaking tap the hirer can take their time and subject you to a rigour out process in order to ensure that the millions of pounds of intellectual property you have access to will be handled in the correct manner.

I agree with the top voted response; the perception is engineers are beginning to whine about everything.

Not you fault, you are just one part of the sum but that sum is sounding more like a spoiled brat than ever before.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#42

Post by collyw »

wanderer2323 wrote: post #20
pandaman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that other professions have solved this. Nobody is asking lawyers to run a trial on a whiteboard or solve a whodunit mystery in 2 hours. And I don't think that licensing process for lawyers guarantees anything other than the right to practice law (there are pretty bad licensed lawyers out there). Do construction workers draw diagrams of installing drywall in their hiring process? Do plumbers get challenged w…

>I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer. Think about it this way: they are not playing a full playlist on an actual stage with a soundcheck and live audience either. Compared to the real gig they are performing a smaller task in an artificially simplified environment. It is actually very similar to a coding interview. People often forget t…

Why are so many of them given as take home / pre interview screens then?

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#43

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

simula67 wrote: post #7
wturner wrote: post #3

Those puzzles might serve an ancillary goal of finding people willing to conform, are good at doing what they are told and have the ability to do unconventional programming tasks on a whim. All of those are characteristics that the company might be looking for. In short those tests aren't checking for just aptitude, they are checking for the personality characteristics of people willing to do them and tolerate the ab…

These tests are probably designed to check your motivation, not your skill. If Google is asking questions about manhole covers, you better study about them before an interview. A candidate who can answer such a question would more likely want to badly work for Google. That is probably a better predictor for a good workplace performance than raw skill.

It's a good predictor for wanting to work at Google.

It's in no way a good predictor for being able to do good work at Google - or anywhere else.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#45

Post by pmyjavec »

philbarr wrote: post #28

One of the problems with coding challenges is that I suspect you miss out on a lot of potential candidates. I did a round of interviews recently and one wanted me to do an online test and then a puzzle. I did the online test, received the puzzle, and in the intervening period I was interviewed and offered a job by someone else. When I rang the first place to tell them the guy was very upset because it had taken so lo…

I would have to largely agree with this based on my own experience, and I've been on both sides of the fence.

The best interviews I've had was when I was invited to come work with the team after a few meet and greets. It allows all parties to relax a little and get a taste of what working together would be like.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#46

Post by Teeboo »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #19

Do you really need to test whether a candidate is technically competent if they have a degree from a well respected university like MIT, etc? You already know he has the discipline and academic requisites. Interviewing someone at that point, I'd expect the employer would be more interested to see if they're a good fit for the company culture and not waste time on academic trivialities.

I have met some people with degrees, from extremely respected institutions, who I would not let organise the coffee in a startup let alone be involved in serious business tasks.

Likewise, some of the best engineers I have met were self-taught and curious.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#47

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pandaman wrote: post #24
wanderer2323 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer. Think about it this way: they are not playing a full playlist on an actual stage with a soundcheck and live audience either. Compared to the real gig they are performing a smaller task in an artificially simplified environment. It is actually very similar to a coding interview. People often forget t…

People also forget the goal of the hiring process - finding somebody who can get the work done. I am in the game industry and, luckily, not everybody is doing whiteboard coding and puzzles here, but, out of my anecdotal experience, studios that do it also release pretty crappy games. It could be that springboarding discussion is not selecting very good programmers. It could also be that the management who enforces th…

You can flip this around.

Do you want to work for a company that does what everyone else does without a clear well-defined rationale for it, or do you want to work for a company that has a deep understanding of what it needs from its employees, and has worked out the most efficient way to get it?

Good companies run a continuous improvement cycle on hiring practices. Bad companies do the same shit over and over and make the same mistakes again and again.

So I would be surprised if poor hiring didn't correlate with poor results in other areas.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#48

Post by tehrei »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #27
jarcane wrote: post #16

If you want to find out if a programmer can actually do the job, then it seems to me that the way forward is to have them do something that actually resembles the job. In the high-end cooking world, it's not uncommon to do one of two things when looking to hire a new cook: 1) Make me a dish. Present the chef with the kitchen, and possibly a specific main ingredient(s), and have them make the best dish they can with t…

> If the candidate seems to know what they're talking about in the interview, maybe just hire the fucking person, and if they suck, fire them. In some countries, employment laws are so crazy, that it's almost impossible to fire someone willy nilly because they "suck". You have to give them written warnings, re-"skill" them, move them to different departments, etc. It's such a pain in the ass and then they still take…

Even socialist utopia Europe has month-long (sometimes up to three) "probation period" baked in our employment contracts which states "employer can fire employee at any point during that time with zero notice for any reason". As far as I know, the Americas use "at-will" employment, meaning you can be fired at any point with zero notice.

I believe you that some countries exist with crazy(er) employment laws, but your argument doesn't hold water for Europe and the Americas.

Re: Enough with the Programming Puzzles

#50

Post by collyw »

vacri wrote: post #5

Surely there's a middle-ground between puzzles designed to trip you up, and puzzles designed to show you have some baseline chops. There's a lot of people who can't walk their talk. At one place I work at, we're trying to get some senior-level PHP devs... and we're getting some applicants that can't even conceptually do FizzBuzz...

Its not usually that difficult to work out if people know what they are talking about.
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