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Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

erikmcclure.com

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Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#41

Post by blacktriangle »

I have a question about whiteboard interviews.

I have used and continued to use whiteboard coding in interviews. However I emphasize to the person that I am interviewing that there is no expectation that what they write on the whiteboard compile, or even be a real language. I'll usually do a quick demo and joke that my own white boarding looks like the bastard child of Python and FORTRAN. The point of the exercise is to have a design conversation and see if the person can think about algorithms or solving problems, not write valid code with a marker.

Do people still have the same level of disdain for this technique or am I misunderstanding the objections people have to whiteboard coding.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#44

Post by Workaccount2 »

francisduvivier wrote: post #6

How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generalizable for other companies.

I'm D tier programmer who would easily land a programming job if factorio was the skill metric.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#45

Post by boomfus »

me_me_me wrote: post #29
Toutouxc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

But its biased against people who can't use mouse and keyboard :) But on serious note, People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would.

Isn't that a common criticism of every interview style? Whether it's whiteboard questions, take-home projects, soft skill questions, lots of people will lie and say they've never seen the question before.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#46

Post by littlestymaar »

Toutouxc wrote: post #13
francisduvivier wrote: post #6

How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generalizable for other companies.

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

It's not about understanding the set of rules, it's about applying it in real time while playing. It adds a huge mental burden on the interviewee if they aren't familiar with it already. And the older you get, the harder it becomes.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#47

Post by zionic »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

+1 on this. I could never get into Factorio with the simple graphics and 2D top-down.

Satisfactory is freakin incredible and it is easily the best new game I have played in the last 10 years.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#48

Post by whatshisface »

me_me_me wrote: post #29
Toutouxc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

But its biased against people who can't use mouse and keyboard :) But on serious note, People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would.

>People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would.

This is a universal problem with all interview techniques. Interested in any ideas for how to fix it.

It's even a problem with "personal interviews," because some people have had more experience with optimizing one-hour first impressions than others.

Re: Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone

#50

Post by kleff »

lvice wrote: post #22

This winter break I spent an embarrassing amount of time on Satisfactory on Steam, which is essentially a nicer (and probably easier) modern refresh of Factorio. While I played, I came to similar conclusions to the article. Building factories in this game is very very similar conceptually to building software. I ran into exactly the same problems that I ran while I build software like: - If I don't plan ahead enough…

Satisfactory is really great, highly recommended from me as well. I think the verticality really adds a lot of fun over Factorio where you are restricted to keeping everything on the same level. Can make some really confusing spaghetti though...
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