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Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

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Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#41

Post by rgoulter »

Jarwain wrote: post #8
dnautics wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the IDE section is a bit dated. as a hiring manager, my belief is that IDEs are good enough (and even have collab features that are good in work-at-home-epoch) that it's not an unreasonable to never use/never have used vi/vim/emacs. If you're doing server administration, not being able to use vi is unacceptable; but these days everything is deployed by container and logging into raw linux systems is not really a thin…

Is nano really That Bad? It's always been good enough for my needs, and in the cases where it's not I generally hop on Sublime or vscode, make the changes I want to make, then paste it into my term.

The place nano is best is in environments which aren't otherwise setup for working on. e.g. a fresh linux install or some ephemeral server/container. If you can do this remotely e.g. with the VSCode Remote, great.

I'd suggest if you know a few vi keybindings, vi would be better than nano. e.g. navigating through the document will be quicker with vi than nano.

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#42

Post by robjan »

sesuximo wrote: post #24
innagadadavida wrote: post #11

Makes everything sound so mechanical and boring. Do they want normal people or some bot like creature that they can just assign numbers in a matrix? Depressing.

You don’t want to hire boring bot-like people, but you also don’t want a totally subjective hiring system full of bias. I think having an objective scoring of some sort is a good reference even if it’s not the final decision.

This is full of bias and the bias is the experience and personal opinions of the person who created the matrix.

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#43

Post by hedberg10 »

xtracto wrote: post #36
wiradikusuma wrote: post #20

A lot of dismissive complaints that boils to "this is objectifying programmers", and yes I get it. But now I'm on the other side (VP, but still coding), and actively recruiting, I realized some things taken for granted from myself and my good engineers, are still missing from a large number of candidates I've interviewed so far. I usually ask the candidate for a live coding test over zoom. "Here's what you need to co…

That's why programming has declined from Software Engineering to 'coding'. I'm sure there are similar scoring tables in Civil Engineering, and Engineers there dont whine because they don't know or y principle.

Thats why I invite them to a live bridge building session over zoom!

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#44

Post by pottspotts »

Are you taking credit for this? I have seen this Matrix before, posted by the original author, and you should credit him.

In any case I agree with the majority here that this tool is akin to standardized testing which at long last is seen for the bad tool that it is for finding objective quality.

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#46

Post by wiradikusuma »

hedberg10 wrote: post #43
xtracto wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why programming has declined from Software Engineering to 'coding'. I'm sure there are similar scoring tables in Civil Engineering, and Engineers there dont whine because they don't know or y principle.

Thats why I invite them to a live bridge building session over zoom!

How do you compress months of product development in a zoom session? Answer: you don't.

That's why they don't build a bridge over zoom, just like nobody ask you to build a complete app over zoom. They only ask the engineer basic engineering questions to ensure the guy is not a dud.

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#47

Post by hippira »

throwaway4233 wrote: post #29

Most hiring interviews involve the interviewer's knowledge about a particular domain, language or framework since it is easier for them to evaluate answers for those given the limited time window they have. If according to this matrix, the interviewee has levels of expertise in each row different from what the interviewer has, then the candidate is bound to appear to fail. I am not implying that this is a bad tool fo…

As an interviewee, I’ll try to bring this point up if I ever got stuck, thanks !

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#48

Post by bombcar »

TameAntelope wrote: post #39
bombcar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience it’s used as a prescreen qualification- the actual interview of multiple candidates happens afterwards or in a second round.

But aren't prescreens subject to the same subconscious bias as the actual interview?

Sure - but this is overt bias: “can programmer program?”

Re: Programmer's Competency Matrix for SDE hiring parameters (2008)

#50

Post by TameAntelope »

bombcar wrote: post #48
TameAntelope wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren't prescreens subject to the same subconscious bias as the actual interview?

Sure - but this is overt bias: “can programmer program?”

How do you know that’s actually what you’re measuring, and not, “can programmer execute a livestream programming session successfully?”
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