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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#421

Post by hassleblad23 »

codr7 wrote: post #280
m11a wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike pair programming interviews - as they currently exist - because they usually feel like a time-crunched exam. You don't realistically have the freedom to actually think as you would in actual pair programming. i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview, but it's pretty realistic of real life work and entirely a non-problem. It's probably even good to test for at i…

Hiring doesn't scale, period; deal with it.

Exactly. Its almost like optimising for finding your best possible match for marriage. You don't go over a billion prospects, you choose from the ones locally available to you, as they come.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#422

Post by eikenberry »

codr7 wrote: post #280
m11a wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike pair programming interviews - as they currently exist - because they usually feel like a time-crunched exam. You don't realistically have the freedom to actually think as you would in actual pair programming. i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview, but it's pretty realistic of real life work and entirely a non-problem. It's probably even good to test for at i…

Hiring doesn't scale, period; deal with it.

IMO interviewing is the biggest bottleneck and if interviewing was decoupled from hiring then it wouldn't be a problem. But this requires a Guild-like organization to manage interviewing/vetting and for companies to use said Guild for hiring. The companies could then do a single team culture meeting (if they wanted) before hiring.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#423

Post by whiplash451 »

juujian wrote: post #144
perlgeek wrote: post #132

Company A wants to hire an engineer, an AI could solve all their tech interview questions, so why not hire that AI instead? There's very likely a real answer to that question, and that answer should shape the way that engineer should be assessed and hired. For example, it could be that the company wants the engineer to do some kind of assessment whether a feature should be implemented at all, and if yes, in what way.…

The even bigger challenge is that hiring experts in any domain requires domain knowledge, but hiring has been shifted to HR. They aren't experts in anything, and for some years they made do with formulaic approaches, but that doesn't cut it anymore. So now if your group wants to get it done, and done well, you have to get involved yourself, and it's a lot of work on top of your regular tasks. Maybe more work because…

> hiring has been shifted to HR

Not everywhere. At my company, HR owns the process but we -- the hiring tech team -- own the content of interviews and the outcomes.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#424

Post by ghaff »

solarmist wrote: post #416
swatcoder wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Well, and mainframes. And trading and financial systems. And numerical/scientific computing. And network services. And web sites and e-commerce. And flash, java applets, and browser plugins. And control systems. And operating systems and tooling. And cell phone applications. And games. And video/image/audio/music processing. etc etc Oh, wait... maybe not!

So you’re saying that none of those roles could be cross hired in the early 2000s between any of the other roles? That’s the point I was trying to make. Not that the software didn’t exist or people weren’t doing specialized applications.

I basically agree with your edit. There was a lot more fluidity among roles and even just moving into computer roles from other engineering (and even non-engineering) fields. But that's not really what you wrote initially.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#425

Post by whiplash451 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #73

Code reviews. Teams are really sleeping on code reviews as an assessment tool. As in having the candidate review code. A junior, mid, senior, staff are going to see very different things in the same codebase. Not only that, as AI generated code becomes more common, teams might want to actively select for devs that can efficiently review code for quality and correctness. I went through one interview with a YC company…

I don't know. A cold code review on a codebase they never saw is not super informative about how the candidate would interact with you and the code once they're in known territory.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#426

Post by scarface_74 »

apwell23 wrote: post #386
ghaff wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. I'm an introvert, I can't do math, I won't travel, etc. are all things that some people claim as if it's the unchangeable nature of things. If that's their chosen path, so be it. But they should understand it will probably be pretty limiting because the world they live in.

Yes they are unchangeable. I've tried many many times to break out of it; it works for a while but i revert back to my base behavior. We know what kinds of temperament a dog has within few months of it being a puppy ( and who the puppy's parents are). Why would it be different for humans. Claim that Our temperaments ( and our likes/dislikes for travel) are all learnt is a bizzare blank slate claim that doesn't track…

I hated small talk traditionally. It was very much a learned trait. One of the best conversation openers is “what keeps you busy?” and then ask open ended questions.

Ask about their favorite travel destinations or even what are some interesting things about where they live.

On the other hand, step outside your comfort zone and try something different so you have something to talk about interesting.

https://tynan.com/letstalk/

You didn’t become a software developer overnight. You won’t become a great conversationalist over night either.

“How to Talk to Anyone”

https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships...

(not an affiliate link)

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#427

Post by marcosdumay »

samr71 wrote: post #378
dowager_dan99 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to run through hundreds of candidates to find someone marginally qualified. I am not exaggerating.

Do we have different definitions of "marginally qualified"? Idk, I feel I'm a decent engineer - I can certainly do whatever leetcode medium they throw at me, as much as this counts of anything - and can actually code, but I still get maybe 1 callback per 50 applications. Does "marginally qualified" mean "Ivy League Competitive Programmer PhD" or something?

The GP is still passing through hundreds of people, dozens of them capable, until he reaches somebody that convinces him of their competence. You were passed down because you weren't convincing enough.

Or maybe he is getting resumes from a channel that has been victim of machine-gun filling, and there indeed thousands of incompetent people posting resumes into every channel and just half a dozen real applicants.

TBF, I have no idea how to fix either one of those problems. Hiring is just completely broken.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#428

Post by whiplash451 »

brainwipe wrote: post #71

I was asked by an SME to code on a whiteboard for an interview (in 2005? I think?). I asked if I could have a computer, they said no. I asked if I would be using a whiteboard during my day-to-day. They said no. I asked why they used whiteboards, they said they were mimicking Google's best practice. That discussion went on for a good few minutes and by the end of it I was teetering on leaving because the fit wasn't go…

> I was asked by an SME to code on a whiteboard for an interview (in 2005? I think?). I asked if I could have a computer, they said no. I asked if I would be using a whiteboard during my day-to-day. They said no. I asked why they used whiteboards, they said they were mimicking Google's best practice.

This looks more like a culture fit test than a coding test.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#429

Post by no_wizard »

jitix wrote: post #393
karaterobot wrote: post #184

The best interview process I've ever been a part of involved pair programming with the person for a couple hours, after doing the tech screening having a phone call with a member of the team. You never failed to know within a few minutes whether the person could do the job, and be a good coworker. This process worked so well, it created the best team, most productive team I've worked on in 20+ years in the industry,…

I used to love getting to know the interviewer and doing things like that but IMO the market has shifted fundamentally on both ends for this to be effective anymore for most SaaS roles. This is anecdotal for US/Canada tech market over the past 10 years so YMMV. Developers Side: Since developers don't have job security anymore (at least for those who work on common languages like Go, Python, Java and Typescript) they…

>its become akin to management consulting or investment banking

Not sure how those are similar.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#430

Post by swatcoder »

solarmist wrote: post #416
swatcoder wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Well, and mainframes. And trading and financial systems. And numerical/scientific computing. And network services. And web sites and e-commerce. And flash, java applets, and browser plugins. And control systems. And operating systems and tooling. And cell phone applications. And games. And video/image/audio/music processing. etc etc Oh, wait... maybe not!

So you’re saying that none of those roles could be cross hired in the early 2000s between any of the other roles? That’s the point I was trying to make. Not that the software didn’t exist or people weren’t doing specialized applications.

It was probably about as hard to move between those domains now as it is today. Which is to say that it's pretty hard and needs some concerted, non-trivial effort in shaping your experience and how you present it before trying to make a transition, and often either some kind of inside reference to vouch for you or an employer that was especially hard up for candidates. Or else an employer that straddle multiple domains and actively supported internal transitions.

Depending on what you could bring attention to in your prior experience and the size/needs of the new orgs you seeking to move to, certain transitions were more feasible than others, but you could easily spend decades working in mind-numbing enterprise applications while wishing for opportunities in game development or trading or whatever and never get your resume so much as looked at. (And vice versa, even, for those who dreamed to "retire" into the supposed quiet of enterprise apps or government IT or whatever)

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