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Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

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

#431

Post by aaronblohowiak »

sytelus wrote: post #425

If you are asking interview questions that has one beautiful precise answer, you are doing it wrong. Good interview question should start with something very simple that even very beginner can think and answer, then gradually add complexity and constraints little by little. Example: 1. Write function that multiplies two integers. 2. What if these numbers were real numbers but computer can only operate on integers? Ho…

Programmers tend towards logical thinking and a large part of your second question is irrational. ;)

That being said, would you offer the definitions of "real numbers" in this context as part of the prompt, when the candidate asked, or not at all?

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

#432

Post by sytelus »

Osiris wrote: post #427
sytelus wrote: post #425

If you are asking interview questions that has one beautiful precise answer, you are doing it wrong. Good interview question should start with something very simple that even very beginner can think and answer, then gradually add complexity and constraints little by little. Example: 1. Write function that multiplies two integers. 2. What if these numbers were real numbers but computer can only operate on integers? Ho…

I couldn't get past #2. Does that mean I'm a bad programmer or just missing the experience for the particular field? My point is that questions should be tailored to the work the programmer is expected to perform.

Above example is not a test of your programming skills. May be you are great NodeJS ninja who doesn't need to care about any of this. I think there is two types of hiring that often happens (1) for a specific project, specific task (2) long term member of the mission that company has.

For #2, I prefer to hire people who are generalist problem solvers. They need very strong coding skills but more than that they need to be able to operate in new domains easily and adapt. If I was running a startup, I would need them to work on MySQL database one day and react-native stuff other day and perhaps also pick up some of deep learning practitioner skills two months down the line. Above example question doesn't expect candidate to be familiar with floating point representation but it is interesting to see what they might have thought if they were the ones doing it. Assuming everyone works with numbers all the time, people are hopefully familiar with basic issues of precision, rounding etc.

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

#433

Post by aaronblohowiak »

Osiris wrote: post #427
sytelus wrote: post #425

If you are asking interview questions that has one beautiful precise answer, you are doing it wrong. Good interview question should start with something very simple that even very beginner can think and answer, then gradually add complexity and constraints little by little. Example: 1. Write function that multiplies two integers. 2. What if these numbers were real numbers but computer can only operate on integers? Ho…

I couldn't get past #2. Does that mean I'm a bad programmer or just missing the experience for the particular field? My point is that questions should be tailored to the work the programmer is expected to perform.

There's not one kind of programmer. You may not be good at algorithms, theory of computation or numeracy. There are huge swaths of important work that don't include these attributes. But there are also many that do. And for those, you may be unqualified as this is not a particularly challenging or deep question for this branch of our field.

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

#434

Post by austincheney »

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.

IQ tests are a form of convergent preferential bias and they don’t test for abstraction or creativity which is more than half the definition of intelligence.

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

#435

Post by sytelus »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #431
sytelus wrote: post #425

If you are asking interview questions that has one beautiful precise answer, you are doing it wrong. Good interview question should start with something very simple that even very beginner can think and answer, then gradually add complexity and constraints little by little. Example: 1. Write function that multiplies two integers. 2. What if these numbers were real numbers but computer can only operate on integers? Ho…

Programmers tend towards logical thinking and a large part of your second question is irrational. ;) That being said, would you offer the definitions of "real numbers" in this context as part of the prompt, when the candidate asked, or not at all?

I would ask them to propose one that they think is satisfactory. Interviews shouldn't be game of secret answers that one is out for hunt. There shouldn't be any adversarial component in interviews. I often imagine candidate as 1-person startup who discovered this problem, perhaps not in very polished well defined form. As an interviewers I'm just thin air in his room observing the process of polishing, thinking and solving :).

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

#436

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

toasterlovin wrote: post #408
vmasto wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Given that many job applicants apparently can't write a Fizz-Buzz implementation, I'd say that being able to implement an algorithm is probably a reasonable way to cull the herd by a hefty margin. https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

It's made me angry how many people I've interviewed who can't manage Fizz Buzz with only 2 conditions or at all.

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

#437

Post by aaronblohowiak »

sytelus wrote: post #435
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers tend towards logical thinking and a large part of your second question is irrational. ;) That being said, would you offer the definitions of "real numbers" in this context as part of the prompt, when the candidate asked, or not at all?

I would ask them to propose one that they think is satisfactory. Interviews shouldn't be game of secret answers that one is out for hunt. There shouldn't be any adversarial component in interviews. I often imagine candidate as 1-person startup who discovered this problem, perhaps not in very polished well defined form. As an interviewers I'm just thin air in his room observing the process of polishing, thinking and s…

I agree that "read my mind" is a terrible form of interview. One issue with the "let the candidate guide the conversation" approach as you are outlining here is that it is very very time consuming to train new people to administer this kind of evaluation in a repeatable, fair way. Giving the full definition helps the evaluation move along a bit faster, too. Then, it does not create an opportunity for evaluating "how do they explore the problem?"

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

#438

Post by bradleyjg »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #376
akvadrako wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is illegal to do, hence proxy IQ tests.

It is not illegal. Here’s Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/401/424/#tab-opi.... Go read it and see for yourself what it says.

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

#439

Post by austincheney »

Hold on, who is qualifying the outcome?

At one of my jobs I nailed it as the top candidate, by far, of the 79 people they interviewed in person. The interviewers were looking for competence, freedom from frameworks, experience and so forth. I have in this line of work more than 20 years and do it as a hobby so I nailed the interview.

At the job though I worked with a bunch of fresh juniors who only know how to write code the one way they learned in school. According to them I am shitty developer because I didn’t write code in the one way they understand.

Who qualifies the outcome?

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