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The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

jarednelsen.dev

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Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#431

Post by annoyingnoob »

ideal0227 wrote: post #90

When my classmates were preparing interview coding questions, I was working on a mini TCP implementation and a toy kernel. AWS rejected me since I failed to write prefect code to traverse a tree in level order. Google did not even give me an interview since I told the campus recruiter I have not prepared for the coding questions. Then I ended up with an internship at CoreOS and created etcd. I am glad that they did n…

I'm sure that "Giant Search and Advertising Company" would never hire me. But they did buy patents with my name on them.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#432

Post by BlueTemplar »

Igelau wrote: post #143
mattmanser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A column orientated file? What format? Excel? CSV? What is cut, sort or head? Are you only accepting Linux candidates then, a tiny percentage of users? This sort of utter nonsense question, heavily loaded to your "standard" experience, which is anything but, is even worse than the questions cited in the article. All you're doing is filtering for people who are in your tribe, who followed the same path as you and thin…

> Pretend all you want, but you're filtering not by "experience" but by trying to find people in your tribe, which is naturally heavily weighted in chauvinism, racism and elitism. I didn't realize Linux Users counted as a race now :D

We're a penguin-related species...

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#433

Post by ip26 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #168
mattmanser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A column orientated file? What format? Excel? CSV? What is cut, sort or head? Are you only accepting Linux candidates then, a tiny percentage of users? This sort of utter nonsense question, heavily loaded to your "standard" experience, which is anything but, is even worse than the questions cited in the article. All you're doing is filtering for people who are in your tribe, who followed the same path as you and thin…

He didn't ask to use cut, you could use whatever windows function you have used as well. Unless, of course, you've never have had to unmangle a weird text file to get something out of it in your computing history. Then perhaps I don't want you at all? OP asked a very open ended question, merely made a suggestion that it could also be done with some standard Unix programs (I grew up on windows and even I know about cu…

Then perhaps I don't want you at all?

I've watched a number of new grad hires pick up bash, vim, and version control from scratch in a month or two and go on the be very successful. For better or worse some good schools don't cover those sorts of ancillary skills, and not every good candidate will tinker with Linux as a hobby.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#434

Post by [deleted] »

proximitysauce wrote: post #3

In addition to all of the very dystopian examples given in this post, there are other non-technical, super-dystopian things that have been popping up as "trends" in the tech industry. Ever heard of top-grading? It's the most oppressive interview technique of all time. A series of grueling multi-person interviews. A retrospective of all work experiences since high school . You also have to get multiple prior employers…

[deleted]

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#435

Post by m3kw9 »

They are missing a lot of good engineers by putting sink or float weight on white boardings. Apple does this as many big companies. a lot of candidates can code but can’t white board or they can white board because they studied the cracking the interview. You will get some that can actually get whiteboarding but you are hiring people with very simular minds

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#436

Post by 29athrowaway »

Engineering interviews borrow ideas from competitive programming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_programming

The world's top companies receive a flood of applicants and use this format to filter them.

If you work in simple web applications with mild traffic volume, filtering candidates in this way is unnecessary.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#437

Post by hogFeast »

lemmsjid wrote: post #80
parsimo2010 wrote: post #33

Comedian Daniel Tosh had a bit about people that claimed to be smart, it's just that they were just bad at taking tests. He said, "oh, so you struggle with the part where we find out what you actually know?" I hear a lot of complaints about the "typical" software engineering hiring process, and it usually comes from the people that don't do well within the current system. Could the process be improved? Almost certain…

Tosh's joke ignores that people can struggle with recall and on-the-spot test taking stress, while performing quite well at whatever the test is assessing. When studies have been done on interviewing, nothing has shown that inducing stress is ever helpful, unless the interview is for a job that requires on-the-spot stress, such as interviewing to become a police officer. To me, here is the actual problem that I see c…

Yep, I think that the guy who you replied didn't work out that it was a joke. I am not really sure how anyone who has spent time in the real world thinks that tests are effective.

Look at Korea. They torture their kids, and are they smashing the world economically? Nope, economy still totally reliant on chaebols, almost no innovation, GDP per capita is actually quite low for such high levels of human capital. I have seen this in financial services...firms that hire teams of PHds get nowhere (one place even has their own postgrad institute at Oxford...still get shitty returns year after year).

I don't think tests are bad at all, I am not saying they aren't useful...but they optimise for stuff that doesn't always work in the real world. And, unf, hiring is one of those things that is just very hard...trying to uncover talent by doing these tests where everyone knows (roughly) what is going to be asked, and people are just preparing with rote study...that doesn't sound like you are actually trying to uncover talent. It sounds like you have decided hiring is hard, and you don't have anyone who can hire...but if you are Facebook and you are hiring thousands of programmers, statistically you aren't hiring the best of the best so...maybe it doesn't matter.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#438

Post by reaperducer »

ideal0227 wrote: post #90

When my classmates were preparing interview coding questions, I was working on a mini TCP implementation and a toy kernel. AWS rejected me since I failed to write prefect code to traverse a tree in level order. Google did not even give me an interview since I told the campus recruiter I have not prepared for the coding questions. Then I ended up with an internship at CoreOS and created etcd. I am glad that they did n…

Google does not want bright, creative people anymore. Google only wants drones now. It's a shift that coincided with its change from a technology company to an advertising company.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#439

Post by aprdm »

daenz wrote: post #286

If all you care about is money, go bust your butt on leetcode and ace a FAANG interview. If you care about a work-life balance, and having a big impact on a small team, work for a medium-small startup and negotiate a flexible schedule. Personally I get a huge kick out of making massive improvements to a small business's tech and infrastructure. The lack of bureaucracy is a freedom that is often taken for granted. If…

Preach! Also knowing everyone in the company and having some sort of personal relationship and impact in their lives.
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