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Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

jarednelsen.dev

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Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#431

Post by cameronbrown »

tomnj wrote: post #227
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is tragic here is the amount of effort that is now expended by young computer scientists into the game of algorithms. This is a funny topic to me. A decade ago, before Leetcode, Hackerrank, and Cracking The Coding Interview , it was common for developers to complain that software developers were losing touch with algorithmic knowledge. HN-type websites were full of discussions about clueless software engineers…

> Leetcode style systems are a lot of fun for people. That’s not true for everyone, especially in such high stress situations as an interview. I like crosswords, but I wouldn’t want to do them in front of someone judging me for a job in 45 min while thinking aloud.

All job interviews are stressful. Are you just scapegoating whiteboarding?

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#432

Post by cameronbrown »

zimpenfish wrote: post #401
jimthrow wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you get rejected, it’s not about you. There’s just too many high quality candidates and too few positions. It’s just the inevitable outcome of a vast oversupply of talent

> There’s just too many high quality candidates and too few positions. That would be believable if the same positions weren't being advertised for a year or more[1]; e.g. I've had one position[2] sent to me at least 5 times in the last year by different recruiters. [1] In London, at least. [2] Interesting work and a job I'd want but unfortunately the corporate culture is 100% no-go for me.

London is just too expensive for the salaries some of these companies are offering though..

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#433

Post by 52-6F-62 »

jjav wrote: post #371
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. What would you propose as an alternative? I’ve been involved in training new engineering managers how to hire and interview. Everyone starts with the best intentions, but reality quickly forces some compromises. The bottom line is that you only have a number of hours in w…

> What would you propose as an alternative? Easy. Just talk to people as would-be peers. They want to find a role they can succeed in. You want to find someone who can succeed in the role. I interview by just talking about their past projects (based on resume). You can't fake your way through a friendly technical dialogue if you haven't done it. (Pre-requisite: the interviewer must be technically competent. This is w…

This is what we do where I am now and it’s worked well.

You can’t pre-correct for some things, but you can for others.

Having someone speak in detail about their experience isn’t easily faked.

Having someone speak about their experience in brief and then giving them a “skill-testing question” as if they won the lottery can be gamed.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#434

Post by mark-r »

dpbriggs wrote: post #196
ipnon wrote: post #66

What is tragic here is the amount of effort that is now expended by young computer scientists into the game of algorithms. Whereas a young programmer in the past may have spent their extra days writing games in Basic or static web pages, hackers these days seem to do Leetcode until the wheels come off. We are failing to bring certain softwares into existence by effectively requiring programmers to their effort into t…

Hey, those people still exist. Myself and a few other people I know got their start making terrible games in python. Heck I was too young when I started learning lisp (clojure). Took a long time to get used to non-functional constructs. Things definitely changed once I got to university though. Competition for internships meant I had to get good at interviewing. The CS program I am in encourages the career focused so…

You kids have it so easy. I got my start making terrible games in Basic.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#435

Post by trashface »

wutbrodo wrote: post #338
trashface wrote: post #295

Hiring is broken, but so is all of software as a profession: 1) Terrible Algorithmic interviews, AI-based evaluations, whiteboard coding. 2) Hey you are hired! Now move to $BigCity, with expensive real estate, schools, transit and everything else. 3) So, welcome to the job. You'll be maintaining this shitty old python 2.4 CRUD app that multiple people have tried and failed to upgrade. And one of the web guys wrote hi…

I hate to break it to you, but I think you've just worked at shitty companies? If you think that other fields don't have the same or worse issues, you're dreaming.

Some of the companies I worked at were indeed shitty, and what I wrote is a caricature. And I never said other fields don't have problems, most in fact are worse than what we've got.

But I'm concerned that the popular perception is: go to a coding bootcamp for a few months, or even study CS at university, and that is your golden ticket to a solid, happy, lifelong career. Which I believe will be untrue for many people.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#436

Post by no_wizard »

scarface74 wrote: post #367
no_wizard wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your 12 years my senior so age is something else eh? ;) I started out at 19 working at a FANG (because of privacy and such I don’t want to drop which one) not as an engineer but doing support work. Within a year I got the chance to be a junior engineer no questions asked (basically) because my manager at the time was impressed at my grasp to “get it” when it came to application usability. That is to say I got e…

And that’s just it. You worked at a FAANG - a company large enough that could carry the dead weight of junior developer (no insult intended we were all dead weight at some point). I’ve worked at smaller companies by choice or at smaller divisions of large companies (occasionally). One developer salary is a major cost and can add to their revenue. If you only have a few openings, you better make them count. For instan…

Because you can mold junior developers into a certain quality. You can’t always do that successfully when you hire experienced developers sometimes. That’s why I was brought into the situation I was: it was more cost effective to get me up to speed than it had been trying to hire experienced developers for the same work, because they had too many pre conceived notions about how the product was to to be built

For what it’s worth I work at a small company now that is a startup and this is how we do things, to great success, the way I described it

To be clear, I do not work in Silicon Valley either, never lived in SV. So I get that part of it

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#437

Post by no_wizard »

cameronbrown wrote: post #427
no_wizard wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your 12 years my senior so age is something else eh? ;) I started out at 19 working at a FANG (because of privacy and such I don’t want to drop which one) not as an engineer but doing support work. Within a year I got the chance to be a junior engineer no questions asked (basically) because my manager at the time was impressed at my grasp to “get it” when it came to application usability. That is to say I got e…

19 at a FANG company? That's pretty cool they let you switch.

It wasn’t a usual set of circumstances and I had a good manager who basically bet his neck in me being a good fit. I’ll never forget such an act of kindness. I hope to pass that in as much as possible in a responsible way

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#438

Post by no_wizard »

LordFast wrote: post #366
no_wizard wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or is it? I think this ignores the human psychology factors. Like actually following through with being loyal to employees, training as a benefit etc. Also if you are going to lose employees because you can’t match competitive salaries than i would say you are losing them if all other things are equal. In another words this greatly oversimplified version of events here only allows for you to come to that conclusion a…

> I actually think this is a good argument for licensure like civil engineers etc have to have This logic is sound, but I don't personally agree that bureaucracy is gonna solve any of our problems. The rest of your comment, I believe if you spend time reading my OP carefully and spend some time noodling over it then you'd find that all of it had been covered already.

I don’t think it’ll solve all our problems but I don’t think bureaucracy per se is the enemy either. I’d need more of an argument as to why it overall wouldn’t be a good thing.

I don’t buy gate keeping either as the number one issue, see the lawyer glut as an example.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#439

Post by deanCommie »

BurningFrog wrote: post #229
deanCommie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They bothered to ask me how I'd deal with diversity issues if I was in HR, though. I probably didn't get the job because of my answers there... Strange postscript that suggests you hold some problematic opinions that indicate you can't play nicely with others? Did you fail to get the job because you didn't have the tech chops or is it because you said something wildly inappropriate on the behavioural questions? Wha…

This kind of question can be heard as a dogwhistle for "Are you a leftist? We only hire leftists."

That's true, in our industry it seems that only leftists aren't assholes.

So if you don't want to hire assholes who think "diversity" is a dog whistle, you hire leftists.

Re: Follow-up to “The dystopian world of software engineering interviews”

#440

Post by zach_garwood »

watwut wrote: post #16

I think that "apparently very few people actually know how to program a computer" part is more about how many people have "fake it till you make it" attitude or how large ego they have. Or how much they dont bother how they look like during interview and keep trying until they get lucky scoring position. And that actually is how many get to start programming. As in, one of common advice is to be self-learner and abse…

I think the whole phenomenon is s Boogeyman. I've only been in the industry for a decade, so maybe I haven't been all the way around the block, but I've never met the mythical "senior Dev who can't code fizzbuzz." I think it's just a scary story we tell hiring managers do they stay on their guard.
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