We only hire the trendiest • Hacker News Board

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#481

Post by bmaupin » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

mdpopescu wrote: post #222

oxplot wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that unix folks don't appreciate it, but that it's not clear what to appreciate. From solely a personal standpoint, years of both using and programming on Windows taught me nothing about its values. However, I can talk about Apple and its values for hours and I've never owned anything Apple except its keyboard. Joel, the author of the article you linked to, states the core value of Windows as being "useful t…

"Aunt Marge will be as happy using Linux without even knowing it's Linux" Unless she wants to print something... [1] [1] http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html

A lot's changed since 2006...

"1. Make sure the printer is turned on. 2. Connect the printer to your system... 3. A message will appear when the system is finished installing the printer..."

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-setup.ht...

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#482

Post by steego » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

drags wrote: post #366

dominotw wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When your brain is faced with doing a task that's going to require a lot of glucose it will look for shortcuts to save you energy. One of those shortcuts is your mind will look for an available heuristic, swap out the energy hungry analysis for the heuristic, and then signal your conscious mind that you did all the analytical hard work. Sorry I didn't read the book but I am curious if there is any scientific evidenc…

There's some evidence that a related effect may not be real: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...

Just to be clear, this article is talking about ego depletion which is the theory that willpower is linked to glucose consumption implying exercising willpower in one area will deplete willpower for another area.

What Kahneman is talking about is a tendency for the brain to swap out expensive slower analytical thinking with cheaper and faster heuristic thinking. Both ideas are only tenuously related because they both discuss the role of the brain's glucose metabolism.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#483

Post by tptacek » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

bcaine wrote: post #474

tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no magic to it at all. Have every candidate work on programming problems related to the work you do at your company. Have every candidate work on the same problems, and let them do it from home. Build and iterate on a rubric for grading those challenges. It is amazing to me that almost nobody does this, but: almost nobody does this. They have programmers write code on a whiteboard, or on some whiteboard-codin…

I agree that this is "better" than the alternative, but it can be absolutely exhausting for candidates actively searching for a job. I feel like it's recently become much, much more common (from my small-ish sample of me and some friends). My issue with this approach is fourfold: 1. Most companies have no idea how to structure a problem that is both informative to them and also not abusive to the candidates time. 2.…

Here's a really simple test for whether a work-sample scheme is effective, or just a bullshit trend-chasing afterthought:

Does the work sample test offset all or most of the unstructured tech evaluation the company would otherwise do?

If it does, that means they have a work-sample test rubric they believe in, and they're hiring confidently. If it doesn't, they don't believe in what they're doing, and the programming challenges they're assigning can thus reasonably be seen as more hoop-jumping.

In the latter case, it's up to you to decide whether a prospective job is worth extra hoop-jumping. Some teams are worth it!

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#484

Post by zyxley » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

chojeen wrote: post #311

As I get older (I am currently thirty), this is something that terrifies me, mainly because it is something that I have experienced from both sides. I got a B.S. from a major CS university, then started on a Ph.D. in Astronomy. Due to my dissatisfaction with that program, the fact that programming is my passion, and various life events, I decided to leave after obtaining a M.S. and began to look for work. I attended…

As somebody who got a first software job before even having a degree, companies that focus on GPA over demonstrable skills weird me out.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#485

Post by wdmeldon » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:31 PM UTC

billions wrote: post #353

jamesdutc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Consulting" or "contracting" can refer to different kinds of work arrangements. One of these is what's called "staff augmentation." Large companies with huge teams of full-time employed software programmers will often hire contractors to fill gaps. These contractors are typically contractors-in-name-only: they work under exactly the same conditions as full-time employees but with a worse tax situation, without acces…

There are two types of contractors and they lie on either side of the skill bell curve. What you describe are the lower end contractors. Top end contractors refuse to take full time. They run their taxes through S-Corps, come in to fix the most challenging problems, and big-co's get in bidding wars over their next contract.

I think in general, you are correct about the skill difference between contractors. But there is more to it than just that. Low end contractors don't choose that path, they end up their because they either, like you said, are low skill, or because they made career mistakes and need to get back on track. I would definitely fall into the latter group.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#486

Post by runamok » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #335

steego wrote: post #270

Daniel Kahneman talks about an idea called substitution in his book Thinking Fast and Slow that I think really applies here. Here's the jist: When your brain is faced with doing a task that's going to require a lot of glucose it will look for shortcuts to save you energy. One of those shortcuts is your mind will look for an available heuristic, swap out the energy hungry analysis for the heuristic, and then signal yo…

>When your brain is faced with doing a task that's going to require a lot of glucose it will look for shortcuts to save you energy. One of those shortcuts is your mind will look for an available heuristic, swap out the energy hungry analysis for the heuristic, and then signal your conscious mind that you did all the analytical hard work. Sorry I didn't read the book but I am curious if there is any scientific evidenc…

This is not exactly related but interesting: http://people.hss.caltech.edu/~camerer/web_material/LATimes_...

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#487

Post by Ologn » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:38 PM UTC

donretag wrote: post #264

I once had an internal recruiter tell me during a phone screen that my resume was weak since I went to a no-name school in the south called Georgia Tech. During my last interview round, another interviewer found it hard to believe that I did not use Twitter. I think these problems existing more in the "trendy" areas such as the Bay area. Once you leave that culture, ignorant recruiters are still around, but the exclu…

The computing building is named after a student who went to Georgia Tech in the mid 1990s. He went on to found a company which was sold to IBM for over $1 billion.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#488

Post by whitegrape » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #448

aprdm wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said, interviewing itself is a very stressful environment. I've been asked a time I've failed by one of the HR person and I talked about it. Was basically sending emails to real people from my test environment... I talked about it openly but he kept pushing. In the end my feedback was that my "time I've made an error" was not very impressive. Like... wtf? I find these questions very weird. I never know what th…

Imagine you start a job painting houses. You would not paint them the same way on your first day as you would after a year of experience or 5 years of experience. What have you learned? How do you work smarter/better now than in the past. What experiences triggered that learning process, or did you just take orders from someone else with a more problem-solving oriented worldview. The same applies to technical work. W…

Why don't you just ask for their self-performance reviews / retrospectives for the last n years of their current/previous job after you've filtered by resume? I suspect that unless they were expecting it (which isn't unreasonable since a lot of interviewers have variants) "remarkably unsentimental" people like John Carmack would blow this part of the interview. Why do you care about the step-by-step process of my programming journey, which is irrelevant to whether the current me can help you out right now? If you're trying to test for passion ("why'd you start house painting anyway and what drove you to keep doing it for so many years?") or self-awareness there's probably a better way.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#489

Post by philovivero » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

quantum_nerd wrote: post #409

"When I started programming, I heard a lot about how programmers are down to earth, not like those elitist folks who have uniforms involving suits and ties. You can even wear t-shirts to work! But if you think programmers aren’t elitist, try wearing a suit and tie to an interview sometime. You’ll have to go above and beyond to prove that you’re not a bad cultural fit. We like to think that we’re different from all th…

Looking for work where?

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#490

Post by Grishnakh » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #437

Grishnakh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I wasted time interviewing some overqualified people too (because of salary/location expectations that should have been communicated up front). Well that's your own fault as the job advertiser, and when I say "you", I mean almost all companies that advertise jobs. You almost never state the salaries to be paid, so tons of peoples' time gets wasted by pointless interviewing which gets followed up with insultingly…

Why should the company lead with what they are willing to pay? Why is it on the company and not the possible employee? Why shouldn't every phone screen begin with the possible employee saying "this is my salary range" and politely exiting the call if the screener won't validate that the salary offered is within that range? When I buy a car, the person selling the car sets the price. I can take it or leave it. When I…

>Now, there's a valid case that the employer/employee relationship is asymmetrical enough as it is (one employer -> many employees) that the company should give up that negotiating point

That's exactly why I think the employer should give up that negotiating point.

The other reason is that employers are constantly whining about how they don't have enough engineers, can't find qualified people, etc., and then lobbying Congress to do something about it. Employees don't have this kind of political power.

Finally, I wouldn't mind if negotiation were simply eliminated with job salaries. You don't negotiate with the cashier at Walmart about how much you're going to pay for some vegetables or a TV. The price is the price, take it or leave it. It'd be better if everything were that way, so that consumers could compare things more accurately. There are many nations where the posted price is not the actual price, and haggling is expected and normal, even on something as mundane as groceries. Without exception, these nations are backwards and economic disasters. There's a reason for that.