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Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

triplebyte.com

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

#481

Post by googlerx »

kradroy wrote: post #329
drblast wrote: post #273

Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a senior developer. In my email I have an "interview prep packet" from them that essentially tells me to brush up on algorithms and read Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare for their interview process. I'm fairly happy in my job. If they offered more money or…

I'm in your boat. I get hit up by Google 3-4 times a year. I was interested once and did the pre-screening. When I got their prep packet I looked it over and then promptly canceled my interview. I wasn't going to review stuff I've never used throughout my 10+ year career. I'm a big fan of not wasting time, which I why I get stuff done at work and have been promoted twice at my current company in the past 3 years. As…

Google is certainly not looking for "employees who blindly do what they're told", at least not for engineering roles.

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

#482

Post by chrstphrhrt »

drblast wrote: post #273

Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a senior developer. In my email I have an "interview prep packet" from them that essentially tells me to brush up on algorithms and read Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare for their interview process. I'm fairly happy in my job. If they offered more money or…

Similar profile, would not considering working for them. My first and only interview with FB a few years ago I nailed the initial hoop jumping about IPC and other *nix things but overall just got a really bad taste in my mouth. Also went for dinner, which was nice but still, something is creepy about them. They are looking for some kind of desperation that I just don’t have. Sounds like some fun problem solving though.

Haven’t had a chance to hire any ex-FAANGers yet, do they compare well to the general market?

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

#483

Post by warp_factor »

sfw1k wrote: post #452
warp_factor wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying…

some coders that don't get too critical about their job Couldn't be farther from the truth. As someone who works there I've noticed this general trend of animosity towards Google, it seems to be fueled by the fact that people feel a sort of inferiority complex when they don't clear an interview or they feel they wouldn't be able to crack it if they ever gave it a shot, this leads to an overcompensation of attitude in…

My comment wasn't trying to ridicule anyone, but explain that big companies with an extremely large amount of coders need a very specific type of heads down personalities. As can be seen in this whole thread, plenty of people simply don't have a desire to work at big FANG companies, and even less desire to study multiple days//weeks for an interview that doesn't really help their day to day job.

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

#484

Post by halfjoking »

komali2 wrote: post #185
sigfubar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You failed your Triplebyte interview because you neglected an extremely important aspect of the job: communication. You made assumptions about the ask which turned out to be grossly out of tune with those of the interviewer. In the real world, engineers are often left holding the bag when other participants of the process leave out important details. It’s our job to ask questions and establish the boundaries of each…

As verbatim as I can remember our interaction: Me: "I'm going to just put some user input checks here, no guarantees they'll actually input X or O, yea?" Interviewer: "Oh, don't worry about that, assume for now that you'll get X on X's turn, O on O's turn." Later: Me: "Normally I'd extrapolate this to a function, so let me just - " Interviewer: "For now, just focus on getting the program to response to the next user…

Triplebyte sounds like a bad girlfriend.

When she says "don't worry about it" or "that's fine", you can't take her word for it.

You need to be psychic and understand her needs without her saying anything.

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

#485

Post by hibbelig »

toasterlovin wrote: post #344
warp_factor wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it clear, I absolutely hate coding interviews that makes candidate lose so much time restudying. I think having some critical-thinking is absolutely needed and way too many engineers lack some (especially those swallowed into FANGs) What I described on my previous post is a credible explanation that my group of engineer friends came up with on why all the FANG companies pursue those heavy memorization algorit…

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.

The article says that making the problems too hard results in a _worse_ selection, and not just more false negatives.

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

#486

Post by chopin »

doublekill wrote: post #446
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 you have two great engineers in a kitchen, discussing a relevant problem, you want there to be synergy. That synergy is broken when one of the engineers has to Google how to reverse a binary tree. It is also a safe place to work for the really exceptional engineers. They can talk freely about complex computer science, without getting blank stares or having to dumb it down. Otherwise it gets frustrating fast.

One of the most valuable skills for any engineer is to be able to frankly admit the need to look something up.

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

#487

Post by ascorbic »

esoterica wrote: post #257

Why do developers complain so much about hard interview questions that can be supposedly be gamed by studying to the test? Every high paying industry heavily engages in gatekeeping, because the number of people who want to make 400k/year is far larger than the number of 400k/year jobs available. The traditional forms of gatekeeping involve requiring that people have the right personal/familial connections, or have an…

How about gatekeeping via how good they are at the job?

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

#488

Post by dang »

halfjoking wrote: post #484
komali2 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As verbatim as I can remember our interaction: Me: "I'm going to just put some user input checks here, no guarantees they'll actually input X or O, yea?" Interviewer: "Oh, don't worry about that, assume for now that you'll get X on X's turn, O on O's turn." Later: Me: "Normally I'd extrapolate this to a function, so let me just - " Interviewer: "For now, just focus on getting the program to response to the next user…

Triplebyte sounds like a bad girlfriend. When she says "don't worry about it" or "that's fine", you can't take her word for it. You need to be psychic and understand her needs without her saying anything.

Please don't do this here.

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

#489

Post by saiya-jin »

warp_factor wrote: post #309
drblast wrote: post #273

Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a senior developer. In my email I have an "interview prep packet" from them that essentially tells me to brush up on algorithms and read Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare for their interview process. I'm fairly happy in my job. If they offered more money or…

You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying…

You just described practically any corporate job, ie in banking (which especially are tuned to 11 due to massive bureaucracy, over-processing and very high pyramidal management structures)

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

#490

Post by saiya-jin »

sfw1k wrote: post #452
warp_factor wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying…

some coders that don't get too critical about their job Couldn't be farther from the truth. As someone who works there I've noticed this general trend of animosity towards Google, it seems to be fueled by the fact that people feel a sort of inferiority complex when they don't clear an interview or they feel they wouldn't be able to crack it if they ever gave it a shot, this leads to an overcompensation of attitude in…

A lot of people are sour at FB/Google simply because how the companies represent themselves to the users. I can't look at Google/FB without bringing up gmail, maps, search etc. and their utmost desire to track every nanosecond of my life, and understand me better than I do... just to earn money from me. I couldn't care less about hiring processes there, since where I live they don't pay more than other businesses, and everybody knows how 'great' their hiring experience is.

With ie banks, they are at least honest about how they earn from customers like me and I don't have any unreasonable moral expectations.

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