Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

highscalability.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 177 posts

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#51

Post by CaveTech »

sergiotapia wrote: post #42

I became unreasonably angry while reading this. I guess it struck a nerve with me for some reason. During my interviews, I was very charismatic, confident in my skills, was asked technical question that were things I would need day in day out. I landed the job on 100% of those interviews. There was this one time were the guy kept asking me crap I would never EVER need while working for his company. Binary tree's, lin…

I'm actually insanely jealous of you if a "What the fuck" interview was about binary trees and linked lists. All my interviews have /started/ at that point and gotten way worse. I still get anxiety thinking about some of my job interviews.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#52

Post by hkon »

Why not type your problems flat out. Trying to "abstract" the problem by transferring it to a completely different and reverse analogy just makes the whole post artificial.

I was actually wondering if this was written by a programmer or a man that hires programmers at first...

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#53

Post by funkaster »

quarterto wrote: post #3

I have had this interview. I didn't get the job.

I'm actually interested to know what kind of developer gets the job. And also, what was he/she thinking when accepting the job, was it out of necessity? because he/she liked the interview process? (I'm asking seriously)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#55

Post by bicknergseng »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #48

I've given enough interviews to know it's all relative. To cherry pick one example: "What color has the middle wire feeding into the distributer cap?" implies interviewers ask ridiculously specific questions that you could "look up if and when you needed to know." The problem is for some applicants that question could be "how would you implement Google's PageRank" and for other applicants it can be something as simpl…

The problem I perceive is that that question gets asked to people who will never need to know it. I too often see people interviewing for front end web or javascript positions asked questions about binary search trees or something that totally doesn't relate to front end development, instead of asking about closures or what they think about coffeescript. Honestly, I think at this point if you're asking about various search algorithm big o timings to find out if a programmer can build an iOS app or do Rails dev, you're doing it wrong.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#57

Post by orangethirty »

tzz wrote: post #39

Interviewer#3: How long you been driving your 2010 Escort? Applicant: About 3 years. Interviewer#3: Sorry, but we are looking for someone with experience of driving 2010 Escort for at least 10 years.

Ha!

To add:

    Interviewer#3: We are looking for someone who knows how 
    operate the navigation screen on the 2010 Escort.
    Applicant: My car does not have the navigation option  
    installed.
    Interviewer: Then you do not qualify. Knowing how to 
    work the navigation system is a priority.
    Applicant: I know how to work navigation systems in
    general. My car before this one had a navigation system 
    and I learned it pretty quickly.
    Interviewer#3: No. We need people with 10 years of
    experience with the actual navigation system on the 2010
    Escort.
Note: Ford no longer sells the Escort in the USA. They sell the Focus and the Fiesta. Both terrific little cars.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#58

Post by MartinCron »

loeg wrote: post #43

Now, maybe I've gotten lucky, and I've only interviewed at a few companies (well-known ones include: Google, Amazon, Facebook), but I've never had an experience as bad as that painted by this analogy. In general, the interview questions I've gotten are designed to test general CS knowledge and the ability to translate an algorithm into code. This is important, and as an interviewer myself, a lot of candidates fail at…

I have yet to see a company ask for specific experience with VB.net 2012 edition and exclude candidates like myself who are only familiar with C/Python/Java

I've absolutely seen it, but I've stopped looking at it as an injustice that must be mocked, but rather a useful indicator of an organization that isn't a good fit for what I have to bring. If the economy were worse, I may have a different perspective.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#59

Post by davidw »

geon wrote: post #56
davidw wrote: post #40

"E se me nona gavesse e rode sarìa na carioea", as they say here in the Veneto, which, literally translated, means "if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be be a wheelbarrow".

And what does it mean?

The literal translation is pretty clear, actually. If [something ridiculous/impossible] then [something else ridiculous/impossible]. In other words the comparison is a bit of a stretch.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#60

Post by MartinCron »

sergiotapia wrote: post #42

I became unreasonably angry while reading this. I guess it struck a nerve with me for some reason. During my interviews, I was very charismatic, confident in my skills, was asked technical question that were things I would need day in day out. I landed the job on 100% of those interviews. There was this one time were the guy kept asking me crap I would never EVER need while working for his company. Binary tree's, lin…

I don't disagree with your decision to leave, but it is possible that your interviewer was just a crappy interviewer and might not be a crappy colleague.
Post reply on HN