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Harder programming questions do a worse job of predicting outcomes

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

#521

Post by doublekill »

mikeash wrote: post #450
doublekill wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

CS is way too big for any individual to know it all in depth. If it really is a “safe place” because the employees can talk about complex topics without ever losing anyone, that would imply that they’re all specialized in roughly the same topics and severely lack organizational breadth. I kind of doubt that’s really true.

You can have organizational breath with smaller teams. You pair a great programmer with an exceptional programmer and it helps if they are specialized in roughly the same topics.

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

#522

Post by eecsninja »

googlerx wrote: post #481
kradroy wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, but they certainly have no use for SWEs thinking outside the box in ways beyond engineering work. Such as recognizing that interviews don't work well to predict ability and success. We engineers are supposed to shut up and conduct interviews and build interview tools, not wonder if the whole thing is a case of the emperor has no clothes.

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

#523

Post by seanmcdirmid »

eecsninja wrote: post #522
googlerx wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, but they certainly have no use for SWEs thinking outside the box in ways beyond engineering work. Such as recognizing that interviews don't work well to predict ability and success. We engineers are supposed to shut up and conduct interviews and build interview tools, not wonder if the whole thing is a case of the emperor has no clothes.

That isn't really unprecedent through out the history of work. There are, have been, and will be many fads where the emperor was eventually found to be wearing no clothes. This particular interviewing style is just one of many, and is already on the way out as people learn they aren't getting very far by cargo culting Google (e.g. see Stripe and Microsoft's new interview process).

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

#524

Post by oarabbus_ »

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…

What an eloquent way to summarize the silly elitism of Google interviews.

They seem to have no lack of talent and it certainly doesn't seem to be negatively affecting them. I wonder if this will change eventually, and Google will become IBM v2.0 (that is, a respected and profitable company which is mostly boring/unexciting).

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

#525

Post by mikeash »

doublekill wrote: post #521
mikeash wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS is way too big for any individual to know it all in depth. If it really is a “safe place” because the employees can talk about complex topics without ever losing anyone, that would imply that they’re all specialized in roughly the same topics and severely lack organizational breadth. I kind of doubt that’s really true.

You can have organizational breath with smaller teams. You pair a great programmer with an exceptional programmer and it helps if they are specialized in roughly the same topics.

How does that give you breadth?

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

#526

Post by oarabbus_ »

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.

Do you work for google? This seems naive and inaccurate to my work experience, both in Tech and in Medical devices

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

#527

Post by lliamander »

austincheney wrote: post #469
lliamander wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't test for creativity (though seeing a correlation between IQ and creativity would be interesting) but they almost certainly test the ability to deal with abstractions. That's pretty much what an I test is! What reason do you have for thinking otherwise?

They test for puzzles that appear as visual shape complexities which require use of the visual cortex. That is something a person might refer to as a visual abstraction. That isn't a practical abstraction, such as requiring a person to form an answer from the absent of acceptable criteria (to abstract or form something new to solve a problem).

It's not readily apparent to my that those two abilities should be distinct. It seems plenty likely that they would be at least highly correlated. While you're point about the visual cortex may be relevant, I don't think that's the whole story.

My understanding is that different IQ tests will rely on different kinds of questions (i.e. not all involve visual shapes; some involve word/logic puzzles). The point the scores for all IQ tests correlate very highly (and thus suggest that there exists some common factor).

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

#528

Post by lliamander »

austincheney wrote: post #467
toasterlovin wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is convergent preferential bias?

It means a bias of coming together toward a tester's preferences. Do people excel on the few narrow performance meausures you find most correlated with intelligence? There are divergent aptitude tests measure quantity and diversity of answers to a given question opposed to the one desired answer. Divergent tests are rarely performed, but at a stronger measure of creativity and problem solving which is typically what…

Can you provide a link for divergent aptitude tests? I'm afraid my search results all have to do with some young-adult fiction novel (called Divergent).

How much do such tests correlate with things like (for example) creative achievement?

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

#529

Post by oarabbus_ »

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…

>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

Some of the most talented people I've ever met have failed Google interviews. As in far, far more talented than the majority of folks I know who do work at google. No amount of bullshitting is going to convince me that Google's False Negative interviewing system is the correct one. It simply bypasses too many talented candidates even beyond the reasons generally mentioned above.

One guy in particular I know is now a CEO of a company which, ironically enough, employs several former googlers. Yes, I know Google doesn't give a shit they missed on this individual. But to mis-characterize the anti-Google-interview narrative as "sour grapes" sounds a bit like you're drinking their champagne.

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

#530

Post by oarabbus_ »

musicale wrote: post #413
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've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews." Well, the interviews are marginally effective at identifying new CS grads (who also are cheap and have few outside commitments - companies love this!) but not much else. You're exactly right to view it as an algorithms final exam or an algorithm puzzle contest, but Cracking the…

>but Cracking the Coding Interview is an embarrassingly bad book

I like how you made this bold claim with zero justification as to why.

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