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The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

jarednelsen.dev

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Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#531

Post by neilv »

Quekid5 wrote: post #78
allovernow wrote: post #11

In my admittedly limited experience, there's one way to avoid such nonsensical interviews - run away from bureaucracy. Seek smaller organizations (startups in particular) and if you're lucky enough to have a minimally cross-disciplinary background, you can seek out niche organizations where you'll interview with technical specialists who'll ask reasonable questions that are actually related to your work and your inte…

I agree on small orgs, but... recommending startups is a bit iffy, IMO. DGMW, startups can be great, but if you're just a good programmer wanting a stable job, then that startup job is not the job for you. However, you could be a huge contributor and positive influence in a small org... and it's possible to gain a lot of life satisfaction that way[0]. Plus, your employer actually knows you and understands the value y…

I'm principal-ish engineer level, and, after being tempted to go to a FAANG, but turned off by the hazing rituals (and other behavior of some of them), I ended up choosing a startup a few months ago.

Even in best case I can imagine for eventual equity liquidation for the startup, the startup pays only about 1/3 what Google would, and the stress is high at times-- but I've already made crucial contributions to the company's success, my coworkers didn't try to haze me or play other arrogant power games during the recruiting process, and there's a genuine sense of don't-be-evil.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#532

Post by adreamingsoul »

_bxg1 wrote: post #279

A few months ago I interviewed with Major CDN Company for a front-end dev position. They sent me a take-home React/NextJS project stub with dependencies and such already defined, and instructions to finish building out the full app. "Perfect!", I thought. No stage pressure, plenty of opportunities for going an extra mile. They encouraged me to get creative and I did; it met all the requirements and then some. I proud…

Are you still looking for a FE role in the CDN industry?

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#533

Post by opless »

I have always found coding interviews weird.

For example, you don't ask a carpenter if they know what a dovetail joint is. You don't ask a bricklayer on which brand of bricks he prefers, or how tall his last wall was. You certainly don't ask a mechanic how an internal combustion engine works!

Sure throw a few algorithms at entry level employees, with no experience, to make sure they understand the basics. But not experienced developers!

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#534

Post by bostik »

taeric wrote: post #163
starpilot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has strong data that it does predict job performance, better than GPA, college degree and so on. What are your aggregate data showing that Google is wrong on this?

Does it? Because their strong data haven't helped them not screw up their messenger space. Or to have a fast email web client. Indeed, they seem to be going backwards on that chart. They flopped on wave and Google plus, hard. Those are the kinds of mistakes that kill most companies. Even Google glass still somewhat rankles and has left me with no confidence in any of their consumer things. And I say this as a happy G…

Not defending Google, but this is dangerous myopia:

> Those are the kinds of mistakes that kill most companies.

All companies make big mistakes and burn lots of money on failed projects. The difference between a medium-sized company and a huge company is that a huge one can absorb the cost of failure, shrug and carry on. Medium-sized one will indeed die.

The difference between a large company and a huge company is that while both can survive the cost of a failed megaproject, for a large company the failure is probably enough to warrant a rethink and change in strategy. A huge company knows (from their aggregate financial metrics, of course) that what they are doing is right and proper, and will take the failure as just one more datapoint.

The moral is that there is no moral. (Or if we're talking business, morals.) Wild success begets arrogance, which begets organisational cargo-culting.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#535

Post by probably_wrong »

bradlys wrote: post #490
igetspam wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked there in the early 2000s. It was fun. Then it wasn't any more. I was much earlier in my career and when I left, having it on my resume meant a lot. Now I've done more and more interesting things. I told the FAANGs, in no unclear terms, I'm not interested. They seem to have gotten the message eventually. I like small companies. You work harder and have a lot more impact. The compensation is good too. Leave. T…

> I like small companies. You work harder and have a lot more impact. The compensation is good too. Leave. The grass is greener. What small company is regularly paying over $300k+/yr for senior software engineers and paying over $500k/yr for staff+? The only people I see leaving the big companies are those who already got their riches and/or bought real estate earlier. The rest of us are either tied to them or trying…

> the real estate market dictates you must earn that income to stick around the bay.

Well, there's your problem right there.

There are plenty of smaller tech hubs around the world.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#537

Post by artsyca »

Aperocky wrote: post #486
artsyca wrote: post #480

The word 'dress' doesn't appear once in this thread and that's a sign of the disgusting state of affairs all in itself It used to be people took care in small gestures like wearing a pressed shirt but now all the auspices have gone awry in favour of this laughable meritocracy No wonder tests of this nature have been devised by people who haven't ever buttoned a collar and it's everyone's fault for not taking the mora…

What? I interviewed at my current location wearing a cargo short and a tshirt. It’s a trillion dollar company and we’re not failing any time soon. Coding interviews aside, no dress requirement is one of the biggest plus and allow people to focus on the thing that matters. I have no idea where you come from that software engineering is helped by dressing up pressed shirts.

What else have you been doing the same way since the fourth grade?

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#538

Post by ansgri »

scottlocklin wrote: post #316
overgard wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the need to nitpick your example. > does the candidate want to code it up or understands that they could do: cut | sort| head Piping together commands is undoubtedly programming, just in ancient shell script. So in a sense you're really testing for bash expertise. Which is maybe really relevant to you but I wouldn't say you're really "avoiding" coding by knowing to use those commands together, you just decided…

Dude, do you even data science? Not knowing Unix tools like cut and sort is a hard fail on a senior individual contributor in data science role, as is using sqlite which totally doesn't scale the way sort and cut does. Separates sheep from goats in data science land. You should really learn them if you're in the field and work with reasonably big data sets. Frankly you should learn them if you work with data at all,…

Well, they do work, but streaming processing in Python is not difficult and it’s much easier to have graceful failure processing and self-documenting code. Not to say of extending the logic if it would ever be needed.

But maybe that’s more about separating sheep from shepherds.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#539

Post by artsyca »

eitland wrote: post #519
Aperocky wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I interviewed at my current location wearing a cargo short and a tshirt. It’s a trillion dollar company and we’re not failing any time soon. Coding interviews aside, no dress requirement is one of the biggest plus and allow people to focus on the thing that matters. I have no idea where you come from that software engineering is helped by dressing up pressed shirts.

I strongly suspect sarcasm.

Bro I use dress as a way to read people one way or another how you dress is how you play

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#540

Post by ansgri »

minimaxir wrote: post #97
glofish wrote: post #45

In my personal experience, having interviewed dozens of candidates (data science), I believe that asking "easy" and "simple" questions is the most effective way to probe the problem-solving skills of a candidate. Fun and interesting solutions to easy questions are hallmarks of great individuals. The question would go like this: Suppose I have a column-oriented file and I want to print out a column in a reverse-sorted…

As someone who has had bad data science interviews before getting my current data science job, the process is highly variable. I've had interviews where the interviewer is looking for a specific right answer, with the answer being a binary you-know-it-or-you-don't thing that can't be talked through or worked out in a dialogue with the interviewer. An example was a whiteboard problem requiring the BETWEEN syntax for S…

TIL even sqlite has window functions.
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