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Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

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Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#551

Post by dclowd9901 »

tptacek wrote: post #426
educar wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your idea of a front end developer differs from mine. I don't agree that front end developers need to code BFS. They just need to know that graphs can be searched, that should be it. Frontend devs can do many tasks that systems engineers (who can supposedly whip out algorithms in their sleep) cannot do: - Make pages render properly in all popular browsers - Make responsive UIs - Align text of variable length in…

I'm having a hard time responding to this. More and more, whole applications are being delivered in clientside Javascript using Angular or React or whatever. Are you suggesting that there are two "kinds" of front-end developers, the kind that knows how the DOM APIs work and the kind that can implement the rest of the application and domain logic in Javascript?

I'd love for you to try to explain to me how it's relevant to my front end javascript to write a moving window algorithm in 45 minutes on a white board.

I have no problem with thinking engineers should be able to understand and implement algorithms. I have a real problem with thinking they need to know them off the top of their head.

Wouldn't a more reasonable approach be to give an algorithm and ask the person to implement it? If that's what they're actually going to do (since most of us aren't PhDs) day-to-day, and they may more likely find an appropriate algorithm on Wikipedia and implement it, isn't that more relevant?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#552

Post by poikniok »

bpchaps wrote: post #355
ionforce wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But paying out of pocket and commuting, wasn't that your decision to put yourself into that scenario? It's immediately (and clearly) lop-sided.

Honestly, does it matter?

Yes?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#553

Post by dclowd9901 »

madelinecameron wrote: post #465
Xcelerate wrote: post #114

When I was an undergrad, my team won the Facebook Hackathon at our university in 2011, so they gave each of us job interviews. None of us got an offer, but the irony is that one of my other team members went on to work at Instagram, which was then acquired by Facebook less than a year later. I'm pretty sure that was about the most expensive way FB could have hired him. During my interview, the interviewer asked me wh…

I think anyone with a CS education can design something like that given enough time. It isn't a question of whether you can do it, it is whether you can find a 'good enough' solution in an optimal amount of time. It is testing your creativity and problem-solving abilities.

An "optimal" amount of time? So we expect "good enough" solutions to be materialized in a matter of an hour?

If my PM ever walked up to me and said, "Hey, I have this project, and I need you to have it back to me in an hour," I would laugh, then escort them over to their boss, who would also laugh at them before they walked back to their desk in shame.

It's not testing anything but whether or not you're good at studying for exams.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#554

Post by dikdik »

csixty4 wrote: post #324
markbnj wrote: post #273

There's selectivity, and there's courtesy and respect. Companies are entitled to be as selective as they like, and if those are the kinds of tests that yield the people they want to hire then good for them. On the other hand courtesy and respect would demand that you're clear with the candidate about your expectations and requirements, that you don't waste their time, that you respect the investment of time by commun…

Is your wife re-certified every year or two? Does she have to have a certain number of continuing education hours every year? I don't doubt for a minute that there's some kind of alpha geek thing going on with a lot of interviews. But it's also a reflection of the fact we don't have a widely-accepted accreditation body that can vouch for people.

My sister is a nurse (traveling nurse actually) and she does carry credentials. Moving to a new state requires you to get licensed all over again. However, from everything I can glean from the process, as a nurse you only have to take a certified test once. Then you just submit some paper work to have it renewed every few years, you do not need to retake boards every so often like physicians.

When getting licensed in a new state (ie move from Montana to California), you just need to submit basic paperwork, background check/get finger printed and then you are licensed for the new state (no need to retake an exam). All these comments seem to indicate nurses have insanely high selective pressures to weed out people who suck. It's really, really not the case. The stories I hear about certain nurses who completely lack common sense are astounding.

When my sister gets a new position (even when she started travel nursing after only 1 year of experience), she has a phone interview with a company hired by the hospital to find travel nurses. They may or may not contact her previous employers/references and then she finds out within a day or two if she has the job. It typically takes her 1 week to get a new assignment, 3 weeks tops if she is being exceptionally picky and trying to work in a specific area/hospital. That's all there is to it.

She's gone through this process about 6 times in the past two years (I've even seen her do a phone interview while at a wine tasting! -- and she was offered the position) and she rarely stresses about these interviews as they are not technical.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#555

Post by greatemployee »

I sympathize with the author. I have been through this as well. I'm still going through this, really.

I've been rejected many times. And every time, I come away from the process annoyed and disappointed, but certain that I would have been useful to them had they hired me. I research companies thoroughly before going into interviews, and don't waste time interviewing for positions that I don't think I'd be interested in / qualified for.

I also have decent GitHub activity, handful of open source projects that demonstrate my abilities. When I started my new job search I assumed that this mattered, but in my experience it really doesn't. I still get asked extremely basic questions that I'd hoped my GitHub would eliminate. In some instances the company that rejected me had some open source projects, and it made me feel better about myself to see their poor code quality.

Nevertheless, I am also starting to have doubts about the industry. I've wasted a lot of time on take-home challenges, introductions, technical phone screens, on-site interviews, etc. to be rejected without explanation. As an introvert, it's all very exhausting. Why should I, as a computer programmer, have to be an amazing socialite that my colleagues would like to vape & play air hockey with? I just want to work on interesting problems. I'm not stimulated by extravagant team lunches or interrupting meetings to play with the company dog. I'm not stimulated by fancy windows and games and snacks and toys. I'm happy to have technical discussions all day long, but I really don't want to work in a frat house.

I feel like there's a lot of pressure from the industry to be someone I'm not. Also, it seems like the Joel Spolsky idea about only hiring exceptional programmers (at the expense of risking a merely /good/ hire) has seriously penetrated the industry, making the system highly risk-averse in terms of hiring. I feel like no amount of prior job experience or open source work will make a difference. Every time I interview, it's a clean slate, and if I don't nail _everything_ it's a certain no-hire. Even if I did well in prior interviews with the company, they simply won't risk it. I would really like to know what the reasoning is, but they never provide feedback.

I will say that I've been hardened by the experience. I'm better at pitching myself, making appointments, talking to people in a structured way, preparation. I think if any startup founders lack experience as sales(wo)men, there's plenty of opportunity to dial-in your skills by pretending to be a job candidate strictly for practice.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#556

Post by pound »

blubb-fish wrote: post #140

Why bother applying at those super fancy companies. There are loads of medium-sized shops with a friendly work atmosphere and reasonable hiring practices. Vimeo, Facebook, Google, ... they hire elitists and those design the interviews. And honestly I doubt their work is at the end of the day more efficient then that of most other "regular" companies.

because of money?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#557

Post by stale2002 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #551
tptacek wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time responding to this. More and more, whole applications are being delivered in clientside Javascript using Angular or React or whatever. Are you suggesting that there are two "kinds" of front-end developers, the kind that knows how the DOM APIs work and the kind that can implement the rest of the application and domain logic in Javascript?

I'd love for you to try to explain to me how it's relevant to my front end javascript to write a moving window algorithm in 45 minutes on a white board. I have no problem with thinking engineers should be able to understand and implement algorithms. I have a real problem with thinking they need to know them off the top of their head. Wouldn't a more reasonable approach be to give an algorithm and ask the person to im…

Gladly!

Lets say your software as a service website has a real time analytics graph, so that customers can look at statistics of how much they are using the service in real time.

One potential question a customer might want to know is "How many API calls have I made over the last hour". This is a moving window average question, and it needs to be displayed/done on the front end.

My company that I work at has such a feature.

Algorithms questions come up all the time in javascript development.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#559

Post by tptacek »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #551
tptacek wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time responding to this. More and more, whole applications are being delivered in clientside Javascript using Angular or React or whatever. Are you suggesting that there are two "kinds" of front-end developers, the kind that knows how the DOM APIs work and the kind that can implement the rest of the application and domain logic in Javascript?

I'd love for you to try to explain to me how it's relevant to my front end javascript to write a moving window algorithm in 45 minutes on a white board. I have no problem with thinking engineers should be able to understand and implement algorithms. I have a real problem with thinking they need to know them off the top of their head. Wouldn't a more reasonable approach be to give an algorithm and ask the person to im…

We agree about the whiteboard thing. I'm only pushing back on the argument that these things aren't relevant to front-end.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#560

Post by p4wnc6 »

serge2k wrote: post #541
p4wnc6 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest workers with the most successful can-do attitudes will simply reject your company if you ask them to do bullshit like algorithm trivia or HackerRank tests. Such trivia is the opposite of useful hard work; preparation for it truly wastes time that could be better spent on other things; a can-do attitude would imply rejecting or ignoring requests to do such things. As a result, the people who actually do ta…

or they already learned it because they worked hard during school and they work hard to keep themselves current. I think the concerns people have about the efficacy of this interview style is valid, but extending it to the point where you start to make claims about how people who can pass them aren't as good is ridiculous.

No, overfitting is a real thing. Overfitted learning algorithms are generally worse at generalizing their ability to broader examples and new situations.

The types of candidates who spend the time necessary to memorize algorithm trivia for the sake of passing these exams are exactly like overfitted learning algorithms. What they happen to know is unlikely to generalize well. Of course you could get lucky and hire someone like that who can generalize, but that's rare. More often, since hiring is political, you pat yourself on the back for how "good" the candidate is (based on some trivia) and make excuses when their on-the-job performance isn't what you'd hoped, and find ways to deflect attention from that so that you, as an inefficient hirer, won't be called out on it.

Willingness to waste time overfitting yourself to algorithm trivia absolutely predicts worse later-on performance than candidates with demonstrated experience and pragmatism (e.g. I'm not wasting my time memorizing how to solve tricky things that rarely matter. I will look them up / derive them / figure them out when/if I need them).

If given the choice between hiring a math/programming olympiad winner vs. a Macgyver/Edison-like tinkerer who may not be able to explain how to convert between Thevenin and Norton circuit forms, but who took their family radio apart and put it back together, Macgyver/Edison wins every time (unless you're hiring for bullshit on-paper prestige, and of course many places are while proclaiming loudly that they aren't).

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