Much of these hiring practices are just a self-perpetuating narrative. Just spreading the news that interviews at your company are hard is a way to discourage unqualified candidates. And candidates that don't want to put up with your (perceived) bullshit.
Either way, the choice of playing the game is entirely on us.
The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
571–580 of 851 posts
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never claimed to work at a FAANG company, but I must have hit a nerve if people are going through the effort of looking at my LinkedIn profile and looking at more than the first page of my comments. Believe it or not, you don't need to have passed the tests or have software development experience to make the observation that people complaining about a process are the ones that don't perform well. I've written and g…
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The inverse of Dunning-Kruger is Dunning-Kruger
It states that experts tend to underestimate their ability and amateurs overestimate their abilities
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#573In addition to all of the very dystopian examples given in this post, there are other non-technical, super-dystopian things that have been popping up as "trends" in the tech industry. Ever heard of top-grading? It's the most oppressive interview technique of all time. A series of grueling multi-person interviews. A retrospective of all work experiences since high school . You also have to get multiple prior employers…
My experience as both a 50+ hiring manager and as a candidate tells me that we are collectively living in an illusion of whacked up expectations. Yes, it's super hard to hire good people, but most of the time it's because "good enough" isn't good enough anymore, and while we may think our company is a 9 and we deserve 9s, we are probably more of a 4 based on what people are actually working on. Yes, interviews suck,…
A past employer of mine was developing their interview process and began introducing a hardish CS basics form to fill out. My answer was the same as yours "it feels like you're hiring for theoretical geniuses, but really most of the work is web dev/bugfixes/feature adding" i.e. you have to mold your interview process around the skills that are actually needed
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I had an interview that was like that, but I wasn’t given enough information. I was asked to implement the “inverse square law in code” ... and I explained to the interviewer who was two years out of college (I looked up all of the interviewers on linkedin, so I had a good idea of their experience and areas of expertise) that my first step as someone who hadn’t been in an academic environment or exposed to this ki…
Though what's a bit silly here is that all the information you need is right there in the two words "inverse square", it's only the word "law" tacked on that made you (presumably) assume there had to be more to the concept. You'd assume a competent enough interviewer wouldn't be so rigid and at least hint that you shouldn't overthink it...
One needs a little domain knowledge for "inverse square" to be informative. It is a simple-minded interviewer that wouldn't just explain the concept.
Unless you are hiring someone that is supposed to understand some maths, that is.
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
You joined a giant megacorp. They’re all like that. There’s very little difference between Google and Oracle in this regard.
From what I've read, Google is a much more humane and pleasant environment to develop software in.
Much higher pay has a tendency to color the everything better
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet, the people who pass the grueling gauntlet will still be dumped on a fringe feature team with a first- or second-time engineering manager within 2 years of your age, and a PM that's fresh out of college (or worse, just finished MBA) who is spending 100% of their time learning how to use Jira instead of how to build product.
That’s what I don’t get - they spend so much time hiring for these narrow skill sets and then the guy next to you takes longer than five minutes to figure out Jira.
Generally I don’t think it’s the engineering team that delays the project.
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
One company said I had to make a video of myself..and then the final interview would be singing a song of my choice in front of the entire company through video conferencing. This was for a software engineer position. I didn't even bother going on the interview. I feel like the purpose was to see what they could get you to do.
I want to interview at this company just so I can rick-roll them during the song singing part.
And force them to listen to the entire song.
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#578I have over 20 years of experience but due to the constantly changing and re-inventing of tooling I consider myself "junior". I like to do my "cooking" using fresh ingredients, but I prefer to use a sharp knife, rather then special purpose cutting tools, so when I get asked: -"Have you used popular framework and tool x,y,z" my answer is often no, so they probably think I've been living under a rock for the past 5 years. But quite the opposite, I constantly read about most of these tools, but they do not solve any problem I have.
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some people maybe not. A video would be far more stressful for me. I'm sure my voice would be up an octave (along with my blood pressure) trying to get the recording just right. Speaking aloud is also not my forte. One benefit of a cover letter is it is easier to re-use the base story and update the details as appropriate. Unless you want to spend time editing (which depending on your skill impacts the quality) y…
I find motivation letters to be stressful too and an emotional rape 99% of the time (I just want a job). Hence my question, a video would be just a tiny step lower in happiness compared to a letter.
Nah, when I write something wrong in a letter. I just backspace and fix it there and then.
The one time I recorded a video I had to redo it like 10 times and I eventually just submitted it because I was tired of the shit.
Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some people maybe not. A video would be far more stressful for me. I'm sure my voice would be up an octave (along with my blood pressure) trying to get the recording just right. Speaking aloud is also not my forte. One benefit of a cover letter is it is easier to re-use the base story and update the details as appropriate. Unless you want to spend time editing (which depending on your skill impacts the quality) y…
I was taught that the CV was to be re-used, but the cover letter written from scratch each time after researching the company?
I have found that 0% of my cover letters have made any difference. Every company that required a cover letter has so far rejected me.