The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job • Hacker News Board

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#61

Post by constantcrying » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:56 AM UTC

What a genuinely terrible interview. Seems like a great way to learn absolutely nothing about the candidate.

I would have walked out half way through. These types of questions are very telling of an organization which is extremely insecure in its own abilities.

For anyone who is a somewhat experienced programmer it is not hard to tell if someone else knows what he is talking about. You do not need to waste 45 minutes of someone's time on whether they can correctly interpret and execute some joke requirements.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#62

Post by dmd » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:57 AM UTC

leoff wrote: post #15

I've created a joke Python library, hoping that I would get asked to code it in an interview. No luck so far https://github.com/leoffx/fizz

Love the implementation. Don’t let anyone convince you to change it.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#63

Post by gota » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:57 AM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #10

I loved the article and would probably have hired this person. But as a suggestion to them: if an interviewer says "I don't think that will be a good idea" just take the hint that it won't be what the expect and change it. Also reminded me of my compiler class, we had some homework to write a pascal/C transpiler and a friend of mine somehow managed to implement it via bison errors(?). The teacher was not happy but ha…

> would probably have hired this person

Of course. They can write (as in, natural language, not "just" code). In my opinion always the second most important skill for every knowledge worker, regardless of what their actual job is

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#64

Post by belter » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:57 AM UTC

yosito wrote: post #18

This article describes everything that's wrong with tech hiring these days. There is zero evidence that success on these arbitrary programming riddles have any correlation with success on the job, and yet we force candidates through a gauntlet of completely unrealistic brain teasers solving problems that they will literally never have to solve on the job. I've recently completed half a dozen 2-4 hour coding challenge…

Somebody was interviewing somewhere else and they played a man-in-the-middle attack on you? :-)

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#65

Post by quectophoton » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:58 AM UTC

bowsamic wrote: post #49

quectophoton wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50k EUR/year for me would be like 2900 EUR/month after all taxes. Monthly expenses in the part of Spain I live in are ~800 EUR (rent + food + electricity + water + 1Gbps internet). 2900 - 800 = 2100 EUR to do whatever I want with. Even if I decide to put half of that into savings, that's still ~1000 EUR to spend freely, and any unspent money would go into savings too at the end of the month. Or in other words: With a…

Fair enough I’m just saying I live in Germany and just entered my first software position and get 73k, and I don’t live in Berlin or anything. I suppose in Spain living expenses are much cheaper. Your monthly expenses including food are less than my rent. Tho I still think I have more than 2100 left over after expenses

Yeah to be fair I don't live in a big city or any touristic location where monthly expenses could easily double, but it's still nice and comfy enough that I don't plan on moving even if money weren't an issue.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#66

Post by teddyh » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 10:59 AM UTC

The author seems to constantly conflate “not failing the interview” with “having the program produce correct output according to the rules”. But it was an inverview, not a logic puzzle.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#67

Post by constantcrying » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 11:00 AM UTC

tcbawo wrote: post #41

sjducb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work, would you rather have a boss that makes you implement dumb ideas? Or would you prefer a boss who recognises that your idea is better, then rewards you for it? You are interviewing them too. I would also have hired the candidate.

The author’s answer was clever, but also unconventional. The company was probably looking for someone that would write code in a shared codebase that other developers will need to contribute to and maintain. Thinking outside the box and not following suggestions might have raised a red flag that this person might be a loose cannon. In a small company, hiring someone smart but unwilling to follow directions can be det…

Then ask. Ask the candidate if he has experience in some teams, ask what he would do if someone else was challenging his technical decisions. Ask him what he would do if he was ordered to do something which he believes was a bad technical decision.

Instead of talking the company relies on easily misinterpreted hints that he might or might not be someone able to work in a team. People can be both self confident and able to create a cheeky solution and be sociable people with decent team skills.

If your hiring process relies on psycho analysis of the candidates, it probably will not work very well.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#68

Post by ahoka » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 11:01 AM UTC

I think the best “debugging” skill is to think about the problem first and choose a solution that makes the corner cases impossible. Dijkstra smiles on you!

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#69

Post by constantcrying » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 11:04 AM UTC

qsort wrote: post #26

riffraff wrote: post #10

I loved the article and would probably have hired this person. But as a suggestion to them: if an interviewer says "I don't think that will be a good idea" just take the hint that it won't be what the expect and change it. Also reminded me of my compiler class, we had some homework to write a pascal/C transpiler and a friend of mine somehow managed to implement it via bison errors(?). The teacher was not happy but ha…

> if an interviewer says "I don't think that will be a good idea" just take the hint that it won't be what the expect and change it. I'd like to underline this just in case the author reads the thread. He really does seem great and I wish all the best to him, but reading between the lines is a useful skill regardless of this specific situation. He says he doesn't speak English well, that might have played a role in t…

Good leadership starts with clearly communicating expectations. If your boss can not say "I want you to use this tool" or "use whatever you seem fit", but instead hints to you as to some possible drawbacks of certain tools he is bad at his job.

There are multiple ways to read that suggestion. It can also be read as the interviewer saying he does not believe in the technical depth of the candidate, which can be taken as a challenge.

It would also have been better to give a choice of a few selected languages. As that means the interviewer can be much better prepared.

Re: The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

#70

Post by grujicd » Sat, Jan 25, 2025, 11:05 AM UTC

Some of these rules look like straight from Severance TV show. This would be a huge red flag for me.