71–80 of 347 posts
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I would go for pair programming.
The danger with pair programming is you easily get a partner who sees the activity as a competitive exercise / dick measuring activity* , and some engineers find enjoyment in proving to everyone else (including new hires) their superiority. *excuse my language, but it is the most accurate description I could come up with.
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In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
I've been pondering my thoughts on this, and I'm curious what you think. Would you prefer Phone Screen +: A) FANG/Valley style interviews multiple rounds of leetcode algorithm/data structure style questions and some whiteboard design/architecture. B) Pair Programming. A few rounds of pairing on a problems to see actual code. Maybe some lightweight whiteboard design/architecture. C) Take home challenge/assignment that…
The idea of using a whiteboard to do software engineering is like asking a cellist to use writing to play Bach.
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The danger with pair programming is you easily get a partner who sees the activity as a competitive exercise / dick measuring activity* , and some engineers find enjoyment in proving to everyone else (including new hires) their superiority. *excuse my language, but it is the most accurate description I could come up with.
And then you know that employer has issues and to avoid them.
Imposter syndrome is caused by improperly comparing ones own abilities to others. The better one is at modeling another person the more accurate they will compare themselves to others, and from that the less severe their imposter syndrome will be. This is a learned skill. >Is there a fix for impostor syndrome? To outright nuke imposter syndrome permanently first some new vocabulary that will explain how to do this: I…
Funny story, in 15 years of professional software development I never experienced the sense of imposter syndrome until very recently when I decided after 12 years at one employer (on many satisfying projects) I needed to consider expanding my employment options. AKA I started looking for a new job. Once I got a whiff of the putrid state of hiring in our industry today holy hell... Sure, I’ve been successful at this f…
My personal imposter syndrome feelings are almost always related to either a) not knowing the "replacement" to an existing technology I am already familiar with (in almost all cases it's two steps forward one step back anyway), or b) not using a technology for a somewhat extended period of time, then coming back to it and realising that the landscape and ecosystem has completely shifted from underneath me.
The latter has hit me most hard lately in iOS development with the move to Swift (and then v2, v3), deprecation of NS*, autolayouts, APNS' http2 etc etc, and in JavaScript development.
We have far too many technologies that have established niches that all accomplish largely the same goals, but aren't transferrable. These days, boosting the toolchain for these technologies is a big feature too, which increases the differences between ecosystems. They require sometimes hundreds of hours of learning to become competent in, even for an expert in another similar technology.
It's some sort of crazy arms race that we don't seem to want to stop...
What is imposter syndrome?
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Similar situation: I have a history of obtaining lower level positions and then quickly rising up to higher level engineering position within the same company (this has happened with two employers). I don't think this can reliably be used as a general strategy, I just have been lucky with employers. This doesn't give me a huge amount of confidence when considering my chances at getting a new job comparable to the lev…
This week I got to see the job posting for a replacement of a colleague of mine. The first requirement was 3 years of experience with a product we don't even directly use. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's in there, is that HR requires it for working in our department, even tough our specific team doesn't even touch it. The same line also requires "Java, Java script", while it's a backend Java position with litera…
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Every high performer at my workplace states regularly that they wouldn’t be able to pass the entrance exam at the place they currently work. It’s a cruel fucking environment.
In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
For lower levels such work should be compensated, the best solution there is to do some actual work, get paid for it and then the company can make up its collective mind if they want to hire the candidate or not.
IMO the fix is for our industry as a whole to stop reinventing the wheel with yet-another-incompatible-alternative. My personal imposter syndrome feelings are almost always related to either a) not knowing the "replacement" to an existing technology I am already familiar with (in almost all cases it's two steps forward one step back anyway), or b) not using a technology for a somewhat extended period of time, then co…