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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

#781

Post by busterarm »

arez wrote: post #770
busterarm wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all data points are useful. Different pools have different profitability advertised in different ways. Some highly useful data is hard to get directly or requires significant and/or stealthy spend.

[flagged]

I thought that I made it clear that I don't work on this anymore.

Advertising isn't an inherent evil. You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise.

I advertised for one specific company. I worked in an industry that was pretty grey. Some parts of the business were vaguely predatory and others served a great public social need. More importantly, you had to have an actual reason to fill out our forms and follow through with us. We weren't just desperately trying to get any eyeballs. The work that I did very much did help people.

Also you're not going to get much mileage shaming people for what they do for a living. You being reductive doesn't really reflect reality either. I was much more than some marketer and yes, the problems were extremely intellectually stimulating, otherwise I wouldn't have been there.

That's better than I can say for most of the quants I worked with -- they were almost all just in it for the money.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#782

Post by tomnj »

monoideism wrote: post #406
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually pretty well known that the second way into FAANGs is through acquisition.

I've heard of at least some of the FAANGs do the typical interview process for acquisitions.

Can also confirm from my own experience 3 years ago

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#783

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #765
anticensorship wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'A published paper in a top conference only happens through political connections in undergrad' Which fact in and of itself ought to show just how rigged the whole system is--when people can get papers published in prestigious journals merely on the strength of "whom they know."

It also shows how unrigged the whole google interview process is. A whiteboard interview is a "Political connection agnostic" interview.

When interviewing for places like Google and Amazon, your political connections and things like publications/degrees still matter a lot. Good performance on the interviews can be impactful but it's not the only factor. The incredibly biased committees review a lot more than that at google.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#784

Post by amznthrowaway5 »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #763
anticensorship wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'I can't stop judging you based off of the white board question nor do I know how to confirm that you can write a kernel despite lack of ability to solve very very basic programming questions.' You phrased this as two parts, but in reality these two things are intricately linked. It's because you don't know how to judge person on their true ability--i.e. that you lack this skill--that you resort to useless triviali…

>Combine survivorship bias (you were subjected to it and made it, so that validates the process) Let me spell it out for you so that we are on the same page and my Bias is utterly clear: I Do not have the intellectual ability to make it through the google interview process. I consider myself to be a an excellent coder but I cannot pass their process. I also believe that the majority of programmers at google are smart…

"This makes the whiteboard interview the Best most unbiased process we have to judge other people."

Nonsense. You can just give an SAT style IQ style test loaded with algorithms questions. Far more fair and objective than the biased human interviews we have right now. From my experience on the interviewer side, a lot of good people are rejected due to bad interviewers and the arbitrariness of the process, and many incompetent people are accepted due to the biases of the interviewers. The average Googler isn't as smart as you think. Of course a written IQ test still wouldn't be perfect, but nothing is.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#785

Post by zemo »

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…

the responses to this are breathtaking. I think I would decline to hire the majority of HN users because of their arrogance.

My partner is learning about data science now so I asked them if I could try this question on them in the context of a data science interview, first thing in the morning and without coffe. They looked at me and said "being asked data science interview questions by your spouse right after waking up is the worst thing in the world but I dunno I would load it into pandas and put it in a data frame". And like honestly that's not how I would do it (I would do awk | sort | head because I always forget the cut column options) but the whole point is that the answer prompts further discussion. Now I know to ask about python and pandas (the thing the candidate uses and knows), and not, I dunno, scala and cascading/scalding or whatever (the thing that I know or use). Good questions investigate what the candidate knows. Bad questions investigate whether or not the candidate knows the things you already know.

People on this site are way too concerned with "being correct".

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#786

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.

Bro the very fact that you're defending your right to wear your crusty cargo pants everywhere (to an interview for shame! Did you sleep in them the night before to shave off a few extra minutes?) shows that dress matters and it's very personal I never said otherwise

This whole industry in its infantile attempts to over optimize for comfort and everyone's right to wear their favorite rags to the office while enabling a command and control structure peopled by petty bureacrats has created the very worst of socialist factory conditions and if you can't see that you don't deserve to call yourself a systems professional

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#787

Post by zemo »

holografix wrote: post #593

Sincere question: What are you all doing accepting these multi-hour, multi-day take away free consulting gigs? Say NO to this bullshit. Establish a deadline and clear guidelines and expectations: 1. I will not be doing any take away work at all. 2. You will explain how my GitHub repo, resumé, previous experience is insufficient to qualify me for the job in 100 words or more. 3. You will sign an NDA for whatever solut…

I give candidates the option to do a take-home or in-person assessment. For the take-home I communicate that they own everything they produce, and I create an EC2 server for them to use for the interview so that whether or not someone owns a server is not a barrier to entry.

I would definitely decline to continue to interview a candidate if I received this list of demands. The tone is unbelievably entitled and screams "difficult to work with". The suggestion that I would sign an NDA on behalf of my company is absolutely absurd. I would never sign something on behalf of my company without consulting our legal counsel, and I would never continue an interview if I had to involve my legal counsel to determine whether or not a person can code.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#788

Post by crimsonalucard »

amznthrowaway5 wrote: post #784
crimsonalucard wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Combine survivorship bias (you were subjected to it and made it, so that validates the process) Let me spell it out for you so that we are on the same page and my Bias is utterly clear: I Do not have the intellectual ability to make it through the google interview process. I consider myself to be a an excellent coder but I cannot pass their process. I also believe that the majority of programmers at google are smart…

"This makes the whiteboard interview the Best most unbiased process we have to judge other people." Nonsense. You can just give an SAT style IQ style test loaded with algorithms questions. Far more fair and objective than the biased human interviews we have right now. From my experience on the interviewer side, a lot of good people are rejected due to bad interviewers and the arbitrariness of the process, and many in…

True but, there's a pass or fail element to the whiteboard interview.

I'm mostly arguing that some form of quantitative metric is better than a conversation.

The place with the most leakage is architectural interviews.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#789

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.

Look I realize you're being facetious but let's take this reasoning to its natural conclusion

What's even more efficient and lets us focus even more on the task at hand?

Company issue overalls and living in a company dorm

Your cargo pants paradise is two steps away from soviet era factory conditions which were a marvel of efficiency I hope the irony isn't over your head

Heck does your trillion dollar corporation feed you like a good herd and monitor your calorie intake with sensors in the toilets, comrade?

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#790

Post by kortilla »

busterarm wrote: post #781
arez wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I thought that I made it clear that I don't work on this anymore. Advertising isn't an inherent evil. You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise. I advertised for one specific company. I worked in an industry that was pretty grey. Some parts of the business were vaguely predatory and others served a great public social need. More importantly, you had to have an actual reason to fill out our fo…

> You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise.

It’s funny you say that, because I found all three literally by looking at reviews and not advertisements. Those 3 categories are perfect examples of industries where referrals are far more reliable than choosing which one had the best ad budget.

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