The dystopian world of software engineering interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#831

Post by satisfaction » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

glofish wrote: post #299

overgard wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the need to nitpick your example. > does the candidate want to code it up or understands that they could do: cut | sort| head Piping together commands is undoubtedly programming, just in ancient shell script. So in a sense you're really testing for bash expertise. Which is maybe really relevant to you but I wouldn't say you're really "avoiding" coding by knowing to use those commands together, you just decided…

sqlite answer - excellent, that is exactly what I am looking for, things people did, potential solutions let me understand the candidate's real background - not the buzzwords what is not well received is the judgmental tone, passing judgment about me for things you cannot possibly know, no need for that either, simple questions also irritate some, very important to weed those people out too, I expect you would fail t…

Whew, My first thought was import the thing to database, use database engine to sort.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#832

Post by crimsonalucard » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

downerending wrote: post #829

crimsonalucard wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious. Did you study LC or algorithms for the interviews? If so how long? Also how was your IQ measured?

I largely brushed up on algorithms, though I'd seen most in grad school (which was a while ago). There's a recommended book on algorithms which is very nice (red cover, but can't recall title). Man pages are good, too--one Googler was quite unhappy that I didn't know the 'ps -o' flags off the top of my head. I actually passed the on-site and hiring committee on my third try, but was (apparently) nixed by some executi…

>I've come to appreciate the benefits of being the big fish in a tiny pond

Yeah it's like going to an elite university and competing with geniuses. I get it, I think I'm right at that cusp too.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#833

Post by simonebrunozzi » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #115

ideal0227 wrote: post #90

When my classmates were preparing interview coding questions, I was working on a mini TCP implementation and a toy kernel. AWS rejected me since I failed to write prefect code to traverse a tree in level order. Google did not even give me an interview since I told the campus recruiter I have not prepared for the coding questions. Then I ended up with an internship at CoreOS and created etcd. I am glad that they did n…

Hah! Reminds me of https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 . Cynical answer though — Google does not want people like you. They don't want to hire entrepreneurs or inventors. They want people who can churn out code when given specific instructions, and that is what their interview process optimizes for.

And it reminds me of this one too: https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383

Brian Acton, rejected by Facebook in 2009. Then in 2014 FB acquired his company for $19B...

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#834

Post by UncleOxidant » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

karlkatzke wrote: post #332

bilekas wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to note about coding interviews, they're very simular to somone looking over your shoulder while you're working. Nobody can perform well like that.. One great colleague who I wish I was in the interview for, simple started thinking out loud. Everything he was thinking, he said out loud, and of course, the team loved it. Because thats all it's about. If its not over a video chat/submission, comment your code…

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…

In years past something like this in an interview would've rattled me. But now that I've been in this biz for 30+ years I think I'd just stand up, look the guy in the eye in a really squinty way and say, "Well, then I think we're done here kid" and walked out. You get to a point where you just won't put up with this kind of bullshit after a while.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#835

Post by futadero » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #802

kortilla wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A lot of reviews are just forms of advertisements. Companies pay third parties lots of money to curate their reviews and put them in contact with the reviewer to smooth things over. I know that because that's the business I work in now. Companies still have a problem of getting their reviews surfaced to the top of your search. They also have a need to give people the lowest-friction way possible to leave them a posit…

> smooth things over

You mean buying dishonest opinions? Is this supposed to wash "big" advertising innocent? Is this "helping people"?

> The best performing adverts today are ones where you don't even realize you've been marketed to.

And isn't this justifiably what everybody's scared of (and what we should oppose)?

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#836

Post by TrackerFF » Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

akdas wrote: post #422

This is a topic I wrote about recently[0]. The fundamental problem is that these big companies are so afraid of hiring a bad candidate (a false positive) that they are willing to put up with a ton of smart people who fail their interviews (a false negative). And the worst part of this is, from the inside, it really looks like the process is working. After all, there are some really smart people who get hired, and say…

A bit late, but...

Does it work? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you get some fantastic candidates (true positives), and perhaps you get people that are very god at gaming the system (false positives).

The process, as it is, is kinda like trying to select potential mathematicians on the basis of how well they solve HS AP Math problems. It is fully possible to rote learn every kind of integral and derivative under the sun, if you just solve enough - without actually understanding the underlying principles. It becomes a pattern recognition problem.

There are tons of anecdotes from seemingly false positives, when it comes to tech hiring. The web is filled with "I was very lucky, because they re-used problems I had just solved".

BTW, when I say false positives, I don't mean incompetent programmers / engineers - I just refer to those that do not master the subjects they're being tested on, but average candidates (on the subject) that luck out on getting asked the right question.

I still think Goodhart's law stands true for this trend.

People game the system, because they want to earn more money. Companies make the system more rigorous and robust against gaming. People still find ways to game the system, and it essentially becomes a race to the bottom. Along the way you start losing out on terrific candidates, because they refuse to partake in the increasing demands. So you end up with a mixture of very talented engineers, and very able test-takers.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#837

Post by inertiatic » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

sojournerc wrote: post #661

inertiatic wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the exact same in the guitar department, play a riff for 5 mins flawlessly, try to record it as a 10 second clip (or even try to put it on a looper), fuck up a couple notes in. I also interview badly frequently but not due to poor test performance but due to my demeanor in an inherently awkward situation.

As I perform more and more, I realize the hard part is getting out of my own way. I fumble and stutter playing something when I try to think about what I'm doing, trying too hard to make it good. I'm at my best when my conscious mind doesn't really know what I'm doing, and I trust the musical muscle to do what I feel which produces more emotional, more compelling music

Good advice, I'll try to embrace that mindset.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#838

Post by qohen » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 12:32 AM UTC

downerending wrote: post #829

crimsonalucard wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious. Did you study LC or algorithms for the interviews? If so how long? Also how was your IQ measured?

I largely brushed up on algorithms, though I'd seen most in grad school (which was a while ago). There's a recommended book on algorithms which is very nice (red cover, but can't recall title). Man pages are good, too--one Googler was quite unhappy that I didn't know the 'ps -o' flags off the top of my head. I actually passed the on-site and hiring committee on my third try, but was (apparently) nixed by some executi…

There's a recommended book on algorithms which is very nice (red cover, but can't recall title).

Bit of a tangent, but, for anyone who's interested, I'm guessing the book was Steven Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual [0], as it is well-regarded and has a red cover.

Also, even more tangentially, there are videos of the author's Algorithms course lectures online from 2012 which I went through once and they were pretty good [1].

(There were one or two that had audio issues or issues seeing what he projected on the screen, but there are multiple years' worth of videos, so you can choose an alternate from an earlier year if necessary and the slides are available there too, so you can follow along with them, if need be; audio-only files are are also available if you want them).

[0] http://www.algorist.com/

[1] https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~algorith/video-lectures/

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#839

Post by RobKohr » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

The FAANG's of the world are doing us a big disservice. They filter out the best of the best programmers in the world, and then shackle them with 300K+ golden handcuffs to work on meaningless tasks on already developed products.

I was talking with a recruiter many years back about when Yahoo had a massive layoff. The following year, he was suddenly awash with jobs to fill with new startups that were created by these Yahoo employees that were in comfy jobs for life.

If one of the FAANG companies laid off their workers, we would have a huge tech boom as these brilliant people suddenly would be forced to either get another job, or create something new, and that percentage of people that would create something new would rock the world. We would have new innovations across the board in IT and other fields that they would apply their talents to.

Instead, they are building plumbing in a system that really is just in maintenance mode. Remember, 99% of the functionality of these systems that exist today was already in existence 5 years go for them. This swarm of high priced talent is basically just moving the needle about 1-2% per year to just stay ahead of any other potential competitor.

The trouble is that these companies are so successful, that they can burn the cash trapping talent, and still pull in billions per year. This grind for small returns is just a small line item compared to the flood of cash they all rake in.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#840

Post by thefourthchime » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

khalilravanna wrote: post #627

probably_wrong wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the real estate market dictates you must earn that income to stick around the bay. Well, there's your problem right there. There are plenty of smaller tech hubs around the world.

Big +1. Leave the Bay Area. Heck, you could even get a Bay Area job that allows remote and then leave the Bay Area. I worked remote from ATX for 2 years for an SF startup and it was great!

Hah, same! Love working from in ATX