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Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

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Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#91

Post by Jd »

archangel_one wrote: post #79
Jd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it is better than getting asked questions about the O-notation of the solution you've just whiteboarded. There has to be a better way...

What's wrong with that? Big-O notation is fairly universally relevant so it seems not unreasonable to expect a programmer to be able to talk about it a little. I've seen exactly that be a strong indicator in the past - a candidate not being able to recognise that the code he'd written ran in O(n^2) was a significant negative sign.

I'm not sure how relevant it is to the work that many web application programmers do every day, which fairly rarely involves algorithm optimization. I understand that there are lots of optimization heavy jobs out there, but I'm not really sure that it is important for many of us (esp. since there are lots of great developers out there without a Comp Sci training).

To the downvoters: Do you disagree? If so please tell me why.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#92

Post by yid »

hugh3 wrote: post #65
yid wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OPs complaint is that the service purports to find "great" programmers where they really mean "adequately competent to perform most tasks and able to learn". Another case of marketing speak annoying the nerds.

Programmers in the category "adequately competent" tend to self-identify as "great", so it is at least a consistent use of language. And is it any wonder? Threads like this are filled with comments saying things like "80% of programmers can't code their way out of a paper bag", so is it any wonder that the folks who can program adequately get big heads about it?

No wonder at all, although tech is far from the only field with big heads.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#93

Post by Eliezer »

Another potentially good idea trying to solve an open problem with lots of room for improvement...

...ruined by the ever-spreading concept that everything should be solved using web apps. I mean, heaven forbid that they actually have a physical center with employees testing people.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#94

Post by rvivek »

tptacek wrote: post #80
bugsy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have misunderstood my comment. It's not about having a brand. It's about having a professional reputation. Professionals who are of the "excellent" caliber that this service purports to represent usually develop a professional reputation naturally without even trying. This happens even if one is fairly isolated doing "heads down coding" for much of the year. There are times when you meet with clients in meeti…

I strongly, strongly agree with everything you're saying and second it wholeheartedly, but I want to add that there is a class of people in our field that can talk brilliantly about what they've worked on, who have resumes with key roles on shipping products on them, and who will absolutely flatline if called upon to code. There is a logic to some level of programming quiz. You really want to verify that the person y…

+1 to both. Like you've put up on your careers page about candidates doing a web-app challenge, we're going to launch real-world challenges pretty soon!

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#95

Post by skybrian »

bugsy wrote: post #78
gleb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every developer has a brand. This service appears to target companies hiring developers that don't. Fortunately that is 99.99% of the market.

You may have misunderstood my comment. It's not about having a brand. It's about having a professional reputation. Professionals who are of the "excellent" caliber that this service purports to represent usually develop a professional reputation naturally without even trying. This happens even if one is fairly isolated doing "heads down coding" for much of the year. There are times when you meet with clients in meeti…

There are people who talk a good game but can't actually code. Or so I've heard. Perhaps you're overconfident about being able to judge other programmers without actually asking them to write some code? How would you know? How do you explain fizzbuzz? [1]

[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#96

Post by Estragon »

veyron wrote: post #70
reinhardt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't already seen examples of someone's work before you contact them, maybe you shouldn't be hiring them. Because obviously all great programmers are expected to have built their online cred before applying for a job, right? I'm sure candidates with background in, say, HFT love sharing their work on their blog, or enjoy hacking on their pet projects after toiling away at their 60+ hour work weeks.

Generally there are contractual obligations precluding sharing work. No need to risk a lawsuit

That's his point.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#97

Post by DaniFong »

tptacek wrote: post #80
bugsy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have misunderstood my comment. It's not about having a brand. It's about having a professional reputation. Professionals who are of the "excellent" caliber that this service purports to represent usually develop a professional reputation naturally without even trying. This happens even if one is fairly isolated doing "heads down coding" for much of the year. There are times when you meet with clients in meeti…

I strongly, strongly agree with everything you're saying and second it wholeheartedly, but I want to add that there is a class of people in our field that can talk brilliantly about what they've worked on, who have resumes with key roles on shipping products on them, and who will absolutely flatline if called upon to code. There is a logic to some level of programming quiz. You really want to verify that the person y…

Thomas, this is really an excellent page (and a sharp design). Describing up front what the process is definitely respectful of the candidates time!

We've found some success by trying to make the problems really interesting; perhaps some people jettisoned but others came back and said they had a really great time trying to solve them.

Maybe for software you could ask a question like: describe a little piece of software you'd like to build, you could build in an evening and would be useful/entertaining for you or someone else. describe how you'd do it.

and then...

show us, one week from now. :-)

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#98

Post by mattdeboard »

Eliezer wrote: post #93

Another potentially good idea trying to solve an open problem with lots of room for improvement... ...ruined by the ever-spreading concept that everything should be solved using web apps. I mean, heaven forbid that they actually have a physical center with employees testing people.

Who the hell would go to that? The internet exists, therefore use it to make "physical testing centers for hackers" totally irrelevant.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#99

Post by quizbiz »

The unemployed should be spending every minute trying to learn programming.

I'm surprised we haven't seen any sort of public awareness campaign geared towards learning computer science. Only recently is it starting to be "cool" and equivalent to lawyers/doctors.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#100

Post by zackattack »

Have you ever met an elite programmer who was not an alpha male or alpha female. I would simply test for signs of dominance.

Edit: downvoted. Two possibilities spring to mind:

1) Downvoted by a feeble mind not capable of constructing an intelligent retort.

2) Downvoted by a relatively strong, yet ultimately scarce mind that wants to prevent access to the truth.

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