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A large number of bad things influence interview decisions (credentials, targeted practice, how well you know the specific algorithms that come up again and aga

by ammon 11y ago

A large number of bad things influence interview decisions (credentials, targeted practice, how well you know the specific algorithms that come up again and again in interviews). I hope that more programmers getting better at interviewing skills will help move companies toward measuring actual programming skill.

superuser2 11y ago
My credential represents hundreds of hours of programming projects over several years. For that reason alone it is a much better signal than an interview will ever be. It also establishes depth and breadth of familiarity with a variety of fundamental topics demonstrated through exams and large programming projects: program design, networking, operating systems, security/cryptography, team software engineering practices, algorithmic techniques and analysis, etc. You fundamentally cannot assess this as well as my alma mater can because my alma mater has 4 years of me working under realistic conditions (laptop, internet, colleagues, deadlines on the order of weeks) and you have, what, 5 hours of me standing at a whiteboard? Credentials are seriously underrated. CS programs are not created equal. If you find that candidates from a particular school aren't necessarily competent, then you should value candidates from better, harder schools. If you find that candidates from well-respected schools aren't necessarily competent, then you should respect them less (US News isn't always right) and respect other schools more.
- smm2000 11y ago
  Credentials and prior experience are used in all companies to establish your title, level, salary and position - things that actually matter when you start working. Coding interview is just a baseline that everyone hired is expected to exceed. In most companies it does not really matter how well you did in coding interview - the only thing that matter is that you passed it. After that coding interview results are not really considered when choosing level (other than for junior engineers). Nobody expects senior engineer to be much faster when coding simple loop but he sure should be able to code it. On the other hand design and behavior interview results are often have much more influence on final salary and level.
  - deleted 11y ago
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- ammon 11y ago
  You're not being compared to people who lack hundreds of hours of programming projects. You're being compared to people who have that same experience, either at a worse school, or on their own. Credentials correlate with being good, absolutely. But many, many more people lack credentials than have them. This means that there is a large number of great programmers who don't have them (I think a larger number than who do). There are also bad people with good credentials. Strong filtering on credentials harms companies who miss good programmers, and harms programmers who can't get jobs. Using credentials as one factor among many in a screening step, however, makes good sense (although we don't do this at Triplebyte because we want to force ourselves to get as good at possible at directly measuring skill).
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  - superuser2 11y ago
    >You're not being compared to people who lack hundreds of hours of programming projects. I don't think that is quite right. Interviewers claim coding interviews are necessary to weed out the large fraction of our industry that cannot write code at all. If they cannot code, then they did not successfully complete a good undergraduate program's worth of coding projects (they cheated, rode on the coattails of group members, were graded way too easily, or something). Otherwise they can code. >Strong filtering on credentials harms companies who miss good programmers, and harms programmers who can't get jobs. On the other hand, strong filtering on whiteboarding unnecessarily filters out people who don't do well under that kind of pressure but may be great programmers given a computer and a more realistic deadline. They also privilege people who have optimized well for whiteboard interviews but may be destructive in the longer term. Which is why the optimal solution seriously considers both factors. (I'm arguing with you because you called credentials influencing hiring a "bad" thing).
- darrenkopp 11y ago
  Your experience doesn't directly translate to what is relevant for the company you are applying to though. You may _think_ it does based on their general description, but it may not. One of the questions we give has you design a data model to store certain information and then query it out. It's not complex at all, and they are in full control of the design. You'd be surprised how few people with 15 years of experience in senior level positions are unable to query out the information using a data model they designed themselves.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    I guess that's possible, but I think you might also be surprised how much better people are at SQL when they have access to references and ability to develop iteratively with feedback from a real computer.
leeny 11y ago
Obviously I'm biased because I'm building a company around it (interviewing.io), but I don't think biases around credentialing are going to go away until interviewing is anonymous. The other stuff is harder to crack. I'd really like to see interviews that are more tightly anchored to real work/layer complexity by building on themselves, etc etc.

by ammon 11y ago

superuser2 11y ago

My credential represents hundreds of hours of programming projects over several years. For that reason alone it is a much better signal than an interview will ever be. It also establishes depth and breadth of familiarity with a variety of fundamental topics demonstrated through exams and large programming projects: program design, networking, operating systems, security/cryptography, team software engineering practices, algorithmic techniques and analysis, etc. You fundamentally cannot assess this as well as my alma mater can because my alma mater has 4 years of me working under realistic conditions (laptop, internet, colleagues, deadlines on the order of weeks) and you have, what, 5 hours of me standing at a whiteboard? Credentials are seriously underrated. CS programs are not created equal. If you find that candidates from a particular school aren't necessarily competent, then you should value candidates from better, harder schools. If you find that candidates from well-respected schools aren't necessarily competent, then you should respect them less (US News isn't always right) and respect other schools more.

smm2000 11y ago
Credentials and prior experience are used in all companies to establish your title, level, salary and position - things that actually matter when you start working. Coding interview is just a baseline that everyone hired is expected to exceed. In most companies it does not really matter how well you did in coding interview - the only thing that matter is that you passed it. After that coding interview results are not really considered when choosing level (other than for junior engineers). Nobody expects senior engineer to be much faster when coding simple loop but he sure should be able to code it. On the other hand design and behavior interview results are often have much more influence on final salary and level.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ammon 11y ago
You're not being compared to people who lack hundreds of hours of programming projects. You're being compared to people who have that same experience, either at a worse school, or on their own. Credentials correlate with being good, absolutely. But many, many more people lack credentials than have them. This means that there is a large number of great programmers who don't have them (I think a larger number than who do). There are also bad people with good credentials. Strong filtering on credentials harms companies who miss good programmers, and harms programmers who can't get jobs. Using credentials as one factor among many in a screening step, however, makes good sense (although we don't do this at Triplebyte because we want to force ourselves to get as good at possible at directly measuring skill).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- superuser2 11y ago
  >You're not being compared to people who lack hundreds of hours of programming projects. I don't think that is quite right. Interviewers claim coding interviews are necessary to weed out the large fraction of our industry that cannot write code at all. If they cannot code, then they did not successfully complete a good undergraduate program's worth of coding projects (they cheated, rode on the coattails of group members, were graded way too easily, or something). Otherwise they can code. >Strong filtering on credentials harms companies who miss good programmers, and harms programmers who can't get jobs. On the other hand, strong filtering on whiteboarding unnecessarily filters out people who don't do well under that kind of pressure but may be great programmers given a computer and a more realistic deadline. They also privilege people who have optimized well for whiteboard interviews but may be destructive in the longer term. Which is why the optimal solution seriously considers both factors. (I'm arguing with you because you called credentials influencing hiring a "bad" thing).
darrenkopp 11y ago
Your experience doesn't directly translate to what is relevant for the company you are applying to though. You may _think_ it does based on their general description, but it may not. One of the questions we give has you design a data model to store certain information and then query it out. It's not complex at all, and they are in full control of the design. You'd be surprised how few people with 15 years of experience in senior level positions are unable to query out the information using a data model they designed themselves.
- superuser2 11y ago
  I guess that's possible, but I think you might also be surprised how much better people are at SQL when they have access to references and ability to develop iteratively with feedback from a real computer.

leeny 11y ago

Obviously I'm biased because I'm building a company around it (interviewing.io), but I don't think biases around credentialing are going to go away until interviewing is anonymous. The other stuff is harder to crack. I'd really like to see interviews that are more tightly anchored to real work/layer complexity by building on themselves, etc etc.