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I'm with you. This really just seems like another annoying step in the broken process that will add more pain.

dragonwriter 10y ago
I think the engineers that it is aimed at are the ones for which it will not add more pain: specifically, I gather that the entire idea is to have something that provides a useful input to a recruiting process (even if it doesn't completely replace, e.g., interviews, it ideally at least replaces coding tests in interviews with something simultaneously less tedious and more real-world) while actually being something interesting enough on its own to engineers that many of them, if it existed and wasn't tied to recruiting, would engage with it anyway for personal development and/or entertainment. (The name being a reference to The Last Starfighter sort of implies this: you play the game for fun, win, and someone drops out of the sky with a job offer doing what you were doing in the game, but in a non-game environment.) Obviously, making this work requires both convincing hiring managers that it can replace at least some of the annoying technical parts of the hiring process, and developing engaging games that can engage, collectively, a sufficient pool of engineering talent. Sounds like the concern is that, to date, they may have focused too much on the latter and not enough on the former, but while that's a challenge, I don't think it has to be an insurmountable one.
- myblake 10y ago
  This really hits the nail on the head. The problem with onsites is really the "quick prove to me you're smart" type of tests that both are time intensive and also very frustrating to a lot of people in that they're often calibrated with a heavy bias towards avoiding false positives with nothing to even track the amount of false negatives. Success with something like start fighter provides a reasonable benchmark for the latter which is in itself pretty valuable. The thing to consider though is that it would be crazy to take a job without going in to meet your potential future coworkers. It's also a quicker and less unpleasant process (and more of a two way street) to try and make sure it's a good cultural match. Thus, solving a bunch of the problems with technical interviews shouldn't actually eliminate onsites, it should rather make them more effective and less awful.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I think one of the benefits is that it changes those onsite interview from something akin to "come in and we''l see if you are worthy" to "come meet with us and we'll mutually see if there's a good culture and attitude fit" since your skillset has mostly been vetted by that point.

I think the engineers that it is aimed at are the ones for which it will not add more pain: specifically, I gather that the entire idea is to have something that provides a useful input to a recruiting process (even if it doesn't completely replace, e.g., interviews, it ideally at least replaces coding tests in interviews with something simultaneously less tedious and more real-world) while actually being something interesting enough on its own to engineers that many of them, if it existed and wasn't tied to recruiting, would engage with it anyway for personal development and/or entertainment. (The name being a reference to The Last Starfighter sort of implies this: you play the game for fun, win, and someone drops out of the sky with a job offer doing what you were doing in the game, but in a non-game environment.) Obviously, making this work requires both convincing hiring managers that it can replace at least some of the annoying technical parts of the hiring process, and developing engaging games that can engage, collectively, a sufficient pool of engineering talent. Sounds like the concern is that, to date, they may have focused too much on the latter and not enough on the former, but while that's a challenge, I don't think it has to be an insurmountable one.

myblake 10y ago
This really hits the nail on the head. The problem with onsites is really the "quick prove to me you're smart" type of tests that both are time intensive and also very frustrating to a lot of people in that they're often calibrated with a heavy bias towards avoiding false positives with nothing to even track the amount of false negatives. Success with something like start fighter provides a reasonable benchmark for the latter which is in itself pretty valuable. The thing to consider though is that it would be crazy to take a job without going in to meet your potential future coworkers. It's also a quicker and less unpleasant process (and more of a two way street) to try and make sure it's a good cultural match. Thus, solving a bunch of the problems with technical interviews shouldn't actually eliminate onsites, it should rather make them more effective and less awful.
- kbenson 10y ago
  I think one of the benefits is that it changes those onsite interview from something akin to "come in and we''l see if you are worthy" to "come meet with us and we'll mutually see if there's a good culture and attitude fit" since your skillset has mostly been vetted by that point.