5 ms·

Us, software engineers, start to sound like spoiled kids when it comes to interviewing. We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teaser

by kinkdr 10y ago

Us, software engineers, start to sound like spoiled kids when it comes to interviewing. We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. We complain about everything. Well, hiring is a difficult problem, and nobody has a universal solution yet. But the truth is that if I want to get a job, I will need eat the humble pie and get out there and try to perform as good as I can to whatever I am asked. If I don't, somebody else will. However, remember that interview is a two way process, if I don't like the employer's process, then maybe I will not even interview for them. In this case though, I cannot expect them to give me an offer, just because.

pandaman 10y ago
It seems that other professions have solved this. Nobody is asking lawyers to run a trial on a whiteboard or solve a whodunit mystery in 2 hours. And I don't think that licensing process for lawyers guarantees anything other than the right to practice law (there are pretty bad licensed lawyers out there). Do construction workers draw diagrams of installing drywall in their hiring process? Do plumbers get challenged with the back of cereal box trace-the-pipe puzzle? There are jobs, which have a similar hiring process. Performance artists actually need to perform to get hired but they do perform their actual work. I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer.
- sametmax 10y ago
  In those other jobs get hired a lot : 1 - by social networking; 2 - on diploma. For 1, The problem is, programmers will be recruited either by: - non programmers. And dev will likely not be found in the same social circles than those people; - programmers. Which tend to use a technical solution to all problems. For 2, we all know now that you got as many good and bad dev, no matter the diploma, so people have given up. And yes, dev are spoiled in the US, so recruiting technics move fast, trying to adapt. But in France, they are not, and we have the same old recruiting technics. And it's not better. Lot of bad dev are recruited.
  - k__ 10y ago
    When I freelance, they just ask if I can get the job done. When I get hired, they want me to do dumb tests. The only difference for them is that they can stop paying me right away when I freelance, but when I'm an employee they have to pay me for at least 2 weeks to go (at least in Germany were we have 6 months probation time on new jobs, where you can be fired easily) I made many people I worked for happy, but many people who gave me tests wouldn't even consider me as employee. I don't know if I would have been a bad employee for the testing-companies, but I never had issues with employers or customers who hired me, so I have the feeling the companies who didn't hire me were missing out.
- wanderer2323 10y ago
  >I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer. Think about it this way: they are not playing a full playlist on an actual stage with a soundcheck and live audience either. Compared to the real gig they are performing a smaller task in an artificially simplified environment. It is actually very similar to a coding interview. People often forget that puzzles are not a thing into itself, it's a tool for discovering candidate's style and a springboard for further discussion. I'm not interested in a solution itself as much as in an ability to discuss it, explain it & improve it -- because those are the things that are being done in a workplace on a daily basis.
  - pandaman 10y ago
    People also forget the goal of the hiring process - finding somebody who can get the work done. I am in the game industry and, luckily, not everybody is doing whiteboard coding and puzzles here, but, out of my anecdotal experience, studios that do it also release pretty crappy games. It could be that springboarding discussion is not selecting very good programmers. It could also be that the management who enforces these practices is not competent to run the studio. I cannot tell either way, just my experience.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      You can flip this around. Do you want to work for a company that does what everyone else does without a clear well-defined rationale for it, or do you want to work for a company that has a deep understanding of what it needs from its employees, and has worked out the most efficient way to get it? Good companies run a continuous improvement cycle on hiring practices. Bad companies do the same shit over and over and make the same mistakes again and again. So I would be surprised if poor hiring didn't correlate with poor results in other areas.
    - wanderer2323 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, what do the studios that don't release crappy games do?
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Actually, many firms do set puzzles, normally by asking the candidate to create a brief based on materials provided. It takes far more than a couple hours. Bar exams, depending on where you are, also sometimes incorporate this sort of thing.
  - dctoedt 10y ago
    The California bar exam includes two separate performance tests of (IIRC) two- to three hours each. You're given a packet of "facts" and legal-reference materials. Your assignment is to write a motion for a court case; a memo to the client; etc. (Starting in July 2017 it'll be cut to one performance test of 90 minutes [0].) [0] http://abovethelaw.com/2015/07/california-bar-exam-cut-from-three-days-to-two/ http://abovethelaw.com/2015/07/california-bar-exam-cut-from-...
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      In my day, the multistate also had a "practical" exam option that involved creating a brief from a small pile of evidences. It only took a few hours.
- Teeboo 10y ago
  Lawyers do not investigate crimes; solving a whodunnit is a terrible comparison. Plumbers, unlike computer programmers, are typically hired purely by referral or a small amount of marketing. Again, you make a terrible analogy. A plumber got hired because A) The risk of a bad plumber is less threatening than the leaking faucet I have right now. B) a friend said they were a good plumber. Since JavaScript refactoring is not as pressing as a leaking tap the hirer can take their time and subject you to a rigour out process in order to ensure that the millions of pounds of intellectual property you have access to will be handled in the correct manner. I agree with the top voted response; the perception is engineers are beginning to whine about everything. Not you fault, you are just one part of the sum but that sum is sounding more like a spoiled brat than ever before.
  - pandaman 10y ago
    By your complains about my terrible analogies (which they are, intentionally) I am guessing you are one of the few programmers who actually does all the stuff from the interviews on the job?
    - Teeboo 10y ago
      No. I freelance and don't have to do any of that. However, when I was seeking permanent employment I understood that it was not my circus and not my monkey's. I had to jump through the hoops. The same for coding as it was product management as it was for consultancy. Rather than complain, why not invent a startup that acts as a universal badge of coding ability and is widely accepted as the industry standard for benchmarking technological ability... The post just screams (once again) "I am a coder you should simply accept my genius and leave me in peace to work." Law of averages just tells you that there is a bell curve of ability...at least some of the individuals on Hacker News are precisely the individuals that white boarding and puzzles are designed to catch.
      - pandaman 10y ago
        The issue is that many people already have a substantial proof of their coding ability in form of completed work. The rational approach would be to evaluate that work and, as safety, test that they have actually performed it. Whiteboarding them catches nothing other than inability to perform unusual tasks under stress.
catnaroek 10y ago
> We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. I love all of those things. In fact, dare I say I like them more than the job itself: (0) The given task is usually short, self-contained, and has a single best solution that can be found purely by logical reasoning. (1) There are no requirements of the form “you have to use this obviously misdesigned technology”. All one has to do is come up with data structures and algorithms. (2) I won't piss anyone off for trying to do things in the most elegant way possible. What's not to love?
- Bromskloss 10y ago
  We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. You even index from zero. You're hired! I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer.
  - catnaroek 10y ago
    > We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. Would be nice. > I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer. Using blackboard and chalk is indeed nicer. The unpleasantness comes afterwards, when you have to wash the chalk off of your clothes.
collyw 10y ago
We realize that all these exercises are pretty pointless an unrelated to the work we are doing. Is that really acting like a spoiled kid?

by kinkdr 10y ago

pandaman 10y ago

It seems that other professions have solved this. Nobody is asking lawyers to run a trial on a whiteboard or solve a whodunit mystery in 2 hours. And I don't think that licensing process for lawyers guarantees anything other than the right to practice law (there are pretty bad licensed lawyers out there). Do construction workers draw diagrams of installing drywall in their hiring process? Do plumbers get challenged with the back of cereal box trace-the-pipe puzzle? There are jobs, which have a similar hiring process. Performance artists actually need to perform to get hired but they do perform their actual work. I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer.

sametmax 10y ago
In those other jobs get hired a lot : 1 - by social networking; 2 - on diploma. For 1, The problem is, programmers will be recruited either by: - non programmers. And dev will likely not be found in the same social circles than those people; - programmers. Which tend to use a technical solution to all problems. For 2, we all know now that you got as many good and bad dev, no matter the diploma, so people have given up. And yes, dev are spoiled in the US, so recruiting technics move fast, trying to adapt. But in France, they are not, and we have the same old recruiting technics. And it's not better. Lot of bad dev are recruited.
- k__ 10y ago
  When I freelance, they just ask if I can get the job done. When I get hired, they want me to do dumb tests. The only difference for them is that they can stop paying me right away when I freelance, but when I'm an employee they have to pay me for at least 2 weeks to go (at least in Germany were we have 6 months probation time on new jobs, where you can be fired easily) I made many people I worked for happy, but many people who gave me tests wouldn't even consider me as employee. I don't know if I would have been a bad employee for the testing-companies, but I never had issues with employers or customers who hired me, so I have the feeling the companies who didn't hire me were missing out.
wanderer2323 10y ago
>I.e. they are not playing the anthem of Cambodia on a toy recorder in order to be hired as a death metal band drummer. Think about it this way: they are not playing a full playlist on an actual stage with a soundcheck and live audience either. Compared to the real gig they are performing a smaller task in an artificially simplified environment. It is actually very similar to a coding interview. People often forget that puzzles are not a thing into itself, it's a tool for discovering candidate's style and a springboard for further discussion. I'm not interested in a solution itself as much as in an ability to discuss it, explain it & improve it -- because those are the things that are being done in a workplace on a daily basis.
- pandaman 10y ago
  People also forget the goal of the hiring process - finding somebody who can get the work done. I am in the game industry and, luckily, not everybody is doing whiteboard coding and puzzles here, but, out of my anecdotal experience, studios that do it also release pretty crappy games. It could be that springboarding discussion is not selecting very good programmers. It could also be that the management who enforces these practices is not competent to run the studio. I cannot tell either way, just my experience.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    You can flip this around. Do you want to work for a company that does what everyone else does without a clear well-defined rationale for it, or do you want to work for a company that has a deep understanding of what it needs from its employees, and has worked out the most efficient way to get it? Good companies run a continuous improvement cycle on hiring practices. Bad companies do the same shit over and over and make the same mistakes again and again. So I would be surprised if poor hiring didn't correlate with poor results in other areas.
  - wanderer2323 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, what do the studios that don't release crappy games do?
sandworm101 10y ago
Actually, many firms do set puzzles, normally by asking the candidate to create a brief based on materials provided. It takes far more than a couple hours. Bar exams, depending on where you are, also sometimes incorporate this sort of thing.
- dctoedt 10y ago
  The California bar exam includes two separate performance tests of (IIRC) two- to three hours each. You're given a packet of "facts" and legal-reference materials. Your assignment is to write a motion for a court case; a memo to the client; etc. (Starting in July 2017 it'll be cut to one performance test of 90 minutes [0].) [0] http://abovethelaw.com/2015/07/california-bar-exam-cut-from-three-days-to-two/ http://abovethelaw.com/2015/07/california-bar-exam-cut-from-...
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    In my day, the multistate also had a "practical" exam option that involved creating a brief from a small pile of evidences. It only took a few hours.
Teeboo 10y ago
Lawyers do not investigate crimes; solving a whodunnit is a terrible comparison. Plumbers, unlike computer programmers, are typically hired purely by referral or a small amount of marketing. Again, you make a terrible analogy. A plumber got hired because A) The risk of a bad plumber is less threatening than the leaking faucet I have right now. B) a friend said they were a good plumber. Since JavaScript refactoring is not as pressing as a leaking tap the hirer can take their time and subject you to a rigour out process in order to ensure that the millions of pounds of intellectual property you have access to will be handled in the correct manner. I agree with the top voted response; the perception is engineers are beginning to whine about everything. Not you fault, you are just one part of the sum but that sum is sounding more like a spoiled brat than ever before.
- pandaman 10y ago
  By your complains about my terrible analogies (which they are, intentionally) I am guessing you are one of the few programmers who actually does all the stuff from the interviews on the job?
  - Teeboo 10y ago
    No. I freelance and don't have to do any of that. However, when I was seeking permanent employment I understood that it was not my circus and not my monkey's. I had to jump through the hoops. The same for coding as it was product management as it was for consultancy. Rather than complain, why not invent a startup that acts as a universal badge of coding ability and is widely accepted as the industry standard for benchmarking technological ability... The post just screams (once again) "I am a coder you should simply accept my genius and leave me in peace to work." Law of averages just tells you that there is a bell curve of ability...at least some of the individuals on Hacker News are precisely the individuals that white boarding and puzzles are designed to catch.
    - pandaman 10y ago
      The issue is that many people already have a substantial proof of their coding ability in form of completed work. The rational approach would be to evaluate that work and, as safety, test that they have actually performed it. Whiteboarding them catches nothing other than inability to perform unusual tasks under stress.

catnaroek 10y ago

> We don't like writing code on the whiteboard, we don't like mind teasers, we don't like programming puzzles, and so on. I love all of those things. In fact, dare I say I like them more than the job itself: (0) The given task is usually short, self-contained, and has a single best solution that can be found purely by logical reasoning. (1) There are no requirements of the form “you have to use this obviously misdesigned technology”. All one has to do is come up with data structures and algorithms. (2) I won't piss anyone off for trying to do things in the most elegant way possible. What's not to love?

Bromskloss 10y ago
We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. You even index from zero. You're hired! I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer.
- catnaroek 10y ago
  > We should get together and just give each other such puzzles. Would be nice. > I suggest we work on a blackboard instead of on a whiteboard. I think they are nicer. Using blackboard and chalk is indeed nicer. The unpleasantness comes afterwards, when you have to wash the chalk off of your clothes.

collyw 10y ago

We realize that all these exercises are pretty pointless an unrelated to the work we are doing. Is that really acting like a spoiled kid?