4 ms·

Wow, it appears my point was completely missed (and I was otherwise painted as a bigot), so let me try to explain better. > It's a solved problem, and somethin

Wow, it appears my point was completely missed (and I was otherwise painted as a bigot), so let me try to explain better. > It's a solved problem, and something an employee would NEVER do in your company, let alone search for the optimal solution in 10 stressful minutes while you breathe down his neck. Actually, just a couple of weeks ago we had something almost equivalent, that involved chasing "pointers" through databases and files. It was for less than 1M cases, but still - any O(n^2) solution would have been infeasible (and an nlogn solution about 20 times slower than an O(n) solution; in this case, it was a one-off, and the difference would have been between 1hr of runtime and 1day of runtime). > When's the last time you ever did anything as low level as reversing a linked list? Please re-read what I wrote. I wrote, in fact, "you (almost) never need to reverse linked lists in practice". I also explained that it is an abstract version of a kind of thing that DOES happen often. > Major red flag. I don't mean to be rude, but this sentence comes off as very arrogant. Perhaps. For all you know, I'm a dog, but I'll say that I'm soon entering my 4th decade in the industry, I'm well respected, I've hired (and fired) tens of people through the years (and interviewed hundreds if not thousands); and I'm well respected among my peers for having very accurate evaluations of people's abilities. I do not aim to be politically correct. > Why? Because they're in a lower caste? If you can't handle direct feedback, you're a terrible manager. No, because I've just hired them, or just didn't hire them; either way, I think it is irresponsible to trust the statement of a person I don't actually know and who may either hold a grudge or want to please me right now. I meant to say "direct immediate feedback", which is perhaps better wording. After I know a person, I ask them (and usually get) the most direct and raw feedback I can get.

kstenerud 9y ago
> it was a one-off, and the difference would have been between 1hr of runtime and 1day of runtime). What's wrong with 1h vs 1d for a one-off thing? Your effective delivery time would be close enough to equivalent after all the administrative BS and customer expectations, and a naive approach piss simple to verify. If it was going to mean the difference between 1h and multiple days, here's what I'd do: - Fire up my trusty browser. - Navigate to google.com - Type in "reverse a linked list" - Evaluate all of the solutions I find and pick the best efficiency / verifiability match to solve the problem in a reasonable amount of time. Are you going to test that in an interview question? No, you're going to effectively "whiteboard" me, asking me to reinvent the wheel on the spot. And I'm going to resent you for it. > but I'll say that I'm soon entering my 4th decade in the industry, I'm well respected, I've hired (and fired) tens of people through the years (and interviewed hundreds if not thousands); and I'm well respected among my peers for having very accurate evaluations of people's abilities. I do not aim to be politically correct. And I'm in my third decade in the industry, all the respect, blah, blah, half a million lines of open source in the wild. So what? You can make the same mistakes over and over in any industry and never think to question if you're doing it wrong. This is ESPECIALLY problematic when it comes to people skills. > No, because I've just hired them, or just didn't hire them; either way, I think it is irresponsible to trust the statement of a person I don't actually know and who may either hold a grudge or want to please me right now. It's the PERFECT time to ask them, because it's fresh in their mind. A skilled interrogator can get information despite the subject's frame of mind. I'm actually surprised that you assume everyone you accept or reject is either going to be a sycophant or hold a grudge. You WANT them to talk while the frustrations they encountered are still fresh in their minds. That's the most raw feedback you'll ever get. You really do need to start treating them like human beings. Wanna know how I evaluated potential game devs in person? I asked them what dev environment they were most comfortable in, gave them a computer hooked up to the internet and a picture of a tweetie bird, and said "Make the bird jump. Use google to look shit up." Worked amazingly well.
- beagle3 9y ago
  > Are you going to test that in an interview question? No, you're going to effectively "whiteboard" me, asking me to reinvent the wheel on the spot. And I'm going to resent you for it. Unfortunately, the real world business problem that needs to be solved is not "reverse a linked list", but rather "discover the relationship between the widgez and the widgix that the customer is after". That relationship, once you understand the problem domain, can be discovered by (doing something quite but not exactly like) reversing a linked list. And unfortunately for you, a google search for "discover the relationship between the widgez and the widgix" yields nothing. If you can't (do something similar to) reverse a linked list, you can't deliver the solution. And it's fine you are going to resent me. I do not want to employ anyone who thinks "reversing a linked list" is an inappropriate question in a technical interview. > What's wrong with 1h vs 1d for a one-off thing? I was just giving this for completeness - in this case, it doesn't matter. But if it is 1h vs multiple days, or it happens often (say, every 3 hours), then picking the correct solution -- which your method will NOT generate -- is actually important. > It's the PERFECT time to ask them, because it's fresh in their mind. A skilled interrogator can get information despite the subject's frame of mind. I'm actually surprised that you assume everyone you accept or reject is either going to be a sycophant or hold a grudge. I ask again, have you hired people? because the "skilled interrogator" mindset makes me think you haven't. I've just negotiated with a person, whom I've had less than 2 hours to know. If I don't want to strike a deal with them, I want to be fair and tell that to them as soon as possible, at which point the vast majority of them just want to move on (and I happily oblige the very few who do want to continue the discussion). If I do want to strike a deal with them, we start the salary negotiation phase, at which point (assuming they are interested) they have a vested interest in me offering them as much as possible; which some people express by trying to please. These things are often subconscious. I do not assume anyone is a sycophant or holds a grudge. But I do assume, at that point in time, that they are not exactly objective; and I cannot, in fact, calibrate their response since I don't really know them. > Wanna know how I evaluated potential game devs in person? I asked them what dev environment they were most comfortable in, gave them a computer hooked up to the internet and a picture of a tweetie bird, and said "Make the bird jump. Use google to look shit up." Worked amazingly well. Sometimes, you can do that. Often, you can't. Especially if the person has no experience in the field they are interviewing in. "Here's a stock exchange API, write a bot that makes markets" is super simple for someone from the field, and would take hours (perhaps days) of grokking for someone who isn't. And making a bird jump would not necessarily tell me someone is apt for writing trading software.

kstenerud 9y ago

> it was a one-off, and the difference would have been between 1hr of runtime and 1day of runtime). What's wrong with 1h vs 1d for a one-off thing? Your effective delivery time would be close enough to equivalent after all the administrative BS and customer expectations, and a naive approach piss simple to verify. If it was going to mean the difference between 1h and multiple days, here's what I'd do: - Fire up my trusty browser. - Navigate to google.com - Type in "reverse a linked list" - Evaluate all of the solutions I find and pick the best efficiency / verifiability match to solve the problem in a reasonable amount of time. Are you going to test that in an interview question? No, you're going to effectively "whiteboard" me, asking me to reinvent the wheel on the spot. And I'm going to resent you for it. > but I'll say that I'm soon entering my 4th decade in the industry, I'm well respected, I've hired (and fired) tens of people through the years (and interviewed hundreds if not thousands); and I'm well respected among my peers for having very accurate evaluations of people's abilities. I do not aim to be politically correct. And I'm in my third decade in the industry, all the respect, blah, blah, half a million lines of open source in the wild. So what? You can make the same mistakes over and over in any industry and never think to question if you're doing it wrong. This is ESPECIALLY problematic when it comes to people skills. > No, because I've just hired them, or just didn't hire them; either way, I think it is irresponsible to trust the statement of a person I don't actually know and who may either hold a grudge or want to please me right now. It's the PERFECT time to ask them, because it's fresh in their mind. A skilled interrogator can get information despite the subject's frame of mind. I'm actually surprised that you assume everyone you accept or reject is either going to be a sycophant or hold a grudge. You WANT them to talk while the frustrations they encountered are still fresh in their minds. That's the most raw feedback you'll ever get. You really do need to start treating them like human beings. Wanna know how I evaluated potential game devs in person? I asked them what dev environment they were most comfortable in, gave them a computer hooked up to the internet and a picture of a tweetie bird, and said "Make the bird jump. Use google to look shit up." Worked amazingly well.

beagle3 9y ago
> Are you going to test that in an interview question? No, you're going to effectively "whiteboard" me, asking me to reinvent the wheel on the spot. And I'm going to resent you for it. Unfortunately, the real world business problem that needs to be solved is not "reverse a linked list", but rather "discover the relationship between the widgez and the widgix that the customer is after". That relationship, once you understand the problem domain, can be discovered by (doing something quite but not exactly like) reversing a linked list. And unfortunately for you, a google search for "discover the relationship between the widgez and the widgix" yields nothing. If you can't (do something similar to) reverse a linked list, you can't deliver the solution. And it's fine you are going to resent me. I do not want to employ anyone who thinks "reversing a linked list" is an inappropriate question in a technical interview. > What's wrong with 1h vs 1d for a one-off thing? I was just giving this for completeness - in this case, it doesn't matter. But if it is 1h vs multiple days, or it happens often (say, every 3 hours), then picking the correct solution -- which your method will NOT generate -- is actually important. > It's the PERFECT time to ask them, because it's fresh in their mind. A skilled interrogator can get information despite the subject's frame of mind. I'm actually surprised that you assume everyone you accept or reject is either going to be a sycophant or hold a grudge. I ask again, have you hired people? because the "skilled interrogator" mindset makes me think you haven't. I've just negotiated with a person, whom I've had less than 2 hours to know. If I don't want to strike a deal with them, I want to be fair and tell that to them as soon as possible, at which point the vast majority of them just want to move on (and I happily oblige the very few who do want to continue the discussion). If I do want to strike a deal with them, we start the salary negotiation phase, at which point (assuming they are interested) they have a vested interest in me offering them as much as possible; which some people express by trying to please. These things are often subconscious. I do not assume anyone is a sycophant or holds a grudge. But I do assume, at that point in time, that they are not exactly objective; and I cannot, in fact, calibrate their response since I don't really know them. > Wanna know how I evaluated potential game devs in person? I asked them what dev environment they were most comfortable in, gave them a computer hooked up to the internet and a picture of a tweetie bird, and said "Make the bird jump. Use google to look shit up." Worked amazingly well. Sometimes, you can do that. Often, you can't. Especially if the person has no experience in the field they are interviewing in. "Here's a stock exchange API, write a bot that makes markets" is super simple for someone from the field, and would take hours (perhaps days) of grokking for someone who isn't. And making a bird jump would not necessarily tell me someone is apt for writing trading software.