5 ms·

> you have to be aware of big-O, or you're going to hit a lot of walls. Of course you do, along with many other things - many other things that you won't know

> you have to be aware of big-O, or you're going to hit a lot of walls. Of course you do, along with many other things - many other things that you won't know you need to be aware of because you haven't come across them yet or because they haven't been invented yet. What I said is that it's important to know how to figure these things out, not be able to recite them from memory. > What exactly were you trying to say here? You said "Some of us are bootstrapped in a cut-throat market and can't afford to plan employee retention 10 years into the future" To me this is a defeatist attitude. Our jobs are fundamentally about solving problems, and this, like my example, has a solution. > Then you would lose this wager. You can't have it both ways. You seemed to say that your preferred interview style selects the best of the brightest, but now it selects people who just want to clock in and out?

beagle3 9y ago
> Our jobs are fundamentally about solving problems, and this, like my example, has a solution. Unfortunately, if resources are limited, you have to compromise. Google's resources are limitless, mine isn't. if your solution is "close up shop and go work for someone who has more resources" then I'm not the defeatist. What's your solution for constrained resources? > You can't have it both ways I do try to select for the best and the brightest. I pointed out that some people like to clock (your wording implied everyone likes to learn new things on their job). The best and the brightest who are not Jeff Dean tend to change jobs every few years even if they work for Google. And no, I cannot afford to employ Jeff Dean, I admit. Can you?
- tvaughan 9y ago
  > What's your solution for constrained resources? Which resources are constrained? Our examples are 1) (yours) cultures that are hostile to employee growth and education, and 2) (mine) hostile to women and people of color. These are solvable problems, even ones as awful as Uber as we're seeing play out. As for what we can do, we can start to hold our industry accountable. When we hear about some unicorn at some absurd valuation, rather than simply applaud we need to ask them about their culture, how they treat their employees and customers, do they have a healthy work/life balance, what exactly are they doing to foster diversity, what's their impact on the environment, does their product actually make the world a better place, are they in service of the surveillance state, and so on. We need to redefine what it means to be successful in our industry. > And no, I cannot afford to employ Jeff Dean, I admit. Can you? How did we get here? I said "What these types of interviews say to me is the companies who use them have no interest in their employees growth and education." As I read the thread that follows from this point, it seems like you agree which is at odds with your defense of these types of interviews that started our discussion.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    > Our examples are 1) (yours) cultures that are hostile to employee growth and education You assert that, but I have no idea why you would think that. That's why I was perplexed at your statement. Can you elaborate? Non of the examples you give liek work/life/diversity/environment has featured into the discussion, nor the definition of "success in the industry" > I said "What these types of interviews say to me is the companies who use them have no interest in their employees growth and education." And I ask again, is, why would you assert that? It seems trivial to you, but I'm completely at loss. All I said was that I cannot, at hiring, offer a 10-year growth plan for a person. It does not mean I do not expect, encourage and help them to grow (quite the contrary).
    - tvaughan 9y ago
      > You assert that, but I have no idea why you would think that. Why I would think what? That this is true or that you think so too? As for the latter, because you said so... * "Some of us are bootstrapped in a cut-throat market and can't afford to plan employee retention 10 years into the future; And neither are most employees interested in that." * "All I said was that I cannot, at hiring, offer a 10-year growth plan for a person." * "There are so many people who just want to clock in, do their job, clock out and get paid." * "The latter costs money to the employer, which some can afford and some cannot" All of which seems to say to me that a person better come with all of the skills that they could ever possibly need now and in the future because they're not about to get any support from their employer or teammates. Just sit down, shut up, and mash on that keyboard. What you seem to advocate as growth and education is something that a person should do own their own time and at their own expense. People who aren't willing to attend meetups, read research papers, work on side projects, etc. after hours are just a bunch of clock punchers who go through life without contributing much. This sounds pretty horrible to me. "10 years" and "the costs" are just rhetorical attempts to set the bar so high to say that it's just not possible or too unreasonable to care about lifting up your teammates. This is easily provable false simply because of the companies that do this already no matter the tenure of their employees and at very little cost. As for the former, I say there are far more important skills that an interview should focus on rather than if someone can recite the pros and cons of different sorting algorithms and their Big O costs because this is easily teachable. But when you don't care about growth and education, or just simply teamwork and collaboration, you want to know if candidates already have the answers to the problems they'll encounter, which, of course, is totally ridiculous to me.

beagle3 9y ago

> Our jobs are fundamentally about solving problems, and this, like my example, has a solution. Unfortunately, if resources are limited, you have to compromise. Google's resources are limitless, mine isn't. if your solution is "close up shop and go work for someone who has more resources" then I'm not the defeatist. What's your solution for constrained resources? > You can't have it both ways I do try to select for the best and the brightest. I pointed out that some people like to clock (your wording implied everyone likes to learn new things on their job). The best and the brightest who are not Jeff Dean tend to change jobs every few years even if they work for Google. And no, I cannot afford to employ Jeff Dean, I admit. Can you?

tvaughan 9y ago
> What's your solution for constrained resources? Which resources are constrained? Our examples are 1) (yours) cultures that are hostile to employee growth and education, and 2) (mine) hostile to women and people of color. These are solvable problems, even ones as awful as Uber as we're seeing play out. As for what we can do, we can start to hold our industry accountable. When we hear about some unicorn at some absurd valuation, rather than simply applaud we need to ask them about their culture, how they treat their employees and customers, do they have a healthy work/life balance, what exactly are they doing to foster diversity, what's their impact on the environment, does their product actually make the world a better place, are they in service of the surveillance state, and so on. We need to redefine what it means to be successful in our industry. > And no, I cannot afford to employ Jeff Dean, I admit. Can you? How did we get here? I said "What these types of interviews say to me is the companies who use them have no interest in their employees growth and education." As I read the thread that follows from this point, it seems like you agree which is at odds with your defense of these types of interviews that started our discussion.
- beagle3 9y ago
  > Our examples are 1) (yours) cultures that are hostile to employee growth and education You assert that, but I have no idea why you would think that. That's why I was perplexed at your statement. Can you elaborate? Non of the examples you give liek work/life/diversity/environment has featured into the discussion, nor the definition of "success in the industry" > I said "What these types of interviews say to me is the companies who use them have no interest in their employees growth and education." And I ask again, is, why would you assert that? It seems trivial to you, but I'm completely at loss. All I said was that I cannot, at hiring, offer a 10-year growth plan for a person. It does not mean I do not expect, encourage and help them to grow (quite the contrary).
  - tvaughan 9y ago
    > You assert that, but I have no idea why you would think that. Why I would think what? That this is true or that you think so too? As for the latter, because you said so... * "Some of us are bootstrapped in a cut-throat market and can't afford to plan employee retention 10 years into the future; And neither are most employees interested in that." * "All I said was that I cannot, at hiring, offer a 10-year growth plan for a person." * "There are so many people who just want to clock in, do their job, clock out and get paid." * "The latter costs money to the employer, which some can afford and some cannot" All of which seems to say to me that a person better come with all of the skills that they could ever possibly need now and in the future because they're not about to get any support from their employer or teammates. Just sit down, shut up, and mash on that keyboard. What you seem to advocate as growth and education is something that a person should do own their own time and at their own expense. People who aren't willing to attend meetups, read research papers, work on side projects, etc. after hours are just a bunch of clock punchers who go through life without contributing much. This sounds pretty horrible to me. "10 years" and "the costs" are just rhetorical attempts to set the bar so high to say that it's just not possible or too unreasonable to care about lifting up your teammates. This is easily provable false simply because of the companies that do this already no matter the tenure of their employees and at very little cost. As for the former, I say there are far more important skills that an interview should focus on rather than if someone can recite the pros and cons of different sorting algorithms and their Big O costs because this is easily teachable. But when you don't care about growth and education, or just simply teamwork and collaboration, you want to know if candidates already have the answers to the problems they'll encounter, which, of course, is totally ridiculous to me.