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> I think it's a good failsafe. Yes, it will fail many qualified people who don't practice, but it will also fail a lot of people who talk a good game but can't

> I think it's a good failsafe. Yes, it will fail many qualified people who don't practice, but it will also fail a lot of people who talk a good game but can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I don't. I do R&D for a living and have next to no time to relearn those types of undergrad programming techniques because it doesn't apply to the work I do at all. Ask me to create a model for a system, implement a classifier that hits 90% in a way that no one has ever done before and publish a paper on it, I can do that. Ask me about a breadth first search on some tree and I'll look at you blankly. It seems a bit ridiculous that some of my cookie-cutter engineering colleagues(some that relied on me to help them with homework) can make it into places like Google but I can't make it past the 3rd or 4th interview. I can also assure you that none of my colleagues where I work could make it past that same stage of interviews despite having a PhD and despite them being great researchers.

lsc 9y ago
I think I said that it's turning down a bunch of people who are unwilling to practice. And yes, turning down people who are unwilling to spend a week practicing is a cost... it could be a very big cost if someone else has a intake filtering procedure that allows them to snatch those people up at a lower cost, but it's also a really effective way of filtering out the people who can't learn those things after a few weeks of practice, which is super important.
- rxhernandez 9y ago
  > unwilling Can't. I clearly said can't. It's irrelevant to my work and my work consumes all the time I can give to work before I burnout. > but it's also a really effective way of filtering out the people who can't learn those things after a few weeks of practice, which is super important. What's your source on that? Can I see the stats that say neglecting more talented engineers so that you don't have to deal with subpar engineers is better than having a larger amount of more talented engineers while having to intermittently deal with subpar engineers? We have brilliant engineers where I work and the average and subpar engineers are in and out inside of a month or two. Didn't seem to hurt us at all in being the leader in our industry.
  - lsc 9y ago
    "Hire easily, fire easily" is another strategy, it's true! but not one used by most places I've worked. It is a slower strategy when sorting through a pool of mostly not good enough candidates, and often makes employees more nervous (Just like how you "Can't" take three weeks off to practice, other people "Can't" get fired after a few months on a new job.)
Scene_Cast2 9y ago
Out of curiosity, how do I find companies like the one where you work? Your comment resonated pretty strongly with me.

lsc 9y ago

I think I said that it's turning down a bunch of people who are unwilling to practice. And yes, turning down people who are unwilling to spend a week practicing is a cost... it could be a very big cost if someone else has a intake filtering procedure that allows them to snatch those people up at a lower cost, but it's also a really effective way of filtering out the people who can't learn those things after a few weeks of practice, which is super important.

rxhernandez 9y ago
> unwilling Can't. I clearly said can't. It's irrelevant to my work and my work consumes all the time I can give to work before I burnout. > but it's also a really effective way of filtering out the people who can't learn those things after a few weeks of practice, which is super important. What's your source on that? Can I see the stats that say neglecting more talented engineers so that you don't have to deal with subpar engineers is better than having a larger amount of more talented engineers while having to intermittently deal with subpar engineers? We have brilliant engineers where I work and the average and subpar engineers are in and out inside of a month or two. Didn't seem to hurt us at all in being the leader in our industry.
- lsc 9y ago
  "Hire easily, fire easily" is another strategy, it's true! but not one used by most places I've worked. It is a slower strategy when sorting through a pool of mostly not good enough candidates, and often makes employees more nervous (Just like how you "Can't" take three weeks off to practice, other people "Can't" get fired after a few months on a new job.)

Scene_Cast2 9y ago

Out of curiosity, how do I find companies like the one where you work? Your comment resonated pretty strongly with me.