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The reference point for gaining employment is that dude who wrote Homebrew and got rejected by Google for being unable to "invert a binary tree on a whiteboard"

The reference point for gaining employment is that dude who wrote Homebrew and got rejected by Google for being unable to "invert a binary tree on a whiteboard" [1] Unfortunately with this and many other articles I've read on HN over the years, the common theme is that decent/good programmers are not making it past HR. Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing. Anecdotally, at 1 interview I went for, I knew the hiring manager and our "interview" was a 15 minute casual chat. That's it. [1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

matthew3 9y ago
Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? If it's truly because there was an algorithm question with no correlation to what the team worked on, that sucks. But I've seen the other side of enough of these rants to take any single anecdote with a giant grain of salt. There's a few potential audiences for rants like this, but most of them are unproductive. Other frustrated people don't have influence to change things, and hiring managers not experiencing hiring issues don't have incentive to listen to you. The group you need to find, if this is how you're feeling, is the hiring managers who aren't having luck right now. Maybe because their company doesn't have as much name recognition, or as much money to offer, or a sexy office location in the Bay Area, whatever. They're gonna need to expand their pool to compete, and that's where potential matches are. It takes a lot more leg work and sales work of the "here's why I don't fit exactly what you're looking for but why you should be confident in my ability to get there fast" variety, but it can be accomplished - I did it about 7 years ago, myself, to get from the land of "boring jobs" to the land of "interesting jobs building 'interesting' experience," and have seen other people pull off the same path since then. You also generally will do better starting in a smaller environment like that with more face time with the key players in the company, than as another line-level cog at BigCompany.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  > Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, Have you tried MacPorts? But more to the point… > but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? Let's drop the dig regarding entitlement for a moment. Shipping a nontrivial tool like Homebrew and getting pretty much every Mac power user (except me and a handful of other MacPorts holdouts) using it should show far more qualification for an engineering position than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. Software is a complete system and process involving decisions and unsolved problems, even if those problems are "how do we solve these problems in a better way than they are already;" inverting binary trees is… an algorithm. One I can probably find with ten seconds and a search engine should I ever need it. Granted, perhaps Google was hiring for a position where knowing how to invert a binary tree off the top of your head is crucial. Who knows. And I'm sure there are people out there who know that as well as how to create, ship, and maintain a useful product. But if I personally were looking for someone to hire, I know which would impress me more. By the way, for those wondering, if you're ever asked to invert a binary tree on a whiteboard, here's how to do it: 1. Draw binary tree on whiteboard 2. Remove whiteboard from wall 3. Rotate whiteboard 180 degrees 4. Reattach whiteboard to wall INTERVIEWHACK
cookiecaper 9y ago
> Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing. Yes, this is absolutely the best way to do it. There's a lot of anxiety and guarded interactions in an off-the-street hiring process, and it's hard for either party to feel fully trustful of the situation, and both end up taking a gamble. This is not entirely obviated by pre-existing relationships and experience (especially when new hires feel like their pre-existing relationship justifies shirking job duties), but it is significantly lessened on both sides. We have this sanitized myth we've built up about objectivity, but the fact is that it's still about who you know, and most of all it's about being likable. Skill and competence are ambiguous areas that people can and do endlessly debate over, as in "If you can't invert a binary tree on the spot, you are clearly inexperience and incompetent" or "If you think you have to invert a binary tree on-demand without reference materials to provide value as a coder, you're inexperienced and incompetent", but in the real world, being likable and pleasant is the reason that people bring and keep others on board. If you want to get hired, it's much more important to brush up on your charm and presentation (and maintain that standard throughout your employment) than it is to memorize a particular algorithm. There are always going to be new algorithms that you don't have memorized. Strong social skills will take you much further.
deleted 9y ago
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matthew3 9y ago

Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? If it's truly because there was an algorithm question with no correlation to what the team worked on, that sucks. But I've seen the other side of enough of these rants to take any single anecdote with a giant grain of salt. There's a few potential audiences for rants like this, but most of them are unproductive. Other frustrated people don't have influence to change things, and hiring managers not experiencing hiring issues don't have incentive to listen to you. The group you need to find, if this is how you're feeling, is the hiring managers who aren't having luck right now. Maybe because their company doesn't have as much name recognition, or as much money to offer, or a sexy office location in the Bay Area, whatever. They're gonna need to expand their pool to compete, and that's where potential matches are. It takes a lot more leg work and sales work of the "here's why I don't fit exactly what you're looking for but why you should be confident in my ability to get there fast" variety, but it can be accomplished - I did it about 7 years ago, myself, to get from the land of "boring jobs" to the land of "interesting jobs building 'interesting' experience," and have seen other people pull off the same path since then. You also generally will do better starting in a smaller environment like that with more face time with the key players in the company, than as another line-level cog at BigCompany.

Cyberdog 9y ago
> Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, Have you tried MacPorts? But more to the point… > but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? Let's drop the dig regarding entitlement for a moment. Shipping a nontrivial tool like Homebrew and getting pretty much every Mac power user (except me and a handful of other MacPorts holdouts) using it should show far more qualification for an engineering position than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. Software is a complete system and process involving decisions and unsolved problems, even if those problems are "how do we solve these problems in a better way than they are already;" inverting binary trees is… an algorithm. One I can probably find with ten seconds and a search engine should I ever need it. Granted, perhaps Google was hiring for a position where knowing how to invert a binary tree off the top of your head is crucial. Who knows. And I'm sure there are people out there who know that as well as how to create, ship, and maintain a useful product. But if I personally were looking for someone to hire, I know which would impress me more. By the way, for those wondering, if you're ever asked to invert a binary tree on a whiteboard, here's how to do it: 1. Draw binary tree on whiteboard 2. Remove whiteboard from wall 3. Rotate whiteboard 180 degrees 4. Reattach whiteboard to wall INTERVIEWHACK

cookiecaper 9y ago

> Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing. Yes, this is absolutely the best way to do it. There's a lot of anxiety and guarded interactions in an off-the-street hiring process, and it's hard for either party to feel fully trustful of the situation, and both end up taking a gamble. This is not entirely obviated by pre-existing relationships and experience (especially when new hires feel like their pre-existing relationship justifies shirking job duties), but it is significantly lessened on both sides. We have this sanitized myth we've built up about objectivity, but the fact is that it's still about who you know, and most of all it's about being likable. Skill and competence are ambiguous areas that people can and do endlessly debate over, as in "If you can't invert a binary tree on the spot, you are clearly inexperience and incompetent" or "If you think you have to invert a binary tree on-demand without reference materials to provide value as a coder, you're inexperienced and incompetent", but in the real world, being likable and pleasant is the reason that people bring and keep others on board. If you want to get hired, it's much more important to brush up on your charm and presentation (and maintain that standard throughout your employment) than it is to memorize a particular algorithm. There are always going to be new algorithms that you don't have memorized. Strong social skills will take you much further.

deleted 9y ago

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