7 ms·

> Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the

by mbell 8y ago

> Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. I don't agree with this. I think the issue here is that your interviewers aren't going deep enough in the conversation. If you ask someone to tell you about some interesting technical project they worked on and they give a good high level answer, push a level deeper. Still get a good answer? Push another level deeper. Repeat. At some point one of two things will happen: The candidate is capable of talking about the project intelligently at a lower level than the interviewer or the reverse. If the first happens, re-think whom is doing the technical interview, if the later happens, you've found their level of competence.

BurningFrog 8y ago
If you've never been around real bullshit artists it's hard to imagine, but there are people who can talk the talk so well and say all the right things, and yet their actual programming is terrible. There are also the opposite. Folks who are not great at verbalizing programming principles, but do deliver solid code in reality. In summary, hiring is hell...
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Bullshit artists are honestly easy to spot. They are easy to trip up because they think they are good at fooling people. If they said all the right things, the questions were probably low quality. I would throw a zinger in to see if they can react to it. I honestly expect a candidate to say, "I am not familiar" or "I'm not sure I'd have to look that up" once during an interview.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Well... There are different kinds. The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome. They can say all the right things. They're charismatic and sound real smart. They have great anecdotes, dripping with wisdom. It's just that their work is mediocre at best.
    - Stratoscope 8y ago
      > The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome. I guess you don't have to be good at fooling people when you believe it yourself. (cf. Theranos)
akerl_ 8y ago
What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? How do you hire people who are more technical in a subject area than your current staff, if your test bottoms out at the depth of the current interviewer in the room?
- mbell 8y ago
  > What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? I'm not sure I get this question - I'm not talking about a white-boarding exercise. I'm just talking to the candidate about a technical project they have worked on in the past, the pain points, how they resolved them, etc. If that results in the candidate being flustered it's not a good sign on numerous axes. > How do you hire people who are more technical in a subject area than your current staff, if your test bottoms out at the depth of the current interviewer in the room? That is a _very_ different hiring situation. If you have no one in the company that is equipped to properly technically interview the candidate they obviously you can not properly technically interview the candidate. You'd likely have to leverage the connections of the management team to find the right person to lead up unknown territory.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    One of the very best people we ever hired was so flustered in his final interview with us (a formality, after work-sample challenges) that he was visibly shaking during it. If we had taken the "numerous axes" on which the was "not a good sign" seriously, we'd have missed that hire --- and, I think, an entire business unit in our firm wouldn't have been started. I generally think software developers (I count myself among them) know far, far less about psychological assessment than they think they do.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      Of course that happens, but you're taking a real risk in hiring someone who can't get through the interview. I'd rather miss out on a good hire than make a bad one. You only have so many ways to determine whether or not someone is competent.
tptacek 8y ago
Strongest possible disagree. There are people who can talk all the way down to the point where they're basically dictating code to you, who nevertheless cannot deliver on a real project. There's a difference between knowing, intellectually, how to solve a problem with code, and actually being able to deliver working code. In practice, though, what really seems to happen is that technical interviews are split between whiteboard-grade programming puzzles and "friendly deep discussions" about technical problems that both (a) can be prepped for with rote memorization and (b) are extremely game-able by people with strong interviewing skills (for instance: the skill to respond to questions with questions, or to redirect the course of a line of questioning back to safe ground for the candidate). It's not like we were asking candidates "hey, how did you enjoy your last software security job?". We were doing something closer to "here's a piece of code with a heap overflow in it; talk us through how you'd write an exploit". It didn't work: there were people who could answer those questions indistinguishably from an exploit developer who nevertheless couldn't write a 1995-era stack overflow exploit if their life depended on it.
- mbell 8y ago
  > Strongest possible disagree. There are people who can talk all the way down to the point where they're basically dictating code to you, who nevertheless cannot deliver on a real project. There's a difference between knowing, intellectually, how to solve a problem with code, and actually being able to deliver working code. I'm a little confused by this statement. Is your issue that they aren't _capable_ of writing the code or that their job performance isn't there once hired? i.e. Are the technical chops not there or is the work ethic not there? It seems like you are describing the later to me, or we are talking about different levels of conversation.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Being able to talk intelligently, in depth, and at length about code is not the same skill as being able to write or debug code.
    - mbell 8y ago
hrktb 8y ago
I think what the OP is hitting is the difference between being able to explain something and being good at it. With a deep enough interview process you’ll find people who know what they are doing. But it won’t tell you anything about their practical coding skills; it won’t matter if you are hiring an architect, but if it’s for a main developer you’ll want a decent level of productivity, proficiency with the tools, application of best practices and reviewing skills. Those aspects are a lot easier to understand with actual code produced.
TrinaryWorksToo 8y ago
There have been instances where I have forgotten vocabulary that makes me seem knowledgeable about a project, but I have nevertheless done the work. I sound incompetent but I actually am competent.

by mbell 8y ago

BurningFrog 8y ago

If you've never been around real bullshit artists it's hard to imagine, but there are people who can talk the talk so well and say all the right things, and yet their actual programming is terrible. There are also the opposite. Folks who are not great at verbalizing programming principles, but do deliver solid code in reality. In summary, hiring is hell...

paulie_a 8y ago
Bullshit artists are honestly easy to spot. They are easy to trip up because they think they are good at fooling people. If they said all the right things, the questions were probably low quality. I would throw a zinger in to see if they can react to it. I honestly expect a candidate to say, "I am not familiar" or "I'm not sure I'd have to look that up" once during an interview.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Well... There are different kinds. The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome. They can say all the right things. They're charismatic and sound real smart. They have great anecdotes, dripping with wisdom. It's just that their work is mediocre at best.
  - Stratoscope 8y ago
    > The people I talk about aren't even deliberately fake. They really think they're awesome. I guess you don't have to be good at fooling people when you believe it yourself. (cf. Theranos)

akerl_ 8y ago

What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? How do you hire people who are more technical in a subject area than your current staff, if your test bottoms out at the depth of the current interviewer in the room?

mbell 8y ago
> What happens to every candidate who gets flustered by the questioning and seems to bow out earlier than their technical depth? I'm not sure I get this question - I'm not talking about a white-boarding exercise. I'm just talking to the candidate about a technical project they have worked on in the past, the pain points, how they resolved them, etc. If that results in the candidate being flustered it's not a good sign on numerous axes. > How do you hire people who are more technical in a subject area than your current staff, if your test bottoms out at the depth of the current interviewer in the room? That is a _very_ different hiring situation. If you have no one in the company that is equipped to properly technically interview the candidate they obviously you can not properly technically interview the candidate. You'd likely have to leverage the connections of the management team to find the right person to lead up unknown territory.
- tptacek 8y ago
  One of the very best people we ever hired was so flustered in his final interview with us (a formality, after work-sample challenges) that he was visibly shaking during it. If we had taken the "numerous axes" on which the was "not a good sign" seriously, we'd have missed that hire --- and, I think, an entire business unit in our firm wouldn't have been started. I generally think software developers (I count myself among them) know far, far less about psychological assessment than they think they do.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    Of course that happens, but you're taking a real risk in hiring someone who can't get through the interview. I'd rather miss out on a good hire than make a bad one. You only have so many ways to determine whether or not someone is competent.

tptacek 8y ago

Strongest possible disagree. There are people who can talk all the way down to the point where they're basically dictating code to you, who nevertheless cannot deliver on a real project. There's a difference between knowing, intellectually, how to solve a problem with code, and actually being able to deliver working code. In practice, though, what really seems to happen is that technical interviews are split between whiteboard-grade programming puzzles and "friendly deep discussions" about technical problems that both (a) can be prepped for with rote memorization and (b) are extremely game-able by people with strong interviewing skills (for instance: the skill to respond to questions with questions, or to redirect the course of a line of questioning back to safe ground for the candidate). It's not like we were asking candidates "hey, how did you enjoy your last software security job?". We were doing something closer to "here's a piece of code with a heap overflow in it; talk us through how you'd write an exploit". It didn't work: there were people who could answer those questions indistinguishably from an exploit developer who nevertheless couldn't write a 1995-era stack overflow exploit if their life depended on it.

mbell 8y ago
> Strongest possible disagree. There are people who can talk all the way down to the point where they're basically dictating code to you, who nevertheless cannot deliver on a real project. There's a difference between knowing, intellectually, how to solve a problem with code, and actually being able to deliver working code. I'm a little confused by this statement. Is your issue that they aren't _capable_ of writing the code or that their job performance isn't there once hired? i.e. Are the technical chops not there or is the work ethic not there? It seems like you are describing the later to me, or we are talking about different levels of conversation.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Being able to talk intelligently, in depth, and at length about code is not the same skill as being able to write or debug code.
  - mbell 8y ago

hrktb 8y ago

I think what the OP is hitting is the difference between being able to explain something and being good at it. With a deep enough interview process you’ll find people who know what they are doing. But it won’t tell you anything about their practical coding skills; it won’t matter if you are hiring an architect, but if it’s for a main developer you’ll want a decent level of productivity, proficiency with the tools, application of best practices and reviewing skills. Those aspects are a lot easier to understand with actual code produced.

TrinaryWorksToo 8y ago

There have been instances where I have forgotten vocabulary that makes me seem knowledgeable about a project, but I have nevertheless done the work. I sound incompetent but I actually am competent.