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Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterward

Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I’m sure you can somehow include technologies relevant to the position and keep the problems to the same scope. Or these companies could begin creating actual value instead of just draining it from the world. Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? And make it a big enough so they don’t need to hire as many ready-made 10x engineers from outside.

thomascgalvin 7y ago
> Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I 1,000% do not care about someone's ability to solve a random programming puzzle without the internet. Again, this is a (bad) proxy for the skill I'm actually trying to hire for. If I'm hiring a backend engineer, why would I ask someone to implement QuickSort? Wouldn't it be better to give them a realish application and have them add a feature or fix a bug? > Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? My company has a very healthy pipeline of interns and junior developers. In a year or two, they'll be very good. In five to ten years, they'll be amazing. But I also have shit that I need to get done by the end of the month, and I need people with years of experience to complete them. And regardless of which level I'm hiring at, I want to see them code, and I want it to be in an environment as close to how they will be working as possible. Google, Stack Overflow, an IDE, a build system, unit tests ... I want to see how they will perform as Software Engineers, not Euler-grinders.

thomascgalvin 7y ago

> Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I 1,000% do not care about someone's ability to solve a random programming puzzle without the internet. Again, this is a (bad) proxy for the skill I'm actually trying to hire for. If I'm hiring a backend engineer, why would I ask someone to implement QuickSort? Wouldn't it be better to give them a realish application and have them add a feature or fix a bug? > Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? My company has a very healthy pipeline of interns and junior developers. In a year or two, they'll be very good. In five to ten years, they'll be amazing. But I also have shit that I need to get done by the end of the month, and I need people with years of experience to complete them. And regardless of which level I'm hiring at, I want to see them code, and I want it to be in an environment as close to how they will be working as possible. Google, Stack Overflow, an IDE, a build system, unit tests ... I want to see how they will perform as Software Engineers, not Euler-grinders.