10 ms·

In my experience, this just isn't a real problem. If someone has any sort of track record in the industry, I've been able to correctly conclude that they can co

In my experience, this just isn't a real problem. If someone has any sort of track record in the industry, I've been able to correctly conclude that they can code. The only time I've found sample code useful is for people who are brand new.

q3k 7y ago
In my experience, it is. I've done technical screens with _failed_ fizzbuzz-grade problems to people whose CV said that they have been coding for years, and those people were looking for (Senior) developer roles (not management, 'architect', just plain developer).
- ScottFree 7y ago
  If you can't screen those people out in the introductory phone call then your hiring process is broken.
  - q3k 7y ago
    How would you structure such a call so that this candidate would be filtered out?
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Ask them to write fizzbuzz over the phone?
      - q3k 7y ago
        This was over a phone/internet call (first technical screen after a non-technical recruitment call). Or are you saying our non-technical recruiter should be asking potential candidates to write a fizzbuzz?
    - turk73 7y ago
      I am interviewing candidates in the Fortune 10. We get a lot of fraudsters that have found a way to lip sync Webex interviews and do all manner of silly things to get marginal people hired into roles they aren't suitable for. After 25+ interviews, and hundreds over the last nearly 20 years of my career, I can tell you in just a few minutes whether I want to work with that developer or not. I don't have to ask them to code, I just have to ask them things about our day to day work that only real developers know, for example: If you're writing Spring Boot applications, tell me about which jars you include in your build to do that. Oh you only use Spring initializr? Okay, well, then tell me about which jars you added to your project after that initial setup. You say you use Kafka in your current role, tell me what jars allow you to set up Spring Boot Data for that. Oh, you don't use that approach? Interesting. We looked at doing that, too. And then, hopefully, you get to understand what they are doing and what they know. Interviewing for Angular: What is your least favorite thing about working with Angular? What packages are you using in your application? Have you had trouble with your CI builds in Jenkins (or whatever they say they use?) I listen to them and I ask questions that ought to be relevant to them. I typically start "hard" and then if I don't get anywhere, I ease back. You stated that you write REST services? Tell me, what Java library do you use for making a REST call from inside your application? Oh, okay, another team did that, I see... And so on. It becomes very obvious whether the person is bullshitting you. I recently interviewed someone for a tech lead role who says he had been a tech lead at another company but I was astounded by not only how bad his answers were but also by how little he appeared to know about the business of coding. Either the guy was lying to use completely or he was in a real creampuff kind of lead role where you don't need to know anything about coding, anything about the architecture of the system you are responsible for, or anything useful at all, really. How do I get that job?
      - inertiatic 7y ago
        >tell me about which jars you include in your build to do that If you're doing this frequently enough, you probably have a template of which "jars" (dependencies) you generally use, so you probably don't remember. If you're doing this infrequently, you probably googled what you need to include for what you want to achieve and forgot about it. So you're filtering out efficient (templated a standard process) and competent (figure stuff out on the fly without guidance) people, and filtering in people who... remember the name of the dependencies they're using to implement things?
- reallydontask 7y ago
  In what way did they fail? The first time I was given this problem on an interview it took me two attempts to get it right. That is, I wrote the code, ran it and it failed to do multiples of 15 properly I went back and fixed it. Would you count that as a failure?
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I’ve spoken to people who get about as far as writing a loop and printing the number but just have no idea how to go any further with the fizz and buzz logic at all, even with lots of hinting. I think it’s because many developers just call one API and send the result to another API - they never have to write any actual logic themselves, so they don’t know how.
  - q3k 7y ago
    > In what way did they fail? One example: Declared themselves to be an experienced Pythonista of N+ years. Couldn't write a `for i in range(100)` loop in Python without hints. They probably could've done it in a different language, but I didn't want to have anything to someone who misrepresents experience in their CV. It's fine to say you don't know it and instead show me that you can learn it.
    - zentiggr 7y ago
      OMG can I come work for you? Been coding for my entire life, just don't have the resume text to back up the fact that I can learn just about any language/tool/framework/gizmo that I come across, so trying to get hired to any particular place, who all require "proven track record, 1+ years in X,Y,Z,ZZ and ZZZ", is almost impossible. I'd love to see more openings saying "we use these tools, but we're open to work with anyone who can show they can learn them and be a solid team member".
      - q3k 7y ago
        One of the customers I work with is currently looking for backendy/devopsy people who want to work with Go/Python/Kubernetes/Bazel and make things better. There also exists also some frontend stuff that needs work. Basically, we're looking for generalists. Get in touch if this sounds like your sort of jazz :).
avip 7y ago
So either you’re in a niche or someone is phone screening before your interview. Or we live in different worlds.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  Sometimes I do the initial screening, sometimes someone else does it. Generally, I find if I do a good job of explaining what we do and need, people tend to resonate, or not. Most people don't want to show up to a job they can't do successfully.
khendron 7y ago
I've worked with people who had been working in programming jobs for some years, and didn't have any instinct for coding. Give them a detailed spec, or some detailed business logic, and they could write code to match it. But when left to their own initiative they would fail completely. I am curious as to how they would do with fizzbuzz.
tjpnz 7y ago
I actually interviewed a candidate once who regularly spoke at tech conferences. This person certainly had an industry track record, yet they failed spectacularly with FizzBuzz and did even worse on the questions about simple data structures. It's possible they were having a bad day, but it's equally plausible that we had encountered someone who could just talk really convincingly about things in very general terms.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  I believe you. It's just that assuming they made it through the whole process, showed up, and couldn't do the work, I think the thing to do is just sit down and say "this isn't working", part ways, and on to the next one.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  To me, this says more about the failure of interview questions about data structures than about that (probably perfectly competent) candidate.
  - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
    Every substantial program uses at least one data structure. The problem isn’t asking about data structures or even algorithms. It’s about asking leetcode.
    - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      I agree. Maybe to a limited extent I’d also say not accommodating the candidate’s working requirements (introvert vs extravert, choice of editor, time pressure) is another big part of it.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    I've met and had the misfortune of working with folks who have gotten jobs via beers-and-handshakes interviews. Supposed "lead" and "senior" engineers who couldn't comprehend basic control flow, who wanted, and attempted(!), to write their own Rails clone, Flux clone, etc. Just like leadership and managerial tasks are not related to actual coding, talking about and evangelizing some library or technology does not mean you're a competent software engineer. They are very different skills.
tlb 7y ago
I've interviewed many people with years of impressive-looking developer experience on their resumes who couldn't write FizzBuzz. There are lots of them out there. They do other kinds of developer work: speccing middleware, designing database schemas, negotiating APIs with customers, organizing data assets, leading scrum meetings. Valuable work in its context. But if you want to hire people who can actually code you should test for it.

q3k 7y ago

In my experience, it is. I've done technical screens with _failed_ fizzbuzz-grade problems to people whose CV said that they have been coding for years, and those people were looking for (Senior) developer roles (not management, 'architect', just plain developer).

ScottFree 7y ago
If you can't screen those people out in the introductory phone call then your hiring process is broken.
- q3k 7y ago
  How would you structure such a call so that this candidate would be filtered out?
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Ask them to write fizzbuzz over the phone?
    - q3k 7y ago
      This was over a phone/internet call (first technical screen after a non-technical recruitment call). Or are you saying our non-technical recruiter should be asking potential candidates to write a fizzbuzz?
  - turk73 7y ago
    I am interviewing candidates in the Fortune 10. We get a lot of fraudsters that have found a way to lip sync Webex interviews and do all manner of silly things to get marginal people hired into roles they aren't suitable for. After 25+ interviews, and hundreds over the last nearly 20 years of my career, I can tell you in just a few minutes whether I want to work with that developer or not. I don't have to ask them to code, I just have to ask them things about our day to day work that only real developers know, for example: If you're writing Spring Boot applications, tell me about which jars you include in your build to do that. Oh you only use Spring initializr? Okay, well, then tell me about which jars you added to your project after that initial setup. You say you use Kafka in your current role, tell me what jars allow you to set up Spring Boot Data for that. Oh, you don't use that approach? Interesting. We looked at doing that, too. And then, hopefully, you get to understand what they are doing and what they know. Interviewing for Angular: What is your least favorite thing about working with Angular? What packages are you using in your application? Have you had trouble with your CI builds in Jenkins (or whatever they say they use?) I listen to them and I ask questions that ought to be relevant to them. I typically start "hard" and then if I don't get anywhere, I ease back. You stated that you write REST services? Tell me, what Java library do you use for making a REST call from inside your application? Oh, okay, another team did that, I see... And so on. It becomes very obvious whether the person is bullshitting you. I recently interviewed someone for a tech lead role who says he had been a tech lead at another company but I was astounded by not only how bad his answers were but also by how little he appeared to know about the business of coding. Either the guy was lying to use completely or he was in a real creampuff kind of lead role where you don't need to know anything about coding, anything about the architecture of the system you are responsible for, or anything useful at all, really. How do I get that job?
    - inertiatic 7y ago
      >tell me about which jars you include in your build to do that If you're doing this frequently enough, you probably have a template of which "jars" (dependencies) you generally use, so you probably don't remember. If you're doing this infrequently, you probably googled what you need to include for what you want to achieve and forgot about it. So you're filtering out efficient (templated a standard process) and competent (figure stuff out on the fly without guidance) people, and filtering in people who... remember the name of the dependencies they're using to implement things?
reallydontask 7y ago
In what way did they fail? The first time I was given this problem on an interview it took me two attempts to get it right. That is, I wrote the code, ran it and it failed to do multiples of 15 properly I went back and fixed it. Would you count that as a failure?
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I’ve spoken to people who get about as far as writing a loop and printing the number but just have no idea how to go any further with the fizz and buzz logic at all, even with lots of hinting. I think it’s because many developers just call one API and send the result to another API - they never have to write any actual logic themselves, so they don’t know how.
- q3k 7y ago
  > In what way did they fail? One example: Declared themselves to be an experienced Pythonista of N+ years. Couldn't write a `for i in range(100)` loop in Python without hints. They probably could've done it in a different language, but I didn't want to have anything to someone who misrepresents experience in their CV. It's fine to say you don't know it and instead show me that you can learn it.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    OMG can I come work for you? Been coding for my entire life, just don't have the resume text to back up the fact that I can learn just about any language/tool/framework/gizmo that I come across, so trying to get hired to any particular place, who all require "proven track record, 1+ years in X,Y,Z,ZZ and ZZZ", is almost impossible. I'd love to see more openings saying "we use these tools, but we're open to work with anyone who can show they can learn them and be a solid team member".
    - q3k 7y ago
      One of the customers I work with is currently looking for backendy/devopsy people who want to work with Go/Python/Kubernetes/Bazel and make things better. There also exists also some frontend stuff that needs work. Basically, we're looking for generalists. Get in touch if this sounds like your sort of jazz :).

avip 7y ago

So either you’re in a niche or someone is phone screening before your interview. Or we live in different worlds.

acjohnson55 7y ago
Sometimes I do the initial screening, sometimes someone else does it. Generally, I find if I do a good job of explaining what we do and need, people tend to resonate, or not. Most people don't want to show up to a job they can't do successfully.

khendron 7y ago

I've worked with people who had been working in programming jobs for some years, and didn't have any instinct for coding. Give them a detailed spec, or some detailed business logic, and they could write code to match it. But when left to their own initiative they would fail completely. I am curious as to how they would do with fizzbuzz.

tjpnz 7y ago

I actually interviewed a candidate once who regularly spoke at tech conferences. This person certainly had an industry track record, yet they failed spectacularly with FizzBuzz and did even worse on the questions about simple data structures. It's possible they were having a bad day, but it's equally plausible that we had encountered someone who could just talk really convincingly about things in very general terms.

acjohnson55 7y ago
I believe you. It's just that assuming they made it through the whole process, showed up, and couldn't do the work, I think the thing to do is just sit down and say "this isn't working", part ways, and on to the next one.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
To me, this says more about the failure of interview questions about data structures than about that (probably perfectly competent) candidate.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  Every substantial program uses at least one data structure. The problem isn’t asking about data structures or even algorithms. It’s about asking leetcode.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    I agree. Maybe to a limited extent I’d also say not accommodating the candidate’s working requirements (introvert vs extravert, choice of editor, time pressure) is another big part of it.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  I've met and had the misfortune of working with folks who have gotten jobs via beers-and-handshakes interviews. Supposed "lead" and "senior" engineers who couldn't comprehend basic control flow, who wanted, and attempted(!), to write their own Rails clone, Flux clone, etc. Just like leadership and managerial tasks are not related to actual coding, talking about and evangelizing some library or technology does not mean you're a competent software engineer. They are very different skills.

tlb 7y ago

I've interviewed many people with years of impressive-looking developer experience on their resumes who couldn't write FizzBuzz. There are lots of them out there. They do other kinds of developer work: speccing middleware, designing database schemas, negotiating APIs with customers, organizing data assets, leading scrum meetings. Valuable work in its context. But if you want to hire people who can actually code you should test for it.