3 ms·

You didn't get it, linguistic gymnastics here is unnecessary. I could do the same in a language of your choice. But testing me with FizzBuzz without looking at

by bitL 7y ago

You didn't get it, linguistic gymnastics here is unnecessary. I could do the same in a language of your choice. But testing me with FizzBuzz without looking at my CV at all is putting you into "garbage employer" category and I wouldn't want to waste time with you. Did you get 5th grader questions on your university exams as well?

jasonlotito 7y ago
> But testing me with FizzBuzz without looking at my CV at all is putting you into "garbage employer" category and I wouldn't want to waste time with you. This would concern me that you don't validate your input. Just because the contract says something doesn't mean that's what you are getting. Trust, but verify. I trust that your CV is accurate, so I'm giving you a test that won't take up too much of either of our time to verify that you can code. Why? Because I've seen enough CVs better than yours where people can't do FizzBuzz. Not wanting to FizzBuzz is also concerning because if it's a proven method of validation, why spend extra time and resources on something more that will only tell you the same thing? So, to me at least, your antagonism here is really you wanting to waste resources and/or not validate input. Neither are good signs. > Did you get 5th grader questions on your university exams as well? If a 5th grader question is good enough to answer something, why bother with a 3-hour exam?
- bitL 7y ago
  > So, to me at least, your antagonism here is really you wanting to waste resources and/or not validate input. Neither are good signs. No, I want you to give me properly challenging questions to prove you deserve to be my employer (as I will be doing the hard work to make you a gazillionaire). FizzBuzz tells me you read one article a few years ago, didn't think about it at all (why could that be a problem?), and now give it left and right to anyone that has the bad luck of interviewing with you. You are telling me you are arrogant, prideful and lazy.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s the easy stuff. Why waste time on the harder stuff if you can’t do the easy stuff? What does that tell me about your work ethic if you think you are too good to do FizzBuzz you probably also think you are too good to fix an off by one defect we found in production.
    - bitL 7y ago
      How can you be happy to have an off-by-one error in your code? Moreover, how can you come to a conclusion that a person that is not willing to do FizzBuzz would be happy to even ship something with off-by-one error?! Complete non sequitur... Let's wrap up this discussion for today.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        No one is happy with bugs but bugs happen. If you aren’t willing to do a FizzBuzz type problem because it is too “simple” you also probably will think being assigned a simple reported defect is beneath you.
  - jasonpeacock 7y ago
    Have you considered that FizzBuzz is a warmup question to see if you're worthy of a properly challenging question? The interviewer has multiple responsibilities, one of them is candidate experience. If I start with the "challenging" question and the candidate isn't ready, then I learn nothing other than they can't do it and the candidate suffers, completely lost. But, if I start with a middle-to-low bar question, then I can always get data and easily extend or follow-up the question with something more challenging appropriate to your skill & experience.
    - bitL 7y ago
      Dunno, the first time I went to Google interview I had absolutely brutal one as my first question (a complicated dynamic programming on combinatorial problem without closed form solution), and I absolutely loved it and after some discussion with the interviewer came to a solution in about 20 minutes, all on whiteboards I hate. I am not sure why wouldn't you rather use the time for interview or something more meaningful than to test if somebody can do a programming equivalent of 1+2+3 when you can observe from their CV that they probably aren't complete beginners and you are interviewing to get somebody for a very senior job.
scarface74 7y ago
People lie on their resumes. I got tired of doing double duty as a developer and the “AWS Architect” and was finally able to get a req to hire someone. Plenty of people came in with certifications and “experience” up the wazoo but couldn’t answer simple architectural questions.
- bitL 7y ago
  It's a real problem, I agree. However, from the point of view of a competent programmer you need to entice them to work for you, not the other way round. The competent one also has to filter out incompetent managers/companies; I'd suggest having FizzBuzz on the interview is one such a nice signal for competent coders to stop bothering and move on.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    The equivalent of FizzBuzz for an AWS Architect is setting up a highly available website with a domain name, load balancer, autoscaling group, and the correct subnets, security groups. Except for the autoscaling group, all of this is basically networking 101. Their “resume” said they were “certified” and had experience. If you can’t get through the easy questions, no need to waste time on the hard questions.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I wouldn't do something like that, but I have sympathy. If they didn't lie, then they wouldn't have gotten as far as they did. Everybody wants self-starters and people who can learn new things, but the person who already has experience in a laundry list of X, Y, and Z is always going to be preferred before you find out if they are a fraud. What I did, in order to start doing something new that I didn't have experience in, was (although I didn't exactly plan it this way) to get a job that was explicitly administrative and did not involve programming and start automating it. I don't think it's right or wrong that some people find IT culture (including interviews) intolerable, but the flow of people out of it shapes it. The more you rely (even unwittingly) on getting and keeping people who are ignorant there's something better out there, the more the ignorant (and/or incurious) shape your organization.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by bitL 7y ago

jasonlotito 7y ago

> But testing me with FizzBuzz without looking at my CV at all is putting you into "garbage employer" category and I wouldn't want to waste time with you. This would concern me that you don't validate your input. Just because the contract says something doesn't mean that's what you are getting. Trust, but verify. I trust that your CV is accurate, so I'm giving you a test that won't take up too much of either of our time to verify that you can code. Why? Because I've seen enough CVs better than yours where people can't do FizzBuzz. Not wanting to FizzBuzz is also concerning because if it's a proven method of validation, why spend extra time and resources on something more that will only tell you the same thing? So, to me at least, your antagonism here is really you wanting to waste resources and/or not validate input. Neither are good signs. > Did you get 5th grader questions on your university exams as well? If a 5th grader question is good enough to answer something, why bother with a 3-hour exam?

bitL 7y ago
> So, to me at least, your antagonism here is really you wanting to waste resources and/or not validate input. Neither are good signs. No, I want you to give me properly challenging questions to prove you deserve to be my employer (as I will be doing the hard work to make you a gazillionaire). FizzBuzz tells me you read one article a few years ago, didn't think about it at all (why could that be a problem?), and now give it left and right to anyone that has the bad luck of interviewing with you. You are telling me you are arrogant, prideful and lazy.
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s the easy stuff. Why waste time on the harder stuff if you can’t do the easy stuff? What does that tell me about your work ethic if you think you are too good to do FizzBuzz you probably also think you are too good to fix an off by one defect we found in production.
  - bitL 7y ago
    How can you be happy to have an off-by-one error in your code? Moreover, how can you come to a conclusion that a person that is not willing to do FizzBuzz would be happy to even ship something with off-by-one error?! Complete non sequitur... Let's wrap up this discussion for today.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      No one is happy with bugs but bugs happen. If you aren’t willing to do a FizzBuzz type problem because it is too “simple” you also probably will think being assigned a simple reported defect is beneath you.
- jasonpeacock 7y ago
  Have you considered that FizzBuzz is a warmup question to see if you're worthy of a properly challenging question? The interviewer has multiple responsibilities, one of them is candidate experience. If I start with the "challenging" question and the candidate isn't ready, then I learn nothing other than they can't do it and the candidate suffers, completely lost. But, if I start with a middle-to-low bar question, then I can always get data and easily extend or follow-up the question with something more challenging appropriate to your skill & experience.
  - bitL 7y ago
    Dunno, the first time I went to Google interview I had absolutely brutal one as my first question (a complicated dynamic programming on combinatorial problem without closed form solution), and I absolutely loved it and after some discussion with the interviewer came to a solution in about 20 minutes, all on whiteboards I hate. I am not sure why wouldn't you rather use the time for interview or something more meaningful than to test if somebody can do a programming equivalent of 1+2+3 when you can observe from their CV that they probably aren't complete beginners and you are interviewing to get somebody for a very senior job.

scarface74 7y ago

People lie on their resumes. I got tired of doing double duty as a developer and the “AWS Architect” and was finally able to get a req to hire someone. Plenty of people came in with certifications and “experience” up the wazoo but couldn’t answer simple architectural questions.

bitL 7y ago
It's a real problem, I agree. However, from the point of view of a competent programmer you need to entice them to work for you, not the other way round. The competent one also has to filter out incompetent managers/companies; I'd suggest having FizzBuzz on the interview is one such a nice signal for competent coders to stop bothering and move on.
- scarface74 7y ago
  The equivalent of FizzBuzz for an AWS Architect is setting up a highly available website with a domain name, load balancer, autoscaling group, and the correct subnets, security groups. Except for the autoscaling group, all of this is basically networking 101. Their “resume” said they were “certified” and had experience. If you can’t get through the easy questions, no need to waste time on the hard questions.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I wouldn't do something like that, but I have sympathy. If they didn't lie, then they wouldn't have gotten as far as they did. Everybody wants self-starters and people who can learn new things, but the person who already has experience in a laundry list of X, Y, and Z is always going to be preferred before you find out if they are a fraud. What I did, in order to start doing something new that I didn't have experience in, was (although I didn't exactly plan it this way) to get a job that was explicitly administrative and did not involve programming and start automating it. I don't think it's right or wrong that some people find IT culture (including interviews) intolerable, but the flow of people out of it shapes it. The more you rely (even unwittingly) on getting and keeping people who are ignorant there's something better out there, the more the ignorant (and/or incurious) shape your organization.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]