5 ms·

It doesn't seem to be all fakers. The situation as described by advocates of FizzBuzz and the like, is that large minority proportions of people who have alread

by rm445 7y ago

It doesn't seem to be all fakers. The situation as described by advocates of FizzBuzz and the like, is that large minority proportions of people who have already held down jobs in the software development field, actually can barely do things that we think of as basic programming, like implement a very straightforward function. The implication seems to be that there's just too many to all be actual liars; that they're doing some kind of cargo-cult, cut-and-paste, stack-overflow based work to keep themselves in a job, changing things by tweaking them but not actually capable of anything else. It seems implausible. It's counter-intuitive. But the idea seems pretty persistent. It's an interesting question for me personally. I'm a mechanical engineer who likes to program a little and I've sometimes wondered whether I could work as a programmer. I haven't got the right qualifications or experience with enough popular technologies, so moving fields would be tough. But I know I can implement basic things from scratch. It doesn't seem like much (and clearly it wouldn't be enough for the prestigious places with really tough computer science interviews) but it would be interesting to know if that actually was enough to clear a certain low bar of competence.

wutbrodo 7y ago
> It seems implausible. It's counter-intuitive. But the idea seems pretty persistent. Some of us have direct experience with exactly this situation (see my previous comment). Hell, Jeff Atwood wrote a whole piece on it a long time ago.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  As a programmer who is for-sure well past "fizzbuzz" quality and has been for a while now, I can just about guarantee I've left interviewers with the impression they dodged a can't-actually-program bullet when they rejected me, a couple times.
  - watwut 7y ago
    How it happened?
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      I tend to basically forget how to use a computer when people are watching. To prep for interviewing I also have to try to memorize a bunch of stuff about some relevant language because otherwise, without surrounding stuff to crib from, I'll straight-up forget basic shit about it, and that doesn't always stick. I'm talking like "what does method invocation look like in this language?" Under pressure it can and does happen for languages I've been working in 5 days a week for the last year. And I guaranfuckingtee if I write more than a few lines I'll end up using the wrong name for some standard library function I don't use daily—again, I drill these around interview time just in case, but it doesn't always stick. I'll also get really timid about using editor features, if I'm using a real computer and not whiteboarding, because I start second guessing every keystroke. Further, most interviews I encounter don't do this and the ones that do tend to be all goddamn cagey about what to expect so I never know in advance, so I don't have a home whiteboard to spend hours and hours practicing on and if I did I wouldn't know which interviews need such prep and which don't so I'd probably end up not bothering, since it's just a few that do it. I don't even have significant social anxiety or anything, and I have been told I come off as very confident and competent—unless the whiteboarding algo shit comes out, at which point there's a 50/50 chance I'll look like a total dunce (Nb. I can and do get The Actual Work done, no problem, once hired—that part's easy) Since I only interview every few years and, again, this problem hasn't stopped me from landing jobs at about the same pay rate as the other ones that rake me over the coals (though not FAANG or near it) I've not spent the significant time it'd take to fix this. We'd be talking lots of hours to prep for FAANG tier, and probably a year. Don't care enough to do that. I did spend the time & effort to improve how I come off in more conversational parts, gradually, over the years, but that was relatively easy and doesn't rust as fast (since, you know, I don't get to practice interview-type coding on the job, but I do frequently have opportunities to practice relating to people). [EDIT] I don't mean to be whiny or call the grapes sour—I simply haven't put the work in to (as I posted elsewhere in the thread) turn my efforts at leetcode from practice to performance. And again, for the roles I'm applying for I'm not losing any money by occasionally being rejected because they decided to give me a puzzle expecting a recursive & memoized (DP) solution rather than ask me whether I know WTF recursion and DP are and when they're usually useful, so the worst they do is waste a day of my time (honestly, why the hell are places so secretive about what's going to happen on interview day? Fucking Google's not, Jim Bob's Software Widget factory can afford to tell applicants the sorts of things they'll be talking about and the kinds of exercises that may come up)
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    Yea, I sympathize with the idea that some people freeze up really badly during whiteboard interviews, which is why I'm usually testing competency far below what I need out of the job. On top of that, the signal is richer than binary; it's possible to fail to solve the question posed and still give an example of how you think. Interviewing is attempting the ridiculous feat of predicting years of job performance on the basis of a few short conversations, so there are going to be false negatives in every interviewing technique. The things I describe above lower FNs to the point that whiteboarding is a very useful tool for assessing candidates.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Then perhaps it's not just interviewing that's broken, but the industry as a whole. At least, software engineering education and training.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    Everything is broken. To crib from George Carlin, think about how incredibly stupid the average person is, and then realize that people run _everything_. Almost every industry/system/institution/company of a non-trivial size is staffed primarily by deeply stupid people. Practically the whole challenge of an economy is figuring out how to organize these people towards productive ends. "Dumb people work in software eng" is true, but it isn't a novel or useful insight; you may as well complain that cloudy days exist or that closed systems tend towards entropy. It's the reality that every industry and business operates within, and the claim that it's unique to software is wrong-headed.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      But that’s defeatism, and doesn’t get into how software engineers aren’t getting adequately trained compared to every other type of engineer.
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        > aren’t getting adequately trained compared to every other type of engineer. Half my comment was about the fact that _every_ field has these idiots. And by what bar are they "not adequately trained"? If someone wants to hire a stack overflow copy-paster, let em. I'm sure their productivity is strictly nonzero.
itronitron 7y ago
>> it would be interesting to know if that actually was enough If the 'people fail fizzbuzz' trope is actually true then you would probably clear that first bar easily and probably the next few as well. Personally, I think most if not all software devs have some form of tunnel vision (aka limited experience). While they feel the bar they are setting is low, the manner in which they describe the bar may be completely unfathomable to a person not familiar with the same terminology. Since all technology is just new terminology for old ideas then it's easy to fake competence if you know the new terminology or look like an idiot if you aren't a slave to fashion.
tikwidd 7y ago
simpler explanation: a lot of people are getting nervous in tech interviews and forgetting how to do even the most basic things.

by rm445 7y ago

wutbrodo 7y ago

> It seems implausible. It's counter-intuitive. But the idea seems pretty persistent. Some of us have direct experience with exactly this situation (see my previous comment). Hell, Jeff Atwood wrote a whole piece on it a long time ago.

karatestomp 7y ago
As a programmer who is for-sure well past "fizzbuzz" quality and has been for a while now, I can just about guarantee I've left interviewers with the impression they dodged a can't-actually-program bullet when they rejected me, a couple times.
- watwut 7y ago
  How it happened?
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    I tend to basically forget how to use a computer when people are watching. To prep for interviewing I also have to try to memorize a bunch of stuff about some relevant language because otherwise, without surrounding stuff to crib from, I'll straight-up forget basic shit about it, and that doesn't always stick. I'm talking like "what does method invocation look like in this language?" Under pressure it can and does happen for languages I've been working in 5 days a week for the last year. And I guaranfuckingtee if I write more than a few lines I'll end up using the wrong name for some standard library function I don't use daily—again, I drill these around interview time just in case, but it doesn't always stick. I'll also get really timid about using editor features, if I'm using a real computer and not whiteboarding, because I start second guessing every keystroke. Further, most interviews I encounter don't do this and the ones that do tend to be all goddamn cagey about what to expect so I never know in advance, so I don't have a home whiteboard to spend hours and hours practicing on and if I did I wouldn't know which interviews need such prep and which don't so I'd probably end up not bothering, since it's just a few that do it. I don't even have significant social anxiety or anything, and I have been told I come off as very confident and competent—unless the whiteboarding algo shit comes out, at which point there's a 50/50 chance I'll look like a total dunce (Nb. I can and do get The Actual Work done, no problem, once hired—that part's easy) Since I only interview every few years and, again, this problem hasn't stopped me from landing jobs at about the same pay rate as the other ones that rake me over the coals (though not FAANG or near it) I've not spent the significant time it'd take to fix this. We'd be talking lots of hours to prep for FAANG tier, and probably a year. Don't care enough to do that. I did spend the time & effort to improve how I come off in more conversational parts, gradually, over the years, but that was relatively easy and doesn't rust as fast (since, you know, I don't get to practice interview-type coding on the job, but I do frequently have opportunities to practice relating to people). [EDIT] I don't mean to be whiny or call the grapes sour—I simply haven't put the work in to (as I posted elsewhere in the thread) turn my efforts at leetcode from practice to performance. And again, for the roles I'm applying for I'm not losing any money by occasionally being rejected because they decided to give me a puzzle expecting a recursive & memoized (DP) solution rather than ask me whether I know WTF recursion and DP are and when they're usually useful, so the worst they do is waste a day of my time (honestly, why the hell are places so secretive about what's going to happen on interview day? Fucking Google's not, Jim Bob's Software Widget factory can afford to tell applicants the sorts of things they'll be talking about and the kinds of exercises that may come up)
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Yea, I sympathize with the idea that some people freeze up really badly during whiteboard interviews, which is why I'm usually testing competency far below what I need out of the job. On top of that, the signal is richer than binary; it's possible to fail to solve the question posed and still give an example of how you think. Interviewing is attempting the ridiculous feat of predicting years of job performance on the basis of a few short conversations, so there are going to be false negatives in every interviewing technique. The things I describe above lower FNs to the point that whiteboarding is a very useful tool for assessing candidates.
Apocryphon 7y ago
Then perhaps it's not just interviewing that's broken, but the industry as a whole. At least, software engineering education and training.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Everything is broken. To crib from George Carlin, think about how incredibly stupid the average person is, and then realize that people run _everything_. Almost every industry/system/institution/company of a non-trivial size is staffed primarily by deeply stupid people. Practically the whole challenge of an economy is figuring out how to organize these people towards productive ends. "Dumb people work in software eng" is true, but it isn't a novel or useful insight; you may as well complain that cloudy days exist or that closed systems tend towards entropy. It's the reality that every industry and business operates within, and the claim that it's unique to software is wrong-headed.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    But that’s defeatism, and doesn’t get into how software engineers aren’t getting adequately trained compared to every other type of engineer.
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      > aren’t getting adequately trained compared to every other type of engineer. Half my comment was about the fact that _every_ field has these idiots. And by what bar are they "not adequately trained"? If someone wants to hire a stack overflow copy-paster, let em. I'm sure their productivity is strictly nonzero.

itronitron 7y ago

>> it would be interesting to know if that actually was enough If the 'people fail fizzbuzz' trope is actually true then you would probably clear that first bar easily and probably the next few as well. Personally, I think most if not all software devs have some form of tunnel vision (aka limited experience). While they feel the bar they are setting is low, the manner in which they describe the bar may be completely unfathomable to a person not familiar with the same terminology. Since all technology is just new terminology for old ideas then it's easy to fake competence if you know the new terminology or look like an idiot if you aren't a slave to fashion.

tikwidd 7y ago

simpler explanation: a lot of people are getting nervous in tech interviews and forgetting how to do even the most basic things.