7 ms·

Here’s a counterpoint: I don’t want to be forced to do OSS as part of my resume. I already write software over 40 hours a week for my job. And I won’t do a take

Here’s a counterpoint: I don’t want to be forced to do OSS as part of my resume. I already write software over 40 hours a week for my job. And I won’t do a take home that takes longer than a regular interview unless the place has really good pay (I’ve never heard of a take home place paying top of industry). Meanwhile I’m very good at competitive programming, I actually find it enjoyable because of the challenge, and I don’t need to practice it much even when interviewing. Also to be perfectly blunt I think this just ties into people generally being uncomfortable with tests. All the examples you gave have the benefit of allowing unlimited time. What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. Sorry if that sounds mean, I don’t mean it to be, just blunt.

frequentnapper 6y ago
Counter to your counterpoint. I don't do competitive programming. I already write software 40 hours a week for my job. I don't want to spend months learning how to hack interviews when I know I can do a good job and I have done so in the past based on my resume and references.
- alecbenzer 6y ago
  Yeah but there's got to be some give in the name of getting signal. Resumes are incredibly noisy signal. I think references are pretty noisy too... a bad reference is very bad, a better than average reference is really good, but I think the average reference, which most people give, is very low signal.
Benjammer 6y ago
>What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? It's not a good signal for who will provide good business value through software engineering. >I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. Is "smart" just directly 1:1 with "provides good business value" for you? I'm not so sure it's that simple... >And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. Sorry if that sounds mean, I don’t mean it to be, just blunt. It "sounds mean" because you are being selfish about your personal situation and then saying "it's not really that bad, come on," to people in different situations. It has nothing to do with you being "blunt."
- opportune 6y ago
  >It's not a good signal for who will provide good business value through software engineering Entirely depends on the org. I’ve done DS+A work professionally. I do think it tests fundamental understanding of programming considering DS+A underlies everything we do. If you’re hiring generalist software engineers (or general knowledge is a requirement) and not specialists in specific stacks it makes complete sense to me. I also think it’s harder to fake/game than almost any other programming related test. >”smart” Necessary but not sufficient. You can drive business value without knowing software engineering at all. Driving business value through software engineering requires being a good problem solver Seeing someone unable to do a slight modification of breadth first search given 30-60m to sketch it out does, in my opinion, give me a general sense of their software engineering ability. I am bluntly saying I think it’s an accurate way to assess skill regardless of all the hacker news complaints of “why can’t I get a $300k/year job without knowing what a trie is”
  - dvt 6y ago
    > why can’t I get a $300k/year job without knowing what a trie is You're grossly misrepresenting my complaint. I've made contributions to several high-profile OSS projects (including some small HTTP core contributions to Golang), have published one book as a co-author (another as an editor; both with Apress), have several projects with 100+ stars on GitHub, and am in the top .9% of Stack Overflow contributors. This is in addition to having a few interviews out there given to legitimate outlets, like Vice and PCGamer, about past startups (all of which have involved hardware or software). My pedigree is verifiable. And yet, if I want to switch jobs (which I will inevitably have to do), I will be subject to being asked about some algorithmic questions that I am willing to guarantee I couldn't answer without studying. For example, I genuinely don't remember how red-black tree or splay tree balancing works. But I'm small fries compared to people like Max Howell[1] (who wrote and manages brew) and yet couldn't get a job at Google because of some algorithmic question he flunked. Fighting for better interviewing practices in software engineering is one of the few hills I'm willing to die on. [1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en
monksy 6y ago
> Also to be perfectly blunt I think this just ties into people generally being uncomfortable with tests. All the examples you gave have the benefit of allowing unlimited time. What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. Sorry if that sounds mean, I don’t mean it to be, just blunt. Not everyone sees these trivia games as a valuable use of our time. Some people have hobbies, some people have side projects that are of use. The leetecode problems don't test you for experience. They just demonstrate your ability to minimally code up a trivia problem. They don't show good coding practices, doc, or testing.
zerr 6y ago
The thing is, CP is not everyone's cup of tea, and also it is a separate discipline/subject with its own trivia knowledge & tricks. CP uses Computer Science same way as e.g. Physics or Biology use Math.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? Maybe a standardized one, that you take one time, as part of a professional accreditation, even?
dxbydt 6y ago
> Meanwhile I’m very good at competitive programming Not to burst your bubble, but you aren't. You are very good when you get it right. You aren't when you don't get it right. But then you are leaving out that part because nobody likes to focus on the negatives. Consider this - at some point of your life, you didn't know competitive programming. Were you 100% un-hireable at that point ? Most likely, you would have done perfectly fine if you were hired without all this ceremony. That's what people are frustrated with. People dismiss college credentials as elitist gatekeeping, When you create entire artificial domains out of whole cloth, like "competitive programming", that's gatekeeping on steroids. Because that whole domain is artificial, I can stuff anything into it. The surface area of that domain is practically infinite. Forsure there's some patch where you'd under-perform. And I reckon the area of that patch is quite large. You just haven't found it yet.
- diffrinse 6y ago
  Or, you know, these practices exist to limit hires to specific demographics in the first place.
- alecbenzer 6y ago
  > Not to burst your bubble, but you aren't. You are very good when you get it right. You aren't when you don't get it right. But then you are leaving out that part because nobody likes to focus on the negatives I'm sorry, what? "No one is right 100% of the time so there's no such thing as being good at anything"?
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  > People dismiss college credentials as elitist gatekeeping, When you create entire artificial domains out of whole cloth, like "competitive programming", that's gatekeeping on steroids. No it isn't. Anyone can pick up a book or go to leetcode and learn to solve interview problems. I know multiple people who did it in their early teens.
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non-entity 6y ago
> I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. Man I need to get the hell away from this field
pluto9 6y ago
> And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. And you can "just" contribute to OSS, can you not? You might even learn something. You seem to be advocating for the interview style that fits your personal strengths and preferences while arguing that others should not do the same. Personally, I test just fine and I also contribute to OSS. Perhaps I should argue for that to be the standard, since it would benefit me personally.

frequentnapper 6y ago

Counter to your counterpoint. I don't do competitive programming. I already write software 40 hours a week for my job. I don't want to spend months learning how to hack interviews when I know I can do a good job and I have done so in the past based on my resume and references.

alecbenzer 6y ago
Yeah but there's got to be some give in the name of getting signal. Resumes are incredibly noisy signal. I think references are pretty noisy too... a bad reference is very bad, a better than average reference is really good, but I think the average reference, which most people give, is very low signal.

Benjammer 6y ago

>What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? It's not a good signal for who will provide good business value through software engineering. >I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. Is "smart" just directly 1:1 with "provides good business value" for you? I'm not so sure it's that simple... >And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. Sorry if that sounds mean, I don’t mean it to be, just blunt. It "sounds mean" because you are being selfish about your personal situation and then saying "it's not really that bad, come on," to people in different situations. It has nothing to do with you being "blunt."

opportune 6y ago
>It's not a good signal for who will provide good business value through software engineering Entirely depends on the org. I’ve done DS+A work professionally. I do think it tests fundamental understanding of programming considering DS+A underlies everything we do. If you’re hiring generalist software engineers (or general knowledge is a requirement) and not specialists in specific stacks it makes complete sense to me. I also think it’s harder to fake/game than almost any other programming related test. >”smart” Necessary but not sufficient. You can drive business value without knowing software engineering at all. Driving business value through software engineering requires being a good problem solver Seeing someone unable to do a slight modification of breadth first search given 30-60m to sketch it out does, in my opinion, give me a general sense of their software engineering ability. I am bluntly saying I think it’s an accurate way to assess skill regardless of all the hacker news complaints of “why can’t I get a $300k/year job without knowing what a trie is”
- dvt 6y ago
  > why can’t I get a $300k/year job without knowing what a trie is You're grossly misrepresenting my complaint. I've made contributions to several high-profile OSS projects (including some small HTTP core contributions to Golang), have published one book as a co-author (another as an editor; both with Apress), have several projects with 100+ stars on GitHub, and am in the top .9% of Stack Overflow contributors. This is in addition to having a few interviews out there given to legitimate outlets, like Vice and PCGamer, about past startups (all of which have involved hardware or software). My pedigree is verifiable. And yet, if I want to switch jobs (which I will inevitably have to do), I will be subject to being asked about some algorithmic questions that I am willing to guarantee I couldn't answer without studying. For example, I genuinely don't remember how red-black tree or splay tree balancing works. But I'm small fries compared to people like Max Howell[1] (who wrote and manages brew) and yet couldn't get a job at Google because of some algorithmic question he flunked. Fighting for better interviewing practices in software engineering is one of the few hills I'm willing to die on. [1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

monksy 6y ago

> Also to be perfectly blunt I think this just ties into people generally being uncomfortable with tests. All the examples you gave have the benefit of allowing unlimited time. What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. Sorry if that sounds mean, I don’t mean it to be, just blunt. Not everyone sees these trivia games as a valuable use of our time. Some people have hobbies, some people have side projects that are of use. The leetecode problems don't test you for experience. They just demonstrate your ability to minimally code up a trivia problem. They don't show good coding practices, doc, or testing.

zerr 6y ago

The thing is, CP is not everyone's cup of tea, and also it is a separate discipline/subject with its own trivia knowledge & tricks. CP uses Computer Science same way as e.g. Physics or Biology use Math.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> What’s wrong with a test that challenges your knowledge of data structures and algorithms? Maybe a standardized one, that you take one time, as part of a professional accreditation, even?

dxbydt 6y ago

> Meanwhile I’m very good at competitive programming Not to burst your bubble, but you aren't. You are very good when you get it right. You aren't when you don't get it right. But then you are leaving out that part because nobody likes to focus on the negatives. Consider this - at some point of your life, you didn't know competitive programming. Were you 100% un-hireable at that point ? Most likely, you would have done perfectly fine if you were hired without all this ceremony. That's what people are frustrated with. People dismiss college credentials as elitist gatekeeping, When you create entire artificial domains out of whole cloth, like "competitive programming", that's gatekeeping on steroids. Because that whole domain is artificial, I can stuff anything into it. The surface area of that domain is practically infinite. Forsure there's some patch where you'd under-perform. And I reckon the area of that patch is quite large. You just haven't found it yet.

diffrinse 6y ago
Or, you know, these practices exist to limit hires to specific demographics in the first place.
alecbenzer 6y ago
> Not to burst your bubble, but you aren't. You are very good when you get it right. You aren't when you don't get it right. But then you are leaving out that part because nobody likes to focus on the negatives I'm sorry, what? "No one is right 100% of the time so there's no such thing as being good at anything"?
amznthrowaway5 6y ago
> People dismiss college credentials as elitist gatekeeping, When you create entire artificial domains out of whole cloth, like "competitive programming", that's gatekeeping on steroids. No it isn't. Anyone can pick up a book or go to leetcode and learn to solve interview problems. I know multiple people who did it in their early teens.

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non-entity 6y ago

> I actually find that in general the very smart people I know are good at them and most of the people who “don’t test well” aren’t. Man I need to get the hell away from this field

pluto9 6y ago

> And even then they can just practice them. They might even learn something. And you can "just" contribute to OSS, can you not? You might even learn something. You seem to be advocating for the interview style that fits your personal strengths and preferences while arguing that others should not do the same. Personally, I test just fine and I also contribute to OSS. Perhaps I should argue for that to be the standard, since it would benefit me personally.