3 ms·

Is it just me or is it somewhat pointless to be lamenting the fact that this may or may not be a terrible part of the hiring process? At the end of the day if y

by mym1990 6y ago

Is it just me or is it somewhat pointless to be lamenting the fact that this may or may not be a terrible part of the hiring process? At the end of the day if you sit down for the interview and are given this question, you can either do your best to solve it or walk out of the interview and go to a company that you feel is 'more worth your time'. When you're playing by Google's rules, there's not much to be accomplished in the form of complaining. My guess is that many hiring practices will change(and are changing) over time based on the internal work that people are doing to drive better initiatives, and less based on comments on HN. Personally, I would like to see what people thing about the actual solution to this particular problem...

xienze 6y ago
> you can either do your best to solve it or walk out of the interview and go to a company that you feel is 'more worth your time'. The problem is so many other companies have copied this practice because hey, Google asks brainteasers and gets the best candidates, so we should do it too!
- mym1990 6y ago
  They have, but we're definitely seeing a turn towards a better direction recently. The software engineering job market has gone through some incredibly fast changes in only the last 10-15 years, and we will likely never perfect the process as the landscape changes, but I guess the optimist in me believes that at least some companies are doing their best. Its just my view that when the first 10 comments on this post echo that this is a terrible practice, it makes it difficult to have a more technical conversation about the OP.
UncleMeat 6y ago
It isn't pointless. Criticizing leetcode style interviews produces an infinite supply of social media comments and upvotes. The conversation will never progress, but it lets people argue on the internet, which is a key value proposition of headlines today.
itronitron 6y ago
One of the problems I have with these types of questions where the interviewer is going to 'help guide' the candidate is that there is way too much opportunity for the interviewer to stall the candidate, either intentionally or not, based on their own bias toward the candidate. At the most extreme, these questions are a test for whether the candidate had the same CS professors as the interviewer.
vanusa 6y ago
When you're playing by Google's rules, there's not much to be accomplished in the form of complaining. The problem that so by now many companies have been infected with the idea of using "Google's rules" as a playbook that it's still going to take several years for the contagion to wash out of the system. Meaning we need to keep pushing back on multiple fronts. Given the insidiousness of the problem (and the psychological cost it has imposed on a generation of engineers; not to mention the sheer time cost) -- public exposure, followed by heaping mounds of ridicule (you can call that "complaining" if you like) would seem to be not only a valid, but unfortunately necessary part of our suppression strategy. Otherwise, the people who keep foisting these questions us (as if they were a cool and nifty way to size up candidates) -- just aren't going to get it through their heads. Personally, I would like to see what people thing about the actual solution to this particular problem... I used to enjoy solving problems like these, during my high school and college years. Sometimes really, really enjoy it. But now that I build real systems for a living (which generally involves much meatier problems to solve) -- and it's become part of the standard hazing process in far too many shops, for far too long -- I couldn't begin to care less.

xienze 6y ago

> you can either do your best to solve it or walk out of the interview and go to a company that you feel is 'more worth your time'. The problem is so many other companies have copied this practice because hey, Google asks brainteasers and gets the best candidates, so we should do it too!

mym1990 6y ago
They have, but we're definitely seeing a turn towards a better direction recently. The software engineering job market has gone through some incredibly fast changes in only the last 10-15 years, and we will likely never perfect the process as the landscape changes, but I guess the optimist in me believes that at least some companies are doing their best. Its just my view that when the first 10 comments on this post echo that this is a terrible practice, it makes it difficult to have a more technical conversation about the OP.

UncleMeat 6y ago

It isn't pointless. Criticizing leetcode style interviews produces an infinite supply of social media comments and upvotes. The conversation will never progress, but it lets people argue on the internet, which is a key value proposition of headlines today.

itronitron 6y ago

One of the problems I have with these types of questions where the interviewer is going to 'help guide' the candidate is that there is way too much opportunity for the interviewer to stall the candidate, either intentionally or not, based on their own bias toward the candidate. At the most extreme, these questions are a test for whether the candidate had the same CS professors as the interviewer.

vanusa 6y ago

When you're playing by Google's rules, there's not much to be accomplished in the form of complaining. The problem that so by now many companies have been infected with the idea of using "Google's rules" as a playbook that it's still going to take several years for the contagion to wash out of the system. Meaning we need to keep pushing back on multiple fronts. Given the insidiousness of the problem (and the psychological cost it has imposed on a generation of engineers; not to mention the sheer time cost) -- public exposure, followed by heaping mounds of ridicule (you can call that "complaining" if you like) would seem to be not only a valid, but unfortunately necessary part of our suppression strategy. Otherwise, the people who keep foisting these questions us (as if they were a cool and nifty way to size up candidates) -- just aren't going to get it through their heads. Personally, I would like to see what people thing about the actual solution to this particular problem... I used to enjoy solving problems like these, during my high school and college years. Sometimes really, really enjoy it. But now that I build real systems for a living (which generally involves much meatier problems to solve) -- and it's become part of the standard hazing process in far too many shops, for far too long -- I couldn't begin to care less.