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I interviewed Dalia and a few other people referred to us by Manara at Repl.it. It was such a pleasure meeting kids that are so smart and have an insane drive.

I interviewed Dalia and a few other people referred to us by Manara at Repl.it. It was such a pleasure meeting kids that are so smart and have an insane drive. We have a really high bar for hiring at Repl.it, Dalia and the other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past. We extended an offer to one Dalia's classmates and he started yesterday as an intern with high potential for full-time, as our internships usually are since we invest a lot in them. It was such a pleasure meeting you Dalia, wish you all the best. Hope to work with you in the future (maybe when we can offer US visas). P.S. We're still hiring

vinger 6y ago
I'm sure Dalia is great. "other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past." This comment caught me a little off guard. You are saying that these young people with no experience perform better than half of the experienced engineers you interview. My question is what is wrong with your hiring process? It sounds broken.. What part of the process are the experienced developers failing in? What are you asking for in candidates that these experienced developers lack but can be found in this group of inexperienced engineers? Curious about salary, would you say Dalia friends makes the same as an experienced developer?
- zukhan 6y ago
  I've interviewed hundreds of "experienced" engineers who could not code for the life of them. Not sure why you assumed the process is broken without first asking about it.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I agree with this (maybe not the "you sound bitter" part), but it still seems like there's something interesting going on. Why are Palestinian youngsters outperforming experienced engineers from elsewhere? Presumably we would expect Palestinian youngsters to perform on par with youngsters elsewhere unless they had access to additional relevant education or experiences, right? Maybe there's some selection process that filters out all of the under qualified Palestinian youngsters before they enter repl.it's pipeline?
    - ilianam 6y ago
      Hi all, jumping in here as the CEO and co-founder of Manara just to say that all the Palestinians that Repl.it interviewed came from Manara (I think). We have in place a very intense vetting system and a training program to teach these CS grads how to interview effectively. At Google our referral-to-hire rate is 67%. That probably explains this experience. The talent in the Middle East & North Africa is very strong. We believe it's the next Eastern Europe, which used to export refugees and is now a hub of world-class talent.
    - borski 6y ago
      It's simply selection bias. Anyone can write up a resume and land an interview. Most great people have jobs and aren't interviewing, so the talent pool of 'active interviewees' is limited to those who either couldn't land jobs elsewhere or are new. It's rare, but sometimes someone takes time off. The quality of folks coming from a very selective program in a different country, however, has selection bias in the opposite direction; nearly everyone from there is going to be better, on average, than the 'average' interviewer, because as mentioned elsewhere, roughly half (likely a bit more) of people we interviewed could not pass FizzBuzz, despite having stellar resumes. We saw the same thing with MEET, which I helped teach a decade ago too.
      - tcgv 6y ago
        Exactly. I was reflecting on this topic as well and for lack of a better word I started calling it "code fluency" [1]. These kind of programs select developers with much higher code fluency, which is usually the result of a deeper dedication to coding, either in a previous work experience, in their free time or taking part in additional training. [1] https://thomasvilhena.com/2021/01/code-fluency https://thomasvilhena.com/2021/01/code-fluency
  - dang 6y ago
    Can you please omit personal swipes from your HN comments? Your post would be fine without the "you sound bitter" bit. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - zukhan 6y ago
      Done. Thanks for the feedback.
  - monksy 6y ago
    You've either have interviewed "hundreds of experienced engineers" who truely couldn't code well Or You've interviewed hundreds of experienced engineers who are bad at coding during interviews and under the problems you're asking. There's a person on the other end of that table. They haven't had the time to think about the problem that you have had.
  - vinger 6y ago
    I was taken by that statement that more than half of the people you considered experienced engineers you also judged them to have no ability to code. But you said I shouldn't assume your process is broken. If those are your results the process is broken. Either your pipeline of experienced engineers needs to be fixed. Or your ability to judge either who is experienced Or your ability to judge who can't code for the life of them. Your comment made it sound like 51% of experienced ngineers looking for a job can't code when the truth is 51% of your experienced candidates can't. It is broken..
  - cyrux004 6y ago
    you probably mean Leetcode, right ?
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  If other people's hiring and firing processes are broken, it might be the case that experienced engineers aren't that skillful. I'm sure many people's anecdata agrees :)
  - vinger 6y ago
    Skillful judged in broken system is like not being judged at all. If I select who is hired based in their birth month what are we really judging?
- Inhibit 6y ago
  I would assume that the employer has to take the statements of these experienced engineers on faith until interviewed where as the student may be a more easily known quantity in advance. Hard(er) to fudge your knowledge when your standing (even virtually) in front of someone.
  - vinger 6y ago
    Why trust the employer can judge talent?
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  This is trite, but I am replying for the sake of learning how to phrase it. A candidate can be broken down into a lot of characteristics: 1. Base technical skills - typing (yes, typing), ability to recognize and solve standard problems, and ability to process information quickly. 2. Familiarity with specific technologies (.NET, Angular, SQL, whatever you are working with). This is vastly underrated for line of business applications. 3. Architectural patterns - DRY, SRP, dependency injection, inversion of control, queue/msg based patterns, etc. 4. Domain knowledge, perhaps company specific 5. Social skills, etc A lot of senior devs ride out their career on number 4. For a new hire, especially for a junior position, #1 is critical, because there is no #4 to speak of and #3 and #2 are handled by other devs. From that perspective, it makes perfect sense.
  - vinger 6y ago
    Might it be pay?
    - throw1234651234 6y ago
      100%. Younger devs are more eager to work and prove themselves as well, and that's very valuable for a lot of the lower level work. Those are definitely the reasons for perceived and actual ageism.
- xsmasher 6y ago
  This is not a random sampling of youngsters; it's presumably an interested, motivated, and exceptional group.
- slumpt_ 6y ago
  Most interviewing is broken and assesses your skill at “programming interviews” and not “programming.” Experienced engineers can help unfuck a massive complex system. They might not nail your napsack problem right out the gate. But if you want someone who can nail napsack for you, look no further than fresh grads.
- minhazm 6y ago
  The pool is already pre-vetted through another company so in essence they are going to two sets of interviews. If you've already passed one set of interview then the probability that you pass the second one is much higher. That's how you can have a situation where a group of inexperienced candidates perform better than experienced interviewees.
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    Hit the nail on he head. You could do that with nearly any group. Coal miners, orphans, community college dropouts, deaf people, whatever. As long as your pool is large enough and you select the top handful out of that pool.
ingvul 6y ago
> We have a really high bar for hiring at Repl.it, Dalia and the other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past. I really don't want to sound negative, but I find this difficult to believe. Sorry if I sound too harsh, but experienced engineers who don't perform better than recent graduates sure it's a thing, but 50% of the ones you have interviewed don't perform better than a recent graduate? Perhaps you were exaggerating? Or perhaps your interview process is really focused on what recent graduates know best (popular algorithms) and not in what experienced engineers know best (how to deal with real world codebases). Again, I don't mean to sound harsh, I think perhaps that "...at least half..." was just a way of saying "Dalia was really good" (which sounds more credible).
- bostonsre 6y ago
  They didn't say all recent graduates performed better than 50%, just the ones that they interviewed from Palestine. It sounds plausible that they only interviewed a handful and they were better than that 50%.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Graffur 6y ago
    Then the numbers are too low to draw conclusions.
    - bostonsre 6y ago
      Yea, the numbers would be if that was the case. I don't think the person that said that statistic was saying it like it passed the 5 sigma mark. It was given as an offhand anecdote and I didn't see a reason for the overly negative post that I responded to originally.
    - abdulmuhaimin 6y ago
      where did he draw any conclusion?? It seem like you're the one who jump to conclusion here. It was just merely stating a fact that Dalia and her acquaintance perform better in the hiring process than at least half the experienced engineers he has ever interview. If anyone is jumping to conclusion its you guys
daliaawad 6y ago
Thank you so much Faris! It was such an amazing experience interviewing at Repl.it and I am glad I got to know you. For sure, I will come back and reapply to to join your team :)
lupire 6y ago
Dalia doesn't appear to be a kid.

vinger 6y ago

I'm sure Dalia is great. "other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past." This comment caught me a little off guard. You are saying that these young people with no experience perform better than half of the experienced engineers you interview. My question is what is wrong with your hiring process? It sounds broken.. What part of the process are the experienced developers failing in? What are you asking for in candidates that these experienced developers lack but can be found in this group of inexperienced engineers? Curious about salary, would you say Dalia friends makes the same as an experienced developer?

zukhan 6y ago
I've interviewed hundreds of "experienced" engineers who could not code for the life of them. Not sure why you assumed the process is broken without first asking about it.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I agree with this (maybe not the "you sound bitter" part), but it still seems like there's something interesting going on. Why are Palestinian youngsters outperforming experienced engineers from elsewhere? Presumably we would expect Palestinian youngsters to perform on par with youngsters elsewhere unless they had access to additional relevant education or experiences, right? Maybe there's some selection process that filters out all of the under qualified Palestinian youngsters before they enter repl.it's pipeline?
  - ilianam 6y ago
    Hi all, jumping in here as the CEO and co-founder of Manara just to say that all the Palestinians that Repl.it interviewed came from Manara (I think). We have in place a very intense vetting system and a training program to teach these CS grads how to interview effectively. At Google our referral-to-hire rate is 67%. That probably explains this experience. The talent in the Middle East & North Africa is very strong. We believe it's the next Eastern Europe, which used to export refugees and is now a hub of world-class talent.
  - borski 6y ago
    It's simply selection bias. Anyone can write up a resume and land an interview. Most great people have jobs and aren't interviewing, so the talent pool of 'active interviewees' is limited to those who either couldn't land jobs elsewhere or are new. It's rare, but sometimes someone takes time off. The quality of folks coming from a very selective program in a different country, however, has selection bias in the opposite direction; nearly everyone from there is going to be better, on average, than the 'average' interviewer, because as mentioned elsewhere, roughly half (likely a bit more) of people we interviewed could not pass FizzBuzz, despite having stellar resumes. We saw the same thing with MEET, which I helped teach a decade ago too.
    - tcgv 6y ago
      Exactly. I was reflecting on this topic as well and for lack of a better word I started calling it "code fluency" [1]. These kind of programs select developers with much higher code fluency, which is usually the result of a deeper dedication to coding, either in a previous work experience, in their free time or taking part in additional training. [1] https://thomasvilhena.com/2021/01/code-fluency https://thomasvilhena.com/2021/01/code-fluency
- dang 6y ago
  Can you please omit personal swipes from your HN comments? Your post would be fine without the "you sound bitter" bit. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - zukhan 6y ago
    Done. Thanks for the feedback.
- monksy 6y ago
  You've either have interviewed "hundreds of experienced engineers" who truely couldn't code well Or You've interviewed hundreds of experienced engineers who are bad at coding during interviews and under the problems you're asking. There's a person on the other end of that table. They haven't had the time to think about the problem that you have had.
- vinger 6y ago
  I was taken by that statement that more than half of the people you considered experienced engineers you also judged them to have no ability to code. But you said I shouldn't assume your process is broken. If those are your results the process is broken. Either your pipeline of experienced engineers needs to be fixed. Or your ability to judge either who is experienced Or your ability to judge who can't code for the life of them. Your comment made it sound like 51% of experienced ngineers looking for a job can't code when the truth is 51% of your experienced candidates can't. It is broken..
- cyrux004 6y ago
  you probably mean Leetcode, right ?
sudosysgen 6y ago
If other people's hiring and firing processes are broken, it might be the case that experienced engineers aren't that skillful. I'm sure many people's anecdata agrees :)
- vinger 6y ago
  Skillful judged in broken system is like not being judged at all. If I select who is hired based in their birth month what are we really judging?
Inhibit 6y ago
I would assume that the employer has to take the statements of these experienced engineers on faith until interviewed where as the student may be a more easily known quantity in advance. Hard(er) to fudge your knowledge when your standing (even virtually) in front of someone.
- vinger 6y ago
  Why trust the employer can judge talent?
throw1234651234 6y ago
This is trite, but I am replying for the sake of learning how to phrase it. A candidate can be broken down into a lot of characteristics: 1. Base technical skills - typing (yes, typing), ability to recognize and solve standard problems, and ability to process information quickly. 2. Familiarity with specific technologies (.NET, Angular, SQL, whatever you are working with). This is vastly underrated for line of business applications. 3. Architectural patterns - DRY, SRP, dependency injection, inversion of control, queue/msg based patterns, etc. 4. Domain knowledge, perhaps company specific 5. Social skills, etc A lot of senior devs ride out their career on number 4. For a new hire, especially for a junior position, #1 is critical, because there is no #4 to speak of and #3 and #2 are handled by other devs. From that perspective, it makes perfect sense.
- vinger 6y ago
  Might it be pay?
  - throw1234651234 6y ago
    100%. Younger devs are more eager to work and prove themselves as well, and that's very valuable for a lot of the lower level work. Those are definitely the reasons for perceived and actual ageism.
xsmasher 6y ago
This is not a random sampling of youngsters; it's presumably an interested, motivated, and exceptional group.
slumpt_ 6y ago
Most interviewing is broken and assesses your skill at “programming interviews” and not “programming.” Experienced engineers can help unfuck a massive complex system. They might not nail your napsack problem right out the gate. But if you want someone who can nail napsack for you, look no further than fresh grads.
minhazm 6y ago
The pool is already pre-vetted through another company so in essence they are going to two sets of interviews. If you've already passed one set of interview then the probability that you pass the second one is much higher. That's how you can have a situation where a group of inexperienced candidates perform better than experienced interviewees.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  Hit the nail on he head. You could do that with nearly any group. Coal miners, orphans, community college dropouts, deaf people, whatever. As long as your pool is large enough and you select the top handful out of that pool.

ingvul 6y ago

> We have a really high bar for hiring at Repl.it, Dalia and the other youngsters from Palestine performed better than at least half the experienced engineers I've interviewed in the past. I really don't want to sound negative, but I find this difficult to believe. Sorry if I sound too harsh, but experienced engineers who don't perform better than recent graduates sure it's a thing, but 50% of the ones you have interviewed don't perform better than a recent graduate? Perhaps you were exaggerating? Or perhaps your interview process is really focused on what recent graduates know best (popular algorithms) and not in what experienced engineers know best (how to deal with real world codebases). Again, I don't mean to sound harsh, I think perhaps that "...at least half..." was just a way of saying "Dalia was really good" (which sounds more credible).

bostonsre 6y ago
They didn't say all recent graduates performed better than 50%, just the ones that they interviewed from Palestine. It sounds plausible that they only interviewed a handful and they were better than that 50%.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Graffur 6y ago
  Then the numbers are too low to draw conclusions.
  - bostonsre 6y ago
    Yea, the numbers would be if that was the case. I don't think the person that said that statistic was saying it like it passed the 5 sigma mark. It was given as an offhand anecdote and I didn't see a reason for the overly negative post that I responded to originally.
  - abdulmuhaimin 6y ago
    where did he draw any conclusion?? It seem like you're the one who jump to conclusion here. It was just merely stating a fact that Dalia and her acquaintance perform better in the hiring process than at least half the experienced engineers he has ever interview. If anyone is jumping to conclusion its you guys

daliaawad 6y ago

Thank you so much Faris! It was such an amazing experience interviewing at Repl.it and I am glad I got to know you. For sure, I will come back and reapply to to join your team :)

lupire 6y ago

Dalia doesn't appear to be a kid.