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How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generali

How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generalizable for other companies.

Toutouxc 6y ago
You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  But its biased against people who can't use mouse and keyboard :) But on serious note, People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would.
  - boomfus 6y ago
    Isn't that a common criticism of every interview style? Whether it's whiteboard questions, take-home projects, soft skill questions, lots of people will lie and say they've never seen the question before.
    - plank_time 6y ago
      At this point, you would be foolish to admit that you’ve seen a question before. Everyone is faking it, and if you be honest, you’ll just keep getting harder and harder questions from the interviewer. The only time you should not fake it is if you’ve been asked that question at the same company. I think they would keep track of that and if you didn’t mention it, they would look deceitful on your part if they catch you.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > you’ll just keep getting harder and harder questions from the interviewer. Well, there is a counter strategy that works even in this situation. The counter strategy would be to just know way more interview questions than the interviewer, and know the answer to every question that they have, so that they run out! When I was full time applying for jobs, a couple years ago, it got to the point with me. It turns out that people interviewing others, only have a couple questions that they use for interviews, and it is not that hard to know all of them.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    >People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would. This is a universal problem with all interview techniques. Interested in any ideas for how to fix it. It's even a problem with "personal interviews," because some people have had more experience with optimizing one-hour first impressions than others.
  - plank_time 6y ago
    Most interviews in other industries try to figure out how much a person knows at that point in time. Software interviews try to do the impossible and try to figure out how quickly someone learns. That’s because this can be gamed, as you mentioned. I know people that have memorized 800 leetcode questions and got jobs at all the FAANGs, even though they were average developers. For the record I’ve never gotten into FAANG (although I have gotten into FAANG-adjacent) so my evaluation should be taken with a grain of salt. The best interview is one that can’t be gamed. Just like Hollywood auditions. Give the people the script and see how well they do. Tell the interview candidate you are going to give them 3 questions and they pick the one they want to do, even if they know it already. This strips away all pretense that they are figuring it out on the spot. At least then you are on a level playing field.
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  It's not about understanding the set of rules, it's about applying it in real time while playing. It adds a huge mental burden on the interviewee if they aren't familiar with it already. And the older you get, the harder it becomes.
- minikites 6y ago
  >Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented. I think you dramatically over-estimate most people's literacy with games and movement in a virtual space, let alone most people's hand-eye coordination. How many people can touch type these days?
  - cdirkx 6y ago
    Why would the amount of software engineers that can touch type be down?
  - Toutouxc 6y ago
    You literally only place your fingers on the WASD keys and you move your character in a 2D (!) virtual space. With Minecraft it would be a completely different story, but Factorio is really accessible.
- lukas099 6y ago
  > You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. You make it sound so easy. Once I gave my PS4 controller to my dad to play a driving game. Even though he's a better driver than I am, it did not go well.
  - lghh 6y ago
    Using a controller for someone who has never used a controller for and mentally mapping the act of driving to it is probably more difficult then handing a mouse and keyboard to someone interviewing for a software development job.
  - Toutouxc 6y ago
    Game controllers are different beasts altogether. It's always fun watching a hardcore PC gamer struggle with a DualShock (or the asymmetrical weird thing they use on Xbox) for the first time. I know what you mean, but Factorio is really much slower and much easier to pick up than a driving game on a controller. I'm not saying it's a great choice for a one-hour interview, but anyone should be able to do whatever they want in Factorio after a couple of hours.
- francisduvivier 6y ago
  Yeah it's not about "failing to understand", or "being able". It's about having advantage if you are already familiar with similar things. It's about those few extra things that you don't have to spend a single thought on anymore, giving you more headspace to think about the problem at hand. And it's also about feeling less stressed because you are in a rather familiar environment. Can you really not see how such an interview would bias towards Gamers?
fudged71 6y ago
Worth pointing out that McKinsey developed their own game for demonstrating problem solving in interviews. I don’t think anyone is arguing that McKinsey has a bias towards gamers.
- peruvian 6y ago
  I will argue McKinsey has a bias against humanity and good things, but that's off-topic :-)
leetcrew 6y ago
I don't think it would have a huge bias towards gamers in general. the real issue would be people who already happen to be good at factorio. if you play with experienced people, it's easy to pick up on a lot of efficient patterns without really understanding why they work. then again, I guess that's also true of software.
decafninja 6y ago
Reminds me of questions related to sports. I have zero interest in sports and am clueless to the rules of baseball or football or basketball. I hated when I got questions that assumed I had any such knowledge. Granted this was way back when when interviewers like to toss brainteaser questions to cargocult Google/Microsoft/etc...before they started doing leetcode to cargocult Google etc.
Workaccount2 6y ago
I'm D tier programmer who would easily land a programming job if factorio was the skill metric.
- MPSimmons 6y ago
  If you're actually D tier, and you're good at Factorio, why are you a D tier? You clearly have the mindset for problem-solving. What is holding you back?
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    If GP had the answer to that, they wouldn't likely be held back.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    Software development as a career is a lot more than just learning, design, applying logic. We still have to manage projects at a people/organizational level, interact with team members with various backgrounds, understand what people are asking of you. There's a lot to being a successful developer that is probably so easy for many individuals that they might not consider that a person might be IQ smart, but unable to handle such a task at a professional level. I'm in a similar boat to the the GP: I do really well on logic tests and programming challenges, but I struggle with the the soft skills necessary to be a good team member.
  - krainboltgreene 6y ago
    > you're good at Factorio, why are you a D tier Because these actually have very little in relation.
  - bryan_w 6y ago
    There are very few off by one errors opportunities in factorio
  - Workaccount2 6y ago
    I'm not a programmer, I only know enough C to do simple embedded micro designs. Electronics is my jam, so I probably could get much better if I took the time.
cwhiz 6y ago
It might, if they were actually suggesting this. Title was intended to race to the top of Hacker News. >What's the takeaway from this? I don't know. We certainly can't switch to using Factorio as an interviewing method - you might as well just give a candidate a take-home assignment.

How can this not have a huge bias in favor of gamers? Might work for them because that's the kind of culture fit they need, but I doesn't look all that generalizable for other companies.

Toutouxc 6y ago

You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented.

me_me_me 6y ago
But its biased against people who can't use mouse and keyboard :) But on serious note, People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would.
- boomfus 6y ago
  Isn't that a common criticism of every interview style? Whether it's whiteboard questions, take-home projects, soft skill questions, lots of people will lie and say they've never seen the question before.
  - plank_time 6y ago
    At this point, you would be foolish to admit that you’ve seen a question before. Everyone is faking it, and if you be honest, you’ll just keep getting harder and harder questions from the interviewer. The only time you should not fake it is if you’ve been asked that question at the same company. I think they would keep track of that and if you didn’t mention it, they would look deceitful on your part if they catch you.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > you’ll just keep getting harder and harder questions from the interviewer. Well, there is a counter strategy that works even in this situation. The counter strategy would be to just know way more interview questions than the interviewer, and know the answer to every question that they have, so that they run out! When I was full time applying for jobs, a couple years ago, it got to the point with me. It turns out that people interviewing others, only have a couple questions that they use for interviews, and it is not that hard to know all of them.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  >People who played the game could just hide the fact that they know the game mechanics. And act like they are catching up faster then normal person would. This is a universal problem with all interview techniques. Interested in any ideas for how to fix it. It's even a problem with "personal interviews," because some people have had more experience with optimizing one-hour first impressions than others.
- plank_time 6y ago
  Most interviews in other industries try to figure out how much a person knows at that point in time. Software interviews try to do the impossible and try to figure out how quickly someone learns. That’s because this can be gamed, as you mentioned. I know people that have memorized 800 leetcode questions and got jobs at all the FAANGs, even though they were average developers. For the record I’ve never gotten into FAANG (although I have gotten into FAANG-adjacent) so my evaluation should be taken with a grain of salt. The best interview is one that can’t be gamed. Just like Hollywood auditions. Give the people the script and see how well they do. Tell the interview candidate you are going to give them 3 questions and they pick the one they want to do, even if they know it already. This strips away all pretense that they are figuring it out on the spot. At least then you are on a level playing field.
littlestymaar 6y ago
It's not about understanding the set of rules, it's about applying it in real time while playing. It adds a huge mental burden on the interviewee if they aren't familiar with it already. And the older you get, the harder it becomes.
minikites 6y ago
>Failing to understand this simple set of rules would disqualify a person from most jobs ever invented. I think you dramatically over-estimate most people's literacy with games and movement in a virtual space, let alone most people's hand-eye coordination. How many people can touch type these days?
- cdirkx 6y ago
  Why would the amount of software engineers that can touch type be down?
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  You literally only place your fingers on the WASD keys and you move your character in a 2D (!) virtual space. With Minecraft it would be a completely different story, but Factorio is really accessible.
lukas099 6y ago
> You only have to understand how to move your character using WASD, the concept of Inventory and pointing at different places on the ground with a cursor. You make it sound so easy. Once I gave my PS4 controller to my dad to play a driving game. Even though he's a better driver than I am, it did not go well.
- lghh 6y ago
  Using a controller for someone who has never used a controller for and mentally mapping the act of driving to it is probably more difficult then handing a mouse and keyboard to someone interviewing for a software development job.
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  Game controllers are different beasts altogether. It's always fun watching a hardcore PC gamer struggle with a DualShock (or the asymmetrical weird thing they use on Xbox) for the first time. I know what you mean, but Factorio is really much slower and much easier to pick up than a driving game on a controller. I'm not saying it's a great choice for a one-hour interview, but anyone should be able to do whatever they want in Factorio after a couple of hours.
francisduvivier 6y ago
Yeah it's not about "failing to understand", or "being able". It's about having advantage if you are already familiar with similar things. It's about those few extra things that you don't have to spend a single thought on anymore, giving you more headspace to think about the problem at hand. And it's also about feeling less stressed because you are in a rather familiar environment. Can you really not see how such an interview would bias towards Gamers?

fudged71 6y ago

Worth pointing out that McKinsey developed their own game for demonstrating problem solving in interviews. I don’t think anyone is arguing that McKinsey has a bias towards gamers.

peruvian 6y ago
I will argue McKinsey has a bias against humanity and good things, but that's off-topic :-)

leetcrew 6y ago

I don't think it would have a huge bias towards gamers in general. the real issue would be people who already happen to be good at factorio. if you play with experienced people, it's easy to pick up on a lot of efficient patterns without really understanding why they work. then again, I guess that's also true of software.

decafninja 6y ago

Reminds me of questions related to sports. I have zero interest in sports and am clueless to the rules of baseball or football or basketball. I hated when I got questions that assumed I had any such knowledge. Granted this was way back when when interviewers like to toss brainteaser questions to cargocult Google/Microsoft/etc...before they started doing leetcode to cargocult Google etc.

Workaccount2 6y ago

I'm D tier programmer who would easily land a programming job if factorio was the skill metric.

MPSimmons 6y ago
If you're actually D tier, and you're good at Factorio, why are you a D tier? You clearly have the mindset for problem-solving. What is holding you back?
- thomastjeffery 6y ago
  If GP had the answer to that, they wouldn't likely be held back.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Software development as a career is a lot more than just learning, design, applying logic. We still have to manage projects at a people/organizational level, interact with team members with various backgrounds, understand what people are asking of you. There's a lot to being a successful developer that is probably so easy for many individuals that they might not consider that a person might be IQ smart, but unable to handle such a task at a professional level. I'm in a similar boat to the the GP: I do really well on logic tests and programming challenges, but I struggle with the the soft skills necessary to be a good team member.
- krainboltgreene 6y ago
  > you're good at Factorio, why are you a D tier Because these actually have very little in relation.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  There are very few off by one errors opportunities in factorio
- Workaccount2 6y ago
  I'm not a programmer, I only know enough C to do simple embedded micro designs. Electronics is my jam, so I probably could get much better if I took the time.

cwhiz 6y ago

It might, if they were actually suggesting this. Title was intended to race to the top of Hacker News. >What's the takeaway from this? I don't know. We certainly can't switch to using Factorio as an interviewing method - you might as well just give a candidate a take-home assignment.