6 ms·

Please don't. Better, I'll remove the please and go JUST DONT FUCKING DO IT. Hiring is broken because most people hiring aren't good at it and the people worki

Please don't. Better, I'll remove the please and go JUST DONT FUCKING DO IT. Hiring is broken because most people hiring aren't good at it and the people working in tech are pretty much idiots (I'm focusing more on SV-startup, 5hour discussion about aeropress, put people down because they chose vim or emacs - people kinds). From 'cultural' fit interviews (who the fuck cares if you are a sikh or an atheist, whiskey drinking or think alcohol is evil? You are hired to do a job, not much more). This 'i have my social life at work, so I want people I can hang out with' shit has got to end. I work remotely for 10+ years and I can see in interviews/meetings the people that seem to base their identity and life around work, and the ones that actually are well rounded people that don't care about which coffee grind size you use on your morning crap of joe. I have been a professional boxer and dabbled with MMA/Grappling. I can say most things in the article can apply. So.. at the end of the interview just get them in gloves and duke a few rounds? I would be sued out of existence, but for some reason, between take home assignments, 10h whiteboard drilling and whatever the fuck is hip now (leetcode or what not), interviewing is broken because people are idiots. I have been interviewing people for the last 5 years. If in an one hour talk that is semi technical, you can't understand if the person knows what the fuck they are doing or not, then the problem is you, not the whiteboard or the take-home or the paid assignment. Just admit most people interviewing others for technical positions have not fucking clue or training, BUT, hey, they are smart people from Standford or MIT, so 'how hard can it be' and we get the clusterfuck that it is now

imbnwa 6y ago
Thank you for writing this. It bothers me that the genealogy of leetcode has been completely obscured as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. Once you realize the "who", it becomes even more clear for me why we're dealing with 'i have my social life at work, so I want people I can hang out with'-type people when we're preparing for interviewing. Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers, you you get all these issues surrounding application of "culture fit".
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. > Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? That sounds incredibly racist.
  - imbnwa 6y ago
    > I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" > Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? I said "least likely to have any experience communicating... as peers". Hard to talk about "culture fit" when you don't have experience gauging certain folk who're far from sharing your background. That's just simple empiricism, which is why the reciprocal notion is true for many Black folk as well. De facto segregation has ruinous effects.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      > If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" I've seen a lot of programs that have "IT" or other technical terms in their description but that would not prepare a student for a real Software Engineering position. Same thing with a lot of bootcamps.
    - Der_Einzige 6y ago
      Serious in this case means any accredited 4 year public or private university. So, not boot camps, not sketchy for-profit crap like Trump university. I went to an unremarkable 4 year public university and they focused quite hard on data structures and algorithms. I thought it was the same everywhere else...
klyrs 6y ago
Big agree to everything here. I've seen my fair share of office romance, and wow, folks, it sucks. When your work is your family, friends, your whole life, it's gonna be a dating pool for people, too. When you start sleeping with one of your "family" members, that's fine, whatever. But when you inevitably split, work becomes a soap opera, everybody feels the need to pick a side, banal decisions (like attending a meeting or not) become political. Shit. And to think, I've been told by a department head that the way to get business done with a certain co-worker is to go out for beer with him. So that's my fault for not knowing / doing that. No matter that I don't drink. No matter that I'm not cool enough for this dude to want to go drinking with. Big ol' fuck off, loud and clear. Wouldn't it be better if he could just respond to my emails like everybody else is expected to?
kilroy123 6y ago
As someone who is actively interviewing, this really resonates with me.
m463 6y ago
yes, I agree. Honestly I was looking at this and thinking it's not too far off from introducing yourself as Tyler Durden and then testing him.
fractionalhare 6y ago
> people that seem to base their identity and life around work, and the ones that actually are well rounded people that don't care about which coffee grind size you use on your morning crap of joe. These don't seem related. I happily base my identity around my work. I don't care about my coworkers personalities or inclinations at all, as long as they're not assholes and they're competent. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by identity? I don't hire people because I want them to be friends.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  What I mean by basing your identity about work is that your personality, your life, your social circles, etc etc is based around work. Is like someone basing their identity on their sexual orientation, or the sports club they support. Their work is their life, almost a cult like following, and use that work for making others part of that circle (think cultural fit shit, about people not wanting to hire/promote people because they don't hang around for friday evening beer social hour, or in a kind of upper management thing, not wanting to hire people that don't play golf)
lmilcin 6y ago
I understand your frustration, but I somehow need to figure out who to hire and who not to even if it can't be done reliably. I need to ask some technical questions and I need to give simple coding exercise on a coderpad. You would be surprised how many people can smooth talk themselves through any non technical person but can't do shit when faced with an actual IDE and a small problem to solve. The real broken part of this is that there is minority of candidates who just can't develop and go to a huge number of interviews looking for one place where the process slips up and lets him pass or maybe be very lucky with the questions. Even though they are minority the constitute majority of interviews just because of how many interviews they try to attend.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  I did mention that a one hour tech talk. I don't think you should willie nilly hire anyone just because they are a smooth talker. Quick example, Hiring a mobile developer: You talk with them, if Android, ask how Kotlin interfaces with the JVM and what they think (good or bad) about type erasure. iOS? Ask/talk a bit about memory management/ARC. Anyone that has experience with these languages/os (unless hiring for very junior position) should have some thoughts and opinions about it. They may say something you don't agree with (ARC is crap because X or Y) but they will know what they are talking about. You can also dig in to know if it is something they read online (ARC is automated reference counting, meaning each 'allocation' increases a ref counter. Ok, that is good, so, why use `autorelease` or `release` and when to use each? etc etc kind of questions) You can do the same with backend (framework vs libraries) or frontend (react + state libraries) or whatnot, but if in an one hour tech chat with someone, you can't understand if they actually know they can at least code similar to giving them a fizzbuzz or whatnot, it says more about the interviewer than the person being interviewed.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    One technique I use is I ask them what are the things they know well. Hopefully, there will also be something that I know. I then start digging in the area they have already advertised they know well and try to judge what it means when they say they know something well. Also if a candidate can master even one thing very well, it gives hopes they are at least somewhat interested in development and can learn other things, too. What I found is that people who are not interested in development but rather do this because it pays well almost never learn anything very well. They just don't have drive and curiosity needed to dig one topic long enough after what they have learned was enough to complete the task they were assigned.

imbnwa 6y ago

Thank you for writing this. It bothers me that the genealogy of leetcode has been completely obscured as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. Once you realize the "who", it becomes even more clear for me why we're dealing with 'i have my social life at work, so I want people I can hang out with'-type people when we're preparing for interviewing. Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers, you you get all these issues surrounding application of "culture fit".

908B64B197 6y ago
> as it comes from competitive programming competitions whose primary demographic were who? Those smart people from Stanford or MIT. I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. > Not to mention that crowd is least likely to have any experience communicating with, say for example, Black folk, amongst other demos, as peers Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? That sounds incredibly racist.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  > I mean, it comes from every intro to algorithm and data structures classes at every serious CS program. If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" > Not sure what you are insinuating here... That folks from these schools or who do good at algorithms don't see black folks as their equals? I said "least likely to have any experience communicating... as peers". Hard to talk about "culture fit" when you don't have experience gauging certain folk who're far from sharing your background. That's just simple empiricism, which is why the reciprocal notion is true for many Black folk as well. De facto segregation has ruinous effects.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > If you wanted to indicate the level of generality here you wouldn't have used the adjective "serious" I've seen a lot of programs that have "IT" or other technical terms in their description but that would not prepare a student for a real Software Engineering position. Same thing with a lot of bootcamps.
  - Der_Einzige 6y ago
    Serious in this case means any accredited 4 year public or private university. So, not boot camps, not sketchy for-profit crap like Trump university. I went to an unremarkable 4 year public university and they focused quite hard on data structures and algorithms. I thought it was the same everywhere else...

klyrs 6y ago

Big agree to everything here. I've seen my fair share of office romance, and wow, folks, it sucks. When your work is your family, friends, your whole life, it's gonna be a dating pool for people, too. When you start sleeping with one of your "family" members, that's fine, whatever. But when you inevitably split, work becomes a soap opera, everybody feels the need to pick a side, banal decisions (like attending a meeting or not) become political. Shit. And to think, I've been told by a department head that the way to get business done with a certain co-worker is to go out for beer with him. So that's my fault for not knowing / doing that. No matter that I don't drink. No matter that I'm not cool enough for this dude to want to go drinking with. Big ol' fuck off, loud and clear. Wouldn't it be better if he could just respond to my emails like everybody else is expected to?

kilroy123 6y ago

As someone who is actively interviewing, this really resonates with me.

m463 6y ago

yes, I agree. Honestly I was looking at this and thinking it's not too far off from introducing yourself as Tyler Durden and then testing him.

fractionalhare 6y ago

> people that seem to base their identity and life around work, and the ones that actually are well rounded people that don't care about which coffee grind size you use on your morning crap of joe. These don't seem related. I happily base my identity around my work. I don't care about my coworkers personalities or inclinations at all, as long as they're not assholes and they're competent. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by identity? I don't hire people because I want them to be friends.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
What I mean by basing your identity about work is that your personality, your life, your social circles, etc etc is based around work. Is like someone basing their identity on their sexual orientation, or the sports club they support. Their work is their life, almost a cult like following, and use that work for making others part of that circle (think cultural fit shit, about people not wanting to hire/promote people because they don't hang around for friday evening beer social hour, or in a kind of upper management thing, not wanting to hire people that don't play golf)

lmilcin 6y ago

I understand your frustration, but I somehow need to figure out who to hire and who not to even if it can't be done reliably. I need to ask some technical questions and I need to give simple coding exercise on a coderpad. You would be surprised how many people can smooth talk themselves through any non technical person but can't do shit when faced with an actual IDE and a small problem to solve. The real broken part of this is that there is minority of candidates who just can't develop and go to a huge number of interviews looking for one place where the process slips up and lets him pass or maybe be very lucky with the questions. Even though they are minority the constitute majority of interviews just because of how many interviews they try to attend.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
I did mention that a one hour tech talk. I don't think you should willie nilly hire anyone just because they are a smooth talker. Quick example, Hiring a mobile developer: You talk with them, if Android, ask how Kotlin interfaces with the JVM and what they think (good or bad) about type erasure. iOS? Ask/talk a bit about memory management/ARC. Anyone that has experience with these languages/os (unless hiring for very junior position) should have some thoughts and opinions about it. They may say something you don't agree with (ARC is crap because X or Y) but they will know what they are talking about. You can also dig in to know if it is something they read online (ARC is automated reference counting, meaning each 'allocation' increases a ref counter. Ok, that is good, so, why use `autorelease` or `release` and when to use each? etc etc kind of questions) You can do the same with backend (framework vs libraries) or frontend (react + state libraries) or whatnot, but if in an one hour tech chat with someone, you can't understand if they actually know they can at least code similar to giving them a fizzbuzz or whatnot, it says more about the interviewer than the person being interviewed.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  One technique I use is I ask them what are the things they know well. Hopefully, there will also be something that I know. I then start digging in the area they have already advertised they know well and try to judge what it means when they say they know something well. Also if a candidate can master even one thing very well, it gives hopes they are at least somewhat interested in development and can learn other things, too. What I found is that people who are not interested in development but rather do this because it pays well almost never learn anything very well. They just don't have drive and curiosity needed to dig one topic long enough after what they have learned was enough to complete the task they were assigned.