5 ms·

Your experience is not enough. I've seen candidates with a resume full of experience that are very good at talking fall flat on their face on incredibly simple

Your experience is not enough. I've seen candidates with a resume full of experience that are very good at talking fall flat on their face on incredibly simple coding problems. I can't tell from a discussion if you faked it. Lying is not as difficult as you think it is.

speby 5y ago
I've seen this counter-point come up so many times. It's true, some times people might lie and be good at talking. Amongst programmers, though, that is simply not true, at least to the point of being frequent enough that we need to subject everyone to obnoxious whiteboard and leetcode interview formats. And in the event of the [rare] mistake in hiring someone who does this, you will know quite quickly after they start and you will fire them. Problem solved.
- edanm 5y ago
  Look, I only have anecdotes to offer, but based on my experience, you are simply wrong. It might be a different place, a different market from yours, etc. But at least here (and I've verified this anecdote with numerous people), many people who have very high experience levels simply can't code, at all. Or at least, can't do it given the coding task we give them (2 hours with a computer and full internet access, to do a few tasks in Python). I'm not saying that people are lying on their resumes - just that supposed experience in an impressive sounding company doesn't necessarily translate to real world coding ability.
  - speby 5y ago
    That may be and it could just be coincidence or location or whatever. Don't get me wrong, though, I have definitely interviewed highly (well, supposedly) experienced software engineers who, when faced with actually writing and reading code, could barely understand. So, I acknowledge that it does happen but just that in my experience, not overly often. In the times that I have seen it happen, though, I almost always wonder how the heck it's possible? Either they really did lie about their experience (possibly but let's assume not) OR they have worked at places that didn't interview well (?) somehow just skated by for years on end? Or maybe there is another possibility for why this happens.
brailsafe 5y ago
Bit of a false dichotomy don't you think? Surely a 'incredibly simple coding problem' is different than whiteboarding leetcode. Perhaps your questions aren't enough?
- bennyelv 5y ago
  Not necessarily. Leetcode problems go from “just iterate over the collection collecting some data as you go” to “Knuth solved this once and thankfully he wrote it down in a book for us mortals”. Maybe part of the problem with these threads is that posters don’t clarify exactly what they’re complaining about.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    Yes, I'd agree.
DeathArrow 5y ago
I think you can asses the knowledge of a person better by asking meaningful questions than asking to write a binary search or sorting integers in place. Unless you want to hire juniors.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  For some things yes. I just can't understand the resistance of people who write code for a living to be asked to write code.
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    You can evaluate code other ways, like a take home to be discussed at a later interview.
    - hello_moto 5y ago
      "Half" population over HN dislikes take home: argument ranging from waste time to pay us if you want us to do your job (I highly doubt 98% take home asked candidates to solve real business issue the employer are facing with since take home has a deadline that is longer than in-person interview but also take into consideration your time).
  - yobbo 5y ago
    For typical dev jobs, hardly anyone writes sorting/searching algorithms, or algorithms at all. In fact, if someone working on web/apps/database stuff is spending time on algorithms, they are doing it wrong. Algorithms are a sort of pleasant luxury for most devs. Depending on details, it's similar to asking an author to recite, verbatim, Shakespeare verses and calling gotcha on every mistake. There are situations where it is legitimate, but for app/web/db devs it's just a rigged trivia competition.
    - hello_moto 5y ago
      Then what should the interviewer ask when it comes to coding question? Take home small project? "Half" hates that. Leetcode? The other "half" of population can't stand that. Fizzbuzz? Too easy. No code? How can they tell you can code, naturally? Framework specific questions? Write something in Flask? What if you're looking for someone who's good at development but have not used a specific tech stack?

speby 5y ago

I've seen this counter-point come up so many times. It's true, some times people might lie and be good at talking. Amongst programmers, though, that is simply not true, at least to the point of being frequent enough that we need to subject everyone to obnoxious whiteboard and leetcode interview formats. And in the event of the [rare] mistake in hiring someone who does this, you will know quite quickly after they start and you will fire them. Problem solved.

edanm 5y ago
Look, I only have anecdotes to offer, but based on my experience, you are simply wrong. It might be a different place, a different market from yours, etc. But at least here (and I've verified this anecdote with numerous people), many people who have very high experience levels simply can't code, at all. Or at least, can't do it given the coding task we give them (2 hours with a computer and full internet access, to do a few tasks in Python). I'm not saying that people are lying on their resumes - just that supposed experience in an impressive sounding company doesn't necessarily translate to real world coding ability.
- speby 5y ago
  That may be and it could just be coincidence or location or whatever. Don't get me wrong, though, I have definitely interviewed highly (well, supposedly) experienced software engineers who, when faced with actually writing and reading code, could barely understand. So, I acknowledge that it does happen but just that in my experience, not overly often. In the times that I have seen it happen, though, I almost always wonder how the heck it's possible? Either they really did lie about their experience (possibly but let's assume not) OR they have worked at places that didn't interview well (?) somehow just skated by for years on end? Or maybe there is another possibility for why this happens.

brailsafe 5y ago

Bit of a false dichotomy don't you think? Surely a 'incredibly simple coding problem' is different than whiteboarding leetcode. Perhaps your questions aren't enough?

bennyelv 5y ago
Not necessarily. Leetcode problems go from “just iterate over the collection collecting some data as you go” to “Knuth solved this once and thankfully he wrote it down in a book for us mortals”. Maybe part of the problem with these threads is that posters don’t clarify exactly what they’re complaining about.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  Yes, I'd agree.

DeathArrow 5y ago

I think you can asses the knowledge of a person better by asking meaningful questions than asking to write a binary search or sorting integers in place. Unless you want to hire juniors.

fallingknife 5y ago
For some things yes. I just can't understand the resistance of people who write code for a living to be asked to write code.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  You can evaluate code other ways, like a take home to be discussed at a later interview.
  - hello_moto 5y ago
    "Half" population over HN dislikes take home: argument ranging from waste time to pay us if you want us to do your job (I highly doubt 98% take home asked candidates to solve real business issue the employer are facing with since take home has a deadline that is longer than in-person interview but also take into consideration your time).
- yobbo 5y ago
  For typical dev jobs, hardly anyone writes sorting/searching algorithms, or algorithms at all. In fact, if someone working on web/apps/database stuff is spending time on algorithms, they are doing it wrong. Algorithms are a sort of pleasant luxury for most devs. Depending on details, it's similar to asking an author to recite, verbatim, Shakespeare verses and calling gotcha on every mistake. There are situations where it is legitimate, but for app/web/db devs it's just a rigged trivia competition.
  - hello_moto 5y ago
    Then what should the interviewer ask when it comes to coding question? Take home small project? "Half" hates that. Leetcode? The other "half" of population can't stand that. Fizzbuzz? Too easy. No code? How can they tell you can code, naturally? Framework specific questions? Write something in Flask? What if you're looking for someone who's good at development but have not used a specific tech stack?