4 ms·

I have noticed that sense of "domination" come out in interviews as well. I remember long ago having one interview where the interviewer was asking me to code s

by allenu 5y ago

I have noticed that sense of "domination" come out in interviews as well. I remember long ago having one interview where the interviewer was asking me to code something which I knew would be impossible to complete in the time allotted. It just seemed so ridiculous to me that I was supposed to write this complete solution in about 30 minutes. I remember how superior he was acting at the start of the interview too, and then after I wrote up the code (unable to complete in the time given, but apparently good enough to make him happy), his tone changed completely of one where he was very friendly as though somehow I passed his "test". I was now worthy of speaking to as an equal, whereas half an hour or more earlier I was some nobody to him. Another interview I had years later, the interviewer clearly didn't think I was worth his time because he literally got up and started playing with a yo-yo as he threw challenging question after challenging question at me and pressing me harder and harder for solutions ("Imagine you were given task X and nothing more. How would you solve this? What would you do next? If that didn't work, now what would you try?") I remember it was incredibly disrespectful and left a bad taste in my mouth about the team. Thankfully I didn't get the job.

Aeolun 5y ago
What the hell does a yo-yo do in an interview? I think that by itself would make me walk out.
mrfusion 5y ago
Incompetent until proven competent. Most industries don’t have to deal with that attitude but it’s prevalent for us. Imagine asking a doctor basic biology questions or what an antibiotic is used for in an interview.
- afarrell 5y ago
  For example: The idea that there are many programmers who cannot even write fizzbuzz sounds like a very strong claim. It seems far more likely that there are many programmers who have socially-induced anxiety.
  - strken 5y ago
    It's entirely believable that many programmers couldn't write fizzbuzz without searching Google in the days before it was universally memorised. The modulo operator is somewhat rare in real code and is defined slightly differently in different languages.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      > The modulo operator is somewhat rare in real code Even if a candidate didn't know that modulo even existed they could still get the remainder with simple division and subtraction. Modulo might be slightly different depending on the language, but for fizzbuzz that's not important and most likely not what you're expected to know in such an interview question. And while it is not the most common operator it is still one of the most basic ones and present in all languages you'd use during a job interview.
      - strken 5y ago
        > Even if a candidate didn't know that modulo even existed they could still get the remainder with simple division and subtraction. And they'd probably fail some interviews for doing so. > And while it is not the most common operator it is still one of the most basic ones and present in all languages you'd use during a job interview. This is true, but I also expect some otherwise-competent programmers would fail a test that expected them to remember the specifics of bitwise operators or bitshifting. It's been years since I've needed to use any of the three in a paid job - they're just not very common in my day jobs, whereas they crop up a lot in side projects.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I have interviewed senior candidates (more than two, fewer than five) who couldn’t write code to sum an array of ints (ignoring overflow). * Not in the sense of missed a bit of punctuation, but rather in the sense of “couldn’t get started with anything that vaguely smelled like an answer, didn’t understand the type system of the language they claim 5 years of experience with, etc”. I’ve probably interviewed fewer than 400 candidates in-person and maybe 200 of those would be senior ICs. To have more than a percent of them be utterly incapable here is a signal that there are candidates out there taking their best half-court buzzer-beater shot to try to land the prize. If you’ve done 100 first round in-person interviews and never run into someone that causes you to check up on how the phone screen happened, your screening processes work pretty well. Is it possible that these candidates are capable programmers in daily work? Sure, it’s possible, but I’d bet against it. * We used to ask a candidate to average an array of ints. It’s a question that was designed to tease out whether the candidate would discuss/inquire about overflow, what the return type should be, etc. After a couple years, we realized that candidates would stumble on the loop and sum more than anywhere else and we got more signal/minute from asking the vastly simpler summation question. Candidates who could fluently write the loop usually knew about overflow and the fact that the average of ints isn’t mathematically an int but that many times an int is what you want and can discuss the reasons.
- MathYouF 5y ago
  Asking a doctor who had completed their 12 years of medical school and residency basic biology questions would be a bit absurd. Asking someone who claims to be a doctor of natural medicine the same might yield you more than half unable to answer. Since there is no 12 year stringent accreditation process for being a software engineer, I'm not sure why this is a good comparison. There are many people who don't know so many basics of CS who have finished degrees, bootcamps, or have been employed in those roles for years. Doctors simply aren't able to get accreditation or employment with the same ease as software developers.
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    On the other hand we all deserve to be treated with dignity.
    - MathYouF 5y ago
      Some people avoid the dilemma by only interviewing candidates from prestigious CS programs and with previous employment at famous companies, locking out those without the "right" credentials. If you're going to demand that you be treated as an honest estimator of your own abilities beyond doubt don't be surprised if that ends up eliminating opportunities for people who are trying to break into the field without those credentials that put their abilities at a near certainty.
  - Jach 5y ago
    It is a strange comparison, though I don't think the "stringent process" is the issue and it's more just that they are entirely different fields with different ways of working with different kinds of feedback in the broader economy with different levels of observability. You might find that even the doctors that had years of study and paid supervised practice (residency) are unable to answer basic things. From an MD last year: "Even doctors forget the relationship between calcium and Vitamin D, and I have spoken with doctors who did not realize that 5000 units a day could cause problems. As a doctor, there is a lot to know and remember, and most doctors haven't studied calcium metabolism in many years." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065115)
- ip26 5y ago
  What? Doctors have residency- a three or more year internship/working interview.

by allenu 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago

What the hell does a yo-yo do in an interview? I think that by itself would make me walk out.

mrfusion 5y ago

Incompetent until proven competent. Most industries don’t have to deal with that attitude but it’s prevalent for us. Imagine asking a doctor basic biology questions or what an antibiotic is used for in an interview.

afarrell 5y ago
For example: The idea that there are many programmers who cannot even write fizzbuzz sounds like a very strong claim. It seems far more likely that there are many programmers who have socially-induced anxiety.
- strken 5y ago
  It's entirely believable that many programmers couldn't write fizzbuzz without searching Google in the days before it was universally memorised. The modulo operator is somewhat rare in real code and is defined slightly differently in different languages.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    > The modulo operator is somewhat rare in real code Even if a candidate didn't know that modulo even existed they could still get the remainder with simple division and subtraction. Modulo might be slightly different depending on the language, but for fizzbuzz that's not important and most likely not what you're expected to know in such an interview question. And while it is not the most common operator it is still one of the most basic ones and present in all languages you'd use during a job interview.
    - strken 5y ago
      > Even if a candidate didn't know that modulo even existed they could still get the remainder with simple division and subtraction. And they'd probably fail some interviews for doing so. > And while it is not the most common operator it is still one of the most basic ones and present in all languages you'd use during a job interview. This is true, but I also expect some otherwise-competent programmers would fail a test that expected them to remember the specifics of bitwise operators or bitshifting. It's been years since I've needed to use any of the three in a paid job - they're just not very common in my day jobs, whereas they crop up a lot in side projects.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I have interviewed senior candidates (more than two, fewer than five) who couldn’t write code to sum an array of ints (ignoring overflow). * Not in the sense of missed a bit of punctuation, but rather in the sense of “couldn’t get started with anything that vaguely smelled like an answer, didn’t understand the type system of the language they claim 5 years of experience with, etc”. I’ve probably interviewed fewer than 400 candidates in-person and maybe 200 of those would be senior ICs. To have more than a percent of them be utterly incapable here is a signal that there are candidates out there taking their best half-court buzzer-beater shot to try to land the prize. If you’ve done 100 first round in-person interviews and never run into someone that causes you to check up on how the phone screen happened, your screening processes work pretty well. Is it possible that these candidates are capable programmers in daily work? Sure, it’s possible, but I’d bet against it. * We used to ask a candidate to average an array of ints. It’s a question that was designed to tease out whether the candidate would discuss/inquire about overflow, what the return type should be, etc. After a couple years, we realized that candidates would stumble on the loop and sum more than anywhere else and we got more signal/minute from asking the vastly simpler summation question. Candidates who could fluently write the loop usually knew about overflow and the fact that the average of ints isn’t mathematically an int but that many times an int is what you want and can discuss the reasons.
MathYouF 5y ago
Asking a doctor who had completed their 12 years of medical school and residency basic biology questions would be a bit absurd. Asking someone who claims to be a doctor of natural medicine the same might yield you more than half unable to answer. Since there is no 12 year stringent accreditation process for being a software engineer, I'm not sure why this is a good comparison. There are many people who don't know so many basics of CS who have finished degrees, bootcamps, or have been employed in those roles for years. Doctors simply aren't able to get accreditation or employment with the same ease as software developers.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  On the other hand we all deserve to be treated with dignity.
  - MathYouF 5y ago
    Some people avoid the dilemma by only interviewing candidates from prestigious CS programs and with previous employment at famous companies, locking out those without the "right" credentials. If you're going to demand that you be treated as an honest estimator of your own abilities beyond doubt don't be surprised if that ends up eliminating opportunities for people who are trying to break into the field without those credentials that put their abilities at a near certainty.
- Jach 5y ago
  It is a strange comparison, though I don't think the "stringent process" is the issue and it's more just that they are entirely different fields with different ways of working with different kinds of feedback in the broader economy with different levels of observability. You might find that even the doctors that had years of study and paid supervised practice (residency) are unable to answer basic things. From an MD last year: "Even doctors forget the relationship between calcium and Vitamin D, and I have spoken with doctors who did not realize that 5000 units a day could cause problems. As a doctor, there is a lot to know and remember, and most doctors haven't studied calcium metabolism in many years." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065115)
ip26 5y ago
What? Doctors have residency- a three or more year internship/working interview.