31 ms·

>what can you do? We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview, so we don't have to take these tests for every single job that we apply to

>what can you do? We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview, so we don't have to take these tests for every single job that we apply to. If I pass a coding test, stay at a company for a year, then apply to other companies, I'm going to subjected to coding tests even though I just passed one only a year ago. It's like companies are afraid that programmers will spontaneously forget how to program. A credential's test is not limited by the very time constrained format of interviews. This means it could ask more questions to reduce false positives. People would be willing to invest time because it saves them the hassle of interviews in the future. A centralized testing entity could work to reduce cheating instead of every company having to do that themselves. Plus, administering this test would be full time jobs for folks, so it would likely be a higher quality test than what most companies give.

adbachman 5y ago
> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview This idea already exists in many forms. Pick any language, platform, or technical concept and there's someone offering training and certification. It also describes the whole recruiting industry. "What if there was one person who did a lot of interviews and then presented just the best people to employers?" It's an extremely human incentive alignment problem. Any certification program, interview farm, or bootcamp that makes more money when they produce more candidates will make quantity the goal, not quality. If you can figure out that problem, maybe there's a niche. Otherwise, it puts us right where we already are.
- vsareto 5y ago
  The trainings and certifications won't let you bypass technical interviews though. There's still inherent distrust of them. We need a credential good enough that companies can trust. Most of the recruiters I deal with are only doing screens and maybe soft interviews -- I may be on the lower rungs of the ladder here though. For the last point, I'll offer Offensive Security as an example because I have one of their certs. OS wants people in its programs as we're a source of income, obviously, but they don't get revenue from people passing. In fact, they get more revenue if you don't pass because they charge per attempt. They offer training for organizations too. They also act as a verification service for their certifications: https://help.offensive-security.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040160152-How-do-I-verify-someone-s-certification-or-how-can-I-have-my-certification-verified- https://help.offensive-security.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040... The idea for a programming credential would be the same: an organization that offers training, doesn't make money on pass rates, and also is a trusted point of verification. Some companies have offered to do technical interviews, then pass you to employers. This is a start, but it isn't industry wide.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Maybe run the testing and evaluation side of things at cost. The certifiers instead get profit from companies that subscribe to their certification verification program. There's a small fee for the employer to verify someone's certification is genuine. Part of the employer's contract with the certifier would be that anyone the employer hires who has been verified to be certified, when they've been employed at the company for a year, they owe the certifier a bonus. There's a second bonus at five years and that's the end of the payments. The certifier is incentivized to only certify workers who have genuine skills as those are the ones most likely to hit the one and five year milestones. Talent acquisition is expensive, as is employee turnover, so employers will not have an incentive to layoff employees right before their employment anniversary in an attempt to avoid the fee they owe the certifier. They'll find that the anniversary fee is a small price to pay for having been matched up with an employee with the actual skills the employer needs.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  They are useless because the bar is so low that anyone can pass. Your credential only has value if few people can obtain it.
cma 5y ago
Why don't they just use the computer science GRE?
- vsareto 5y ago
  I took a brief look at a CS GRE test prep book from a Google search, and it probably doesn't cover the same things leetcode does, nor does it really test code writing ability (because it's multiple choice): https://people.engr.tamu.edu/d-walker/Quals/GRE_CompSci_1.pdf https://people.engr.tamu.edu/d-walker/Quals/GRE_CompSci_1.pd...
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  The CS GRE was discontinued nearly a decade ago, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/176c13/does_anyone_know_why_the_cs_gre_is_being/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/176c13/d...
SteveDR 5y ago
> If I pass a coding test, stay at a company for a year, then apply to other companies, I'm going to subjected to coding tests even though I just passed one only a year ago. Well it’s not like the company you’re applying to has access to the test results from the company you’re leaving > It's like companies are afraid that programmers will spontaneously forget how to program. To be fair, I think most leetcoders agree that you need to practice regularly to keep your skills up. So if the point is to see how good you are at thinking algorithmically for the job you’re applying for, it makes sense that they’d want to see recent test results.
- antiterra 5y ago
  > Well it’s not like the company you’re applying to has access to the test results from the company you’re leaving Which is a better signal? Passing a leetcode style interview, or 5+ years in a development role at a reputable company?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway2037 5y ago
    Both. Barack Obama calls this a "false choice". There isn't a single best signal. Both have positives. Ideally, you want a candidate with both.
  - artificial 5y ago
    A never ending high pressure gauntlet, of course! The dream of dreams!
  - niyikiza 5y ago
    Are you proposing waiving technical interviews for people who worked in "reputable" companies?
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      There seems to be a class of engineer here on HN that is offended by being asked to demonstrate their competence.
davidgay 5y ago
> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview So we could call that a degree? And have institutions that specialise in testing for it? And because some of those institutions will be better at measuring this, we could rank them? I thought most people complaining about the current approach didn't like this one either.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  An Engineering degree from even a prestigious University doesnt make you an Engineer in many disciplines. You have to go do a different credential to start putting together buildings and bridges. Having a Medical Degree (Doctorate in Medicine), doesnt mean you are credentialed to be a practicing doctor either. Doctors btw dont get asked to "go diagnose this patient real quick" during their interviews. Credentialism in tech is an interesting rabbit hole. We basically do have nurses vs doctors with degrees of speciality, but some places pay them all the same. Some places do pay the backend engineer differently from the front end guys. Its well known that bare metal C engineers are not making as much as React devs in alot of cities, and most people seem to broadly agree the C engineer has a harder task than the React one. So we would need to figure out whats the CNA/LPN/NP, doctor, general doctor, brain surgeon, and veterinarian of our fields. But it's not quite so simple right? We might think front end where you are grinding out simple React or PHP apps is easy, but if you are a front end dev on a billion plus dollar selling system or with very high stakes stuff going on you probably do want a "doctor level" dev right? You probably dont need the AI dev though (the brain surgeon) if we continue the analogy.
  - analyte123 5y ago
    >Doctors btw dont get asked to "go diagnose this patient real quick" during their interviews. They might not be asked to do this because their board has already done it for them: https://www.abim.org/Media/h5whkrfe/internal-medicine.pdf https://www.abim.org/Media/h5whkrfe/internal-medicine.pdf
  - davidgay 5y ago
    > An Engineering degree from even a prestigious University doesnt make you an Engineer in many disciplines. A US-centric view. My (Swiss) engineering degree certifies me as a software engineer ("ing. info. dipl. EPF", whose use is legally restricted to actual graduates).
pmontra 5y ago
I think that most people here are mistaking the finger for the moon. If discrimination is really the reason why we have this kind of interviews, the problem to solve is discrimination and not the hiring process that is attempting to fix it or to hide it. A qualitative hiring interview would be perfectly fine if the interviewers had no discrimination in their minds. The real solution is having minds without it. It's probably a goal hard to achieve with grown up people. Easier with newborns. So any solution starts from their parents, grandparents, etc and will stretch over many generations. Education, mingle with people from every origin and background, etc, pick your favorites. How many generations? Limiting ourselves to the USA think how long it took for women to get a vote since the Constitution and for an Obama to become president since the end of slavery. We can hope that the trend is accelerating but who knows what's going to happen next. The state of the rest of the Western world is not so different. This is the optimum. Now the good because there will be interviews to do this year. Any stop gap solution would do but don't invest too much into it because if you don't remove the real problem any fix will be worked around.
- webguynd 5y ago
  > I think that most people here are mistaking the finger for the moon. If discrimination is really the reason why we have this kind of interviews, the problem to solve is discrimination and not the hiring process that is attempting to fix it or to hide it. Agree in that if discrimination is the problem, then thats the problem that needs fixed. But, if these companies really wanted to solve the problem of discrimination then they would be making efforts to do so besides leetcode. I saw it mentioned earlier in this thread, people can subconsciously discriminate without necessarily realizing it from something as simple as seeing someone's name, their voice, appearance, etc. It's not that the hiring manager is consciously racist but they may have a picture in their head of what a "software engineer" looks or acts like, and if the candidate doesn't fit that mental model they are dismissed regardless of their skill. In that case, why not anonymize the candidates as much as possible? Don't let the interviewee and interviewer see each other during the technical interview, don't even let those making hiring decisions see their name, distort the voice, etc. Make it as close as possible to "anonymous person A being asked technical questions from anonymous person B." Make the hiring decision and only then de-anonymize the candidate. I recently had an interview for an ops role (sysadmin type) and was asked a series of PowerShell questions, normally no problem - but the interviewer wouldn't accept "I don't remember the exact cmdlet, but I could do Get-Command Get-xyz* to find it" as if they expected an encyclopedic knowledge of every powershell cmdlet ever made. On the actual job built-in help exists, google exists, KBs exist, etc. Why would I ever be expected to have all this information in memory when the resources to find the information I need is a keystroke away. Test for understanding theory and methodology, not specific commands/language function.
irvingprime 5y ago
No. One of the reasons those leetcode interviews happen is because existing credentials, such as a bachelor's degree, don't work. Adding another one that some hirers will value highly and others will be skeptical of doesn't solve anything. What we really need is for companies to stop trying so hard to find the absolute best most perfectest candidate that they screen out huge numbers who could have done the job but who missed some arbitrary keyword or coding test by a fraction.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  IMO, I think we just need a way of easily firing people if they suck. It's very very difficult to termi ate without fear of retribution so the barriers to entry just keep getting taller. If we could take a gamble on people and see if they sink or swim we could give a lot more opportunities.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >I think we just need a way of easily firing people if they suck. It is very easy to fire someone, especially in the first 90 days. Most states are "at will," meaning you can fire anyone at any time for any reason (outside protected classes) and the employee can leave at any time.
    - irvingprime 5y ago
      Legally, it's easy. But getting the HR bureaucracy to go along with it is a long and unpleasant process. The last time I fired someone for doing no work at all and arguing over everything, it took about 8 months. Unfortunately, my company is not unusual in this respect.
      - notch656a 5y ago
        There are a lot of companies without HR. Due to my background I haven't been hired for for a company with an HR (other than contract work) for probably a decade. If you want to hire and fire people easily, look for small companies, usually less than 20 people. Beyond that the CEOs tend to get tired of dealing with human administrative tasks, so it gets offloaded to HR. CEOs have a lot more risk tolerance so naturally when HR gets involved they focus on saving their own asses (which usually means taking low-risk rather than highest profit) rather than the good of the company.
chrismcb 5y ago
But they do forget how to program. Or maybe they never knew and got lucky to get the previous job.
jjav 5y ago
> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview, so we don't have to take these tests for every single job that we apply to. We could call this a degree, perhaps in computer science? This seems like an excellent idea! Unfortunately my CS degree from a very-top school (CMU) counts for nothing in so many companies.

adbachman 5y ago

> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview This idea already exists in many forms. Pick any language, platform, or technical concept and there's someone offering training and certification. It also describes the whole recruiting industry. "What if there was one person who did a lot of interviews and then presented just the best people to employers?" It's an extremely human incentive alignment problem. Any certification program, interview farm, or bootcamp that makes more money when they produce more candidates will make quantity the goal, not quality. If you can figure out that problem, maybe there's a niche. Otherwise, it puts us right where we already are.

vsareto 5y ago
The trainings and certifications won't let you bypass technical interviews though. There's still inherent distrust of them. We need a credential good enough that companies can trust. Most of the recruiters I deal with are only doing screens and maybe soft interviews -- I may be on the lower rungs of the ladder here though. For the last point, I'll offer Offensive Security as an example because I have one of their certs. OS wants people in its programs as we're a source of income, obviously, but they don't get revenue from people passing. In fact, they get more revenue if you don't pass because they charge per attempt. They offer training for organizations too. They also act as a verification service for their certifications: https://help.offensive-security.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040160152-How-do-I-verify-someone-s-certification-or-how-can-I-have-my-certification-verified- https://help.offensive-security.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040... The idea for a programming credential would be the same: an organization that offers training, doesn't make money on pass rates, and also is a trusted point of verification. Some companies have offered to do technical interviews, then pass you to employers. This is a start, but it isn't industry wide.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Maybe run the testing and evaluation side of things at cost. The certifiers instead get profit from companies that subscribe to their certification verification program. There's a small fee for the employer to verify someone's certification is genuine. Part of the employer's contract with the certifier would be that anyone the employer hires who has been verified to be certified, when they've been employed at the company for a year, they owe the certifier a bonus. There's a second bonus at five years and that's the end of the payments. The certifier is incentivized to only certify workers who have genuine skills as those are the ones most likely to hit the one and five year milestones. Talent acquisition is expensive, as is employee turnover, so employers will not have an incentive to layoff employees right before their employment anniversary in an attempt to avoid the fee they owe the certifier. They'll find that the anniversary fee is a small price to pay for having been matched up with an employee with the actual skills the employer needs.
fallingknife 5y ago
They are useless because the bar is so low that anyone can pass. Your credential only has value if few people can obtain it.

cma 5y ago

Why don't they just use the computer science GRE?

vsareto 5y ago
I took a brief look at a CS GRE test prep book from a Google search, and it probably doesn't cover the same things leetcode does, nor does it really test code writing ability (because it's multiple choice): https://people.engr.tamu.edu/d-walker/Quals/GRE_CompSci_1.pdf https://people.engr.tamu.edu/d-walker/Quals/GRE_CompSci_1.pd...
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
The CS GRE was discontinued nearly a decade ago, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/176c13/does_anyone_know_why_the_cs_gre_is_being/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/176c13/d...

SteveDR 5y ago

> If I pass a coding test, stay at a company for a year, then apply to other companies, I'm going to subjected to coding tests even though I just passed one only a year ago. Well it’s not like the company you’re applying to has access to the test results from the company you’re leaving > It's like companies are afraid that programmers will spontaneously forget how to program. To be fair, I think most leetcoders agree that you need to practice regularly to keep your skills up. So if the point is to see how good you are at thinking algorithmically for the job you’re applying for, it makes sense that they’d want to see recent test results.

antiterra 5y ago
> Well it’s not like the company you’re applying to has access to the test results from the company you’re leaving Which is a better signal? Passing a leetcode style interview, or 5+ years in a development role at a reputable company?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  Both. Barack Obama calls this a "false choice". There isn't a single best signal. Both have positives. Ideally, you want a candidate with both.
- artificial 5y ago
  A never ending high pressure gauntlet, of course! The dream of dreams!
- niyikiza 5y ago
  Are you proposing waiving technical interviews for people who worked in "reputable" companies?
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    There seems to be a class of engineer here on HN that is offended by being asked to demonstrate their competence.

davidgay 5y ago

> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview So we could call that a degree? And have institutions that specialise in testing for it? And because some of those institutions will be better at measuring this, we could rank them? I thought most people complaining about the current approach didn't like this one either.

namelessoracle 5y ago
An Engineering degree from even a prestigious University doesnt make you an Engineer in many disciplines. You have to go do a different credential to start putting together buildings and bridges. Having a Medical Degree (Doctorate in Medicine), doesnt mean you are credentialed to be a practicing doctor either. Doctors btw dont get asked to "go diagnose this patient real quick" during their interviews. Credentialism in tech is an interesting rabbit hole. We basically do have nurses vs doctors with degrees of speciality, but some places pay them all the same. Some places do pay the backend engineer differently from the front end guys. Its well known that bare metal C engineers are not making as much as React devs in alot of cities, and most people seem to broadly agree the C engineer has a harder task than the React one. So we would need to figure out whats the CNA/LPN/NP, doctor, general doctor, brain surgeon, and veterinarian of our fields. But it's not quite so simple right? We might think front end where you are grinding out simple React or PHP apps is easy, but if you are a front end dev on a billion plus dollar selling system or with very high stakes stuff going on you probably do want a "doctor level" dev right? You probably dont need the AI dev though (the brain surgeon) if we continue the analogy.
- analyte123 5y ago
  >Doctors btw dont get asked to "go diagnose this patient real quick" during their interviews. They might not be asked to do this because their board has already done it for them: https://www.abim.org/Media/h5whkrfe/internal-medicine.pdf https://www.abim.org/Media/h5whkrfe/internal-medicine.pdf
- davidgay 5y ago
  > An Engineering degree from even a prestigious University doesnt make you an Engineer in many disciplines. A US-centric view. My (Swiss) engineering degree certifies me as a software engineer ("ing. info. dipl. EPF", whose use is legally restricted to actual graduates).

pmontra 5y ago

I think that most people here are mistaking the finger for the moon. If discrimination is really the reason why we have this kind of interviews, the problem to solve is discrimination and not the hiring process that is attempting to fix it or to hide it. A qualitative hiring interview would be perfectly fine if the interviewers had no discrimination in their minds. The real solution is having minds without it. It's probably a goal hard to achieve with grown up people. Easier with newborns. So any solution starts from their parents, grandparents, etc and will stretch over many generations. Education, mingle with people from every origin and background, etc, pick your favorites. How many generations? Limiting ourselves to the USA think how long it took for women to get a vote since the Constitution and for an Obama to become president since the end of slavery. We can hope that the trend is accelerating but who knows what's going to happen next. The state of the rest of the Western world is not so different. This is the optimum. Now the good because there will be interviews to do this year. Any stop gap solution would do but don't invest too much into it because if you don't remove the real problem any fix will be worked around.

webguynd 5y ago
> I think that most people here are mistaking the finger for the moon. If discrimination is really the reason why we have this kind of interviews, the problem to solve is discrimination and not the hiring process that is attempting to fix it or to hide it. Agree in that if discrimination is the problem, then thats the problem that needs fixed. But, if these companies really wanted to solve the problem of discrimination then they would be making efforts to do so besides leetcode. I saw it mentioned earlier in this thread, people can subconsciously discriminate without necessarily realizing it from something as simple as seeing someone's name, their voice, appearance, etc. It's not that the hiring manager is consciously racist but they may have a picture in their head of what a "software engineer" looks or acts like, and if the candidate doesn't fit that mental model they are dismissed regardless of their skill. In that case, why not anonymize the candidates as much as possible? Don't let the interviewee and interviewer see each other during the technical interview, don't even let those making hiring decisions see their name, distort the voice, etc. Make it as close as possible to "anonymous person A being asked technical questions from anonymous person B." Make the hiring decision and only then de-anonymize the candidate. I recently had an interview for an ops role (sysadmin type) and was asked a series of PowerShell questions, normally no problem - but the interviewer wouldn't accept "I don't remember the exact cmdlet, but I could do Get-Command Get-xyz* to find it" as if they expected an encyclopedic knowledge of every powershell cmdlet ever made. On the actual job built-in help exists, google exists, KBs exist, etc. Why would I ever be expected to have all this information in memory when the resources to find the information I need is a keystroke away. Test for understanding theory and methodology, not specific commands/language function.

irvingprime 5y ago

No. One of the reasons those leetcode interviews happen is because existing credentials, such as a bachelor's degree, don't work. Adding another one that some hirers will value highly and others will be skeptical of doesn't solve anything. What we really need is for companies to stop trying so hard to find the absolute best most perfectest candidate that they screen out huge numbers who could have done the job but who missed some arbitrary keyword or coding test by a fraction.

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
IMO, I think we just need a way of easily firing people if they suck. It's very very difficult to termi ate without fear of retribution so the barriers to entry just keep getting taller. If we could take a gamble on people and see if they sink or swim we could give a lot more opportunities.
- Clubber 5y ago
  >I think we just need a way of easily firing people if they suck. It is very easy to fire someone, especially in the first 90 days. Most states are "at will," meaning you can fire anyone at any time for any reason (outside protected classes) and the employee can leave at any time.
  - irvingprime 5y ago
    Legally, it's easy. But getting the HR bureaucracy to go along with it is a long and unpleasant process. The last time I fired someone for doing no work at all and arguing over everything, it took about 8 months. Unfortunately, my company is not unusual in this respect.
    - notch656a 5y ago
      There are a lot of companies without HR. Due to my background I haven't been hired for for a company with an HR (other than contract work) for probably a decade. If you want to hire and fire people easily, look for small companies, usually less than 20 people. Beyond that the CEOs tend to get tired of dealing with human administrative tasks, so it gets offloaded to HR. CEOs have a lot more risk tolerance so naturally when HR gets involved they focus on saving their own asses (which usually means taking low-risk rather than highest profit) rather than the good of the company.

chrismcb 5y ago

But they do forget how to program. Or maybe they never knew and got lucky to get the previous job.

jjav 5y ago

> We need a credential that counts as passing a technical interview, so we don't have to take these tests for every single job that we apply to. We could call this a degree, perhaps in computer science? This seems like an excellent idea! Unfortunately my CS degree from a very-top school (CMU) counts for nothing in so many companies.