4 ms·

After interviewing people for a while, I've learned how to suss out what people gain from practicing vs actual engineering instinct I've passed people who "did

by kache_ 4y ago

After interviewing people for a while, I've learned how to suss out what people gain from practicing vs actual engineering instinct I've passed people who "didn't meet the bar" because I could tell they just didn't practice, but exhibited 4 stars on every "Ultra Instinct" signal. Programming speed isn't important, correctness & habits are what are important. + or - 10 minutes to finish a problem doesn't really matter in the daily job

mooneater 4y ago
can you say more about how you detect instinct?
- kache_ 4y ago
  Sure :) - People will catch edge cases before they occur - People will realize that they have an edge case, and write a failing test/trigger the failure before they fix it, and explain it to me - They come up with an approach pretty much instantly, and their design is correct after thinking about it a bit more - Their coding style is very functional & composable (idk why I find this correlates with success, but it does) - They test all dimensions of variability in their inputs - They focus on what matters - Forward progress doesn't stop Things that don't correlate with instinct - Speed of implementation (within reason). Different people can type at different speeds, and people think at different speeds - Having to google APIs
spacemanmatt 4y ago
I've had two memorable interviews where timed coding was part of the interview, and I wowed the management team but did not get a call back due to taking about 10% too long on the coding. This is a good thing, in hindsight, considering the eventual fates of those businesses that hired like that. It's counter-intuitive not to test for coding at an interview for a developer. But you just can't learn what you need to know, as a hiring manager, from a pass/fail timed test. This greatly informs my hiring process now.

4 ms·

After interviewing people for a while, I've learned how to suss out what people gain from practicing vs actual engineering instinct I've passed people who "did

by kache_ 4y ago

mooneater 4y ago
can you say more about how you detect instinct?
- kache_ 4y ago
  Sure :) - People will catch edge cases before they occur - People will realize that they have an edge case, and write a failing test/trigger the failure before they fix it, and explain it to me - They come up with an approach pretty much instantly, and their design is correct after thinking about it a bit more - Their coding style is very functional & composable (idk why I find this correlates with success, but it does) - They test all dimensions of variability in their inputs - They focus on what matters - Forward progress doesn't stop Things that don't correlate with instinct - Speed of implementation (within reason). Different people can type at different speeds, and people think at different speeds - Having to google APIs
spacemanmatt 4y ago
I've had two memorable interviews where timed coding was part of the interview, and I wowed the management team but did not get a call back due to taking about 10% too long on the coding. This is a good thing, in hindsight, considering the eventual fates of those businesses that hired like that. It's counter-intuitive not to test for coding at an interview for a developer. But you just can't learn what you need to know, as a hiring manager, from a pass/fail timed test. This greatly informs my hiring process now.