6 ms·

This solution was developed by a SWE 2 candidate in the FAANG on-site interview loop. /s (Just joking but some interviews indeed feel that way)

by verst 4y ago

randunel 4y ago
I was wondering about the morality of using candidates' solutions in your products. Does the hiring company own the test results? Does the candidate? What if the candidate gets hired, who owns the solution, then? The candidate does not get paid to solve the interview test, but it could be seen as a collaborative effort on both the company and the candidate, since both put time and engineering resource in it.
- powersnail 4y ago
  Is algorithm copyright-able? If it can be regarded as an intellectual property, does that mean that the company would be infringing on the candidate’s right?
  - iampivot 4y ago
    XOR certainly was patented for use to display mouse cursors.
- dijit 4y ago
  It is immoral to use candidate answers in your product, assuming you don’t hire them. If you do hire them then I guess it becomes fine, but otherwise definitely immoral. The problem is that we’re fleshy meatbags and easily influenced. It’s possible we internalise answers to interview questions and then “spontaneously” come up with them later, without _knowingly_ stealing the idea. This happens sometimes in comedy, and the comedian apologises. You can usually tell the difference in comedy between plagiarism and accidental theft because the joke is delivered much differently but has the same core. It would be harder with interview answers.
  - biztos 4y ago
    > If you do hire them then I guess it becomes fine Not that anything will stop companies from doing this, and not that I think it ever really happens, but for it to be morally OK I think you’d have to both get their permission and compensate them fairly. Before I work for you, my ideas are mine even if I write them on your whiteboard.
    - dijit 4y ago
      Sure, but if I ask you an interview question and your answer is good enough that I want to use it: you'll probably be the one implementing the solution. Why would I trust the answer more than the person?
      - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
        >Why would I trust the answer more than the person? // Why wouldn't you? The truth of statements is not a function of the people making them (though of course that can often be a strong indicator of truth).
  - pdpi 4y ago
    If you’re hiring, and your candidate produces a solution to a real problem, and your interviewers actually want to use their solution, that person is getting an offer unless they were absolutely obnoxious and terrible to work with. Failure to do so is just bad recruitment. Or, put differently: if I’m the candidate and they end up “stealing” my solution, that’s a small price to pay to avoid working in what is likely a terrible environment.
    - foobiekr 4y ago
      That assumes the interviewer is ethical. In my experience, most people in SW do not have a strong cultural basis for ethical behavior of this sort.
- chillfox 4y ago
  It's not a work for hire and there is no copyright assignment so copyright will remain with the candidate. However some whiteboard scribbles are not the same as working code, so it is likely easy to make an implementation that does not infringe in most cases. Not that it really matters because it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to sue over it.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  There is no copyright on algorithms. To ask interviewees a question about an actual issue you have and see what solutions they come up with is clever. You get more input for free and you may find someone you want to hire. I don't see a problem as long as you are really looking to hire someone and not advertising fake job openings.
- jakey_bakey 4y ago
  The real question is, what on earth is a candidate doing in a few hours of interview processes that's worth stealing? I've had candidates use useful Python libraries that I didn't know about in tech tests before, but that's pretty much the extent to which I've learned anything helpful when recruiting
  - adwww 4y ago
    About coding maybe, but I find interviewing really informative to learn about what other companies are doing and how they have architected stuff.
orthoxerox 4y ago
And the candidate was ultimately not hired by the said FAANG.
- Ensorceled 4y ago
  "This is clever, but I don't think it will work in practice and I don't believe it is O(n * log(n)) and will assert it is O(n*n) until I die."
  - fer 4y ago
    "It outperforms any of the solutions I've seen but the code isn't as readable, next!"
    - bombcar 4y ago
      “Sorry Dr. Knuth, we’re looking for someone with more algorithm experience.”
      - Ensorceled 4y ago
        "Yes, yes. I meant PRACTICAL algorithm experience."
      - technofiend 4y ago
        Programming MIX? Do you have any relevant experience, Dr. Knuth?
      - ignoramous 4y ago
        I get the sarcasm [0], but: Having watched a few of Dr. Knuth's lectures [1], I'm convinced he'd wipe the floor with FAANG interviewers. [0] I mean, this has happened for real: Bram Cohen (BitTorrent co-inventor) / brew's (package manager for macOS) co-developer couldn't get past Google interviews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102 [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knuth%20christmas https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knuth%20christmas
B-Con 4y ago
You joke, but real world problems have been solved in analogous scenarios, such as homework assignments where the author simply didn't know the problem was yet unsolved and banged their head until they got it.
- mr_mitm 4y ago
  > In 1939, a misunderstanding brought about surprising results. Near the beginning of a class, Professor Neyman wrote two problems on the blackboard. Dantzig arrived late and assumed that they were a homework assignment. According to Dantzig, they "seemed to be a little harder than usual", but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for both problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue.[4][6] Six weeks later, an excited Neyman eagerly told him that the "homework" problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved problems in statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig Does anybody have more examples?
  - Rooki 4y ago
    Not homework, but this comes to mind: https://www.wired.com/story/how-an-anonymous-4chan-post-helped-solve-a-25-year-old-math-puzzle/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-an-anonymous-4chan-post-help...
  - morelisp 4y ago
    Huffman coding was invented when Huffman's professor, Robert Fano, gave a class the option of either taking a regular final exam or solving the optimal encoding problem which (unknown to the students) he and Shannon had been failing to solve for some time.
    - dekhn 4y ago
      In a class of his that I took he told us that even crumpled up the paper with the solution threw it away then went back and retrieved it and realized it was right
  - isaacimagine 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

This solution was developed by a SWE 2 candidate in the FAANG on-site interview loop. /s (Just joking but some interviews indeed feel that way)

by verst 4y ago

This solution was developed by a SWE 2 candidate in the FAANG on-site interview loop. /s (Just joking but some interviews indeed feel that way)

randunel 4y ago

I was wondering about the morality of using candidates' solutions in your products. Does the hiring company own the test results? Does the candidate? What if the candidate gets hired, who owns the solution, then? The candidate does not get paid to solve the interview test, but it could be seen as a collaborative effort on both the company and the candidate, since both put time and engineering resource in it.

powersnail 4y ago
Is algorithm copyright-able? If it can be regarded as an intellectual property, does that mean that the company would be infringing on the candidate’s right?
- iampivot 4y ago
  XOR certainly was patented for use to display mouse cursors.
dijit 4y ago
It is immoral to use candidate answers in your product, assuming you don’t hire them. If you do hire them then I guess it becomes fine, but otherwise definitely immoral. The problem is that we’re fleshy meatbags and easily influenced. It’s possible we internalise answers to interview questions and then “spontaneously” come up with them later, without _knowingly_ stealing the idea. This happens sometimes in comedy, and the comedian apologises. You can usually tell the difference in comedy between plagiarism and accidental theft because the joke is delivered much differently but has the same core. It would be harder with interview answers.
- biztos 4y ago
  > If you do hire them then I guess it becomes fine Not that anything will stop companies from doing this, and not that I think it ever really happens, but for it to be morally OK I think you’d have to both get their permission and compensate them fairly. Before I work for you, my ideas are mine even if I write them on your whiteboard.
  - dijit 4y ago
    Sure, but if I ask you an interview question and your answer is good enough that I want to use it: you'll probably be the one implementing the solution. Why would I trust the answer more than the person?
    - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
      >Why would I trust the answer more than the person? // Why wouldn't you? The truth of statements is not a function of the people making them (though of course that can often be a strong indicator of truth).
- pdpi 4y ago
  If you’re hiring, and your candidate produces a solution to a real problem, and your interviewers actually want to use their solution, that person is getting an offer unless they were absolutely obnoxious and terrible to work with. Failure to do so is just bad recruitment. Or, put differently: if I’m the candidate and they end up “stealing” my solution, that’s a small price to pay to avoid working in what is likely a terrible environment.
  - foobiekr 4y ago
    That assumes the interviewer is ethical. In my experience, most people in SW do not have a strong cultural basis for ethical behavior of this sort.
chillfox 4y ago
It's not a work for hire and there is no copyright assignment so copyright will remain with the candidate. However some whiteboard scribbles are not the same as working code, so it is likely easy to make an implementation that does not infringe in most cases. Not that it really matters because it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to sue over it.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
There is no copyright on algorithms. To ask interviewees a question about an actual issue you have and see what solutions they come up with is clever. You get more input for free and you may find someone you want to hire. I don't see a problem as long as you are really looking to hire someone and not advertising fake job openings.
jakey_bakey 4y ago
The real question is, what on earth is a candidate doing in a few hours of interview processes that's worth stealing? I've had candidates use useful Python libraries that I didn't know about in tech tests before, but that's pretty much the extent to which I've learned anything helpful when recruiting
- adwww 4y ago
  About coding maybe, but I find interviewing really informative to learn about what other companies are doing and how they have architected stuff.

orthoxerox 4y ago

And the candidate was ultimately not hired by the said FAANG.

Ensorceled 4y ago
"This is clever, but I don't think it will work in practice and I don't believe it is O(n * log(n)) and will assert it is O(n*n) until I die."
- fer 4y ago
  "It outperforms any of the solutions I've seen but the code isn't as readable, next!"
  - bombcar 4y ago
    “Sorry Dr. Knuth, we’re looking for someone with more algorithm experience.”
    - Ensorceled 4y ago
      "Yes, yes. I meant PRACTICAL algorithm experience."
    - technofiend 4y ago
      Programming MIX? Do you have any relevant experience, Dr. Knuth?
    - ignoramous 4y ago
      I get the sarcasm [0], but: Having watched a few of Dr. Knuth's lectures [1], I'm convinced he'd wipe the floor with FAANG interviewers. [0] I mean, this has happened for real: Bram Cohen (BitTorrent co-inventor) / brew's (package manager for macOS) co-developer couldn't get past Google interviews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102 [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knuth%20christmas https://hn.algolia.com/?query=knuth%20christmas

B-Con 4y ago

You joke, but real world problems have been solved in analogous scenarios, such as homework assignments where the author simply didn't know the problem was yet unsolved and banged their head until they got it.

mr_mitm 4y ago
> In 1939, a misunderstanding brought about surprising results. Near the beginning of a class, Professor Neyman wrote two problems on the blackboard. Dantzig arrived late and assumed that they were a homework assignment. According to Dantzig, they "seemed to be a little harder than usual", but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for both problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue.[4][6] Six weeks later, an excited Neyman eagerly told him that the "homework" problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved problems in statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dantzig Does anybody have more examples?
- Rooki 4y ago
  Not homework, but this comes to mind: https://www.wired.com/story/how-an-anonymous-4chan-post-helped-solve-a-25-year-old-math-puzzle/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-an-anonymous-4chan-post-help...
- morelisp 4y ago
  Huffman coding was invented when Huffman's professor, Robert Fano, gave a class the option of either taking a regular final exam or solving the optimal encoding problem which (unknown to the students) he and Shannon had been failing to solve for some time.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    In a class of his that I took he told us that even crumpled up the paper with the solution threw it away then went back and retrieved it and realized it was right
- isaacimagine 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]