4 ms·

Seriously ? So let me get this straight: now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an essential function of the job, without being labeled "

by asah 4y ago

Seriously ? So let me get this straight: now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "inhumane" ? You interview for sanitation work, I want to know that you can sling a heavy bag of hot garbage. You interview for SWE, I want to know that you can throw a sling a heavy bag of hot garbage!!!

a_chris 4y ago
Yeah, because we spend the whole day reversing a linked list in your real-life SWE job, right? It's ridiculous that we have to study all those algorithms that we will never use it in your life, it's just too much.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  I had an interview once that wanted me to do A-star "find fastest routing of internet packets between sites" and when I presented a brute force path finder and he complained about the big O, I told him that his problem as framed only featured tens of graphs and his business domain as framed (as a function of the company's domain) would never have more than 20 sites, and anyways a sneakernet (ship ssds) would be faster (which he conceded). I didn't get the job.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Them: “Write a method to parse an address” Me: “This is a domain I’m familiar with because I spent 9 years working in the bill payment industry. Here all of the corner cases you have to deal with. You’re much better off using these USPS certified CASS solutions instead of writing it internally for these reasons and went on to explain all of the drawbacks of writing software that didn’t give you a competitive advantage.” The middle level developer interviewing me wasn’t impressed. The director was and I got the job and soon became the lead.
mattbuilds 4y ago
You’re allowed to do whatever you want, and the person being interviewed can reject for any reason. If someone has code samples, years of experience building things and can make it clear to companies that they can do the job, I don’t see the problem. It’s a two way street about finding a good fit, I think a lot of employers don’t see it that way. Maybe they should.
onion2k 4y ago
So let me get this straight: now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "inhumane"? I think there's a simple solution to the problem of algorithm testing and Leetcode problems in hiring: every company should run their hiring technical test on their current staff, at random, on a regular basis. If the current staff can pass then the test is a valid one. If they can't then it isn't, and they should update it to be a more realistic task that the current staff can do.
- aaronchall 4y ago
  So a company isn't allowed to raise the bar?
  - kodah 4y ago
    There's a healthy way to raise the bar and there's lots of unhealthy ones. A healthy way would be bringing your current talent pool up to a higher level through training, even if that's maths (if that's what your current problem is). An unhealthy way is introducing a bunch of new talent that is tested on one niche domain of software engineering and pretending everyone needs to do that while also trying to improve fundamental skills that help them with their day to day job.
    - asah 4y ago
      In startups... - you've got people working crazy hours and learned on the job. Are they supposed to spend extra time on this stuff when they're barely keeping up? - the existing people have developed all sorts of niche skills of their own. I'm not trying the new folks on that stuff because... we don't need more of it right now.
      - onion2k 4y ago
        The point is that most of the time you're not actually hiring for specific niche skills that the rest of the team don't have. You just need more capacity to do what the team is already doing. In those cases if your tech test is some Leetcode algorithms question that the team can't pass themselves then asking that of a new hire is silly. You'll be ruling out candidates who could do the job well, just because they can't pass a test you don't need them to pass. All I suggested is using the team's existing skillset as the measure to hire new people for the team, rather than some sort of arbitrary test that doesn't reflect the work they do.
jjav 4y ago
> now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "inhumane" ? Please tell me of companies which ask about essential functions of the job? That's become infinitesmially rare. Instead, interview are about memorizing algorithms and perfecting a theatrical delivery where you pretend to discover the fruits of years of research in 45 minutes. In order words, things you will never ever do in the actual day to day job after getting hired.
scarface74 4y ago
I’ve been working professionally as a developer for 25 years. What is now called leetcode was part of my day job on and off from 1996-2012 as I wrote low level cross platform C code, a little assembly, maintained a proprietary Windows CE compiler tool chain (long ugly story). But DS&A style interviews don’t come anywhere near testing the type of work that most developers will be doing day to day in 2022.

Seriously ? So let me get this straight: now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "

by asah 4y ago

a_chris 4y ago

Yeah, because we spend the whole day reversing a linked list in your real-life SWE job, right? It's ridiculous that we have to study all those algorithms that we will never use it in your life, it's just too much.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
I had an interview once that wanted me to do A-star "find fastest routing of internet packets between sites" and when I presented a brute force path finder and he complained about the big O, I told him that his problem as framed only featured tens of graphs and his business domain as framed (as a function of the company's domain) would never have more than 20 sites, and anyways a sneakernet (ship ssds) would be faster (which he conceded). I didn't get the job.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Them: “Write a method to parse an address” Me: “This is a domain I’m familiar with because I spent 9 years working in the bill payment industry. Here all of the corner cases you have to deal with. You’re much better off using these USPS certified CASS solutions instead of writing it internally for these reasons and went on to explain all of the drawbacks of writing software that didn’t give you a competitive advantage.” The middle level developer interviewing me wasn’t impressed. The director was and I got the job and soon became the lead.

mattbuilds 4y ago

You’re allowed to do whatever you want, and the person being interviewed can reject for any reason. If someone has code samples, years of experience building things and can make it clear to companies that they can do the job, I don’t see the problem. It’s a two way street about finding a good fit, I think a lot of employers don’t see it that way. Maybe they should.

onion2k 4y ago

So let me get this straight: now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "inhumane"? I think there's a simple solution to the problem of algorithm testing and Leetcode problems in hiring: every company should run their hiring technical test on their current staff, at random, on a regular basis. If the current staff can pass then the test is a valid one. If they can't then it isn't, and they should update it to be a more realistic task that the current staff can do.

aaronchall 4y ago
So a company isn't allowed to raise the bar?
- kodah 4y ago
  There's a healthy way to raise the bar and there's lots of unhealthy ones. A healthy way would be bringing your current talent pool up to a higher level through training, even if that's maths (if that's what your current problem is). An unhealthy way is introducing a bunch of new talent that is tested on one niche domain of software engineering and pretending everyone needs to do that while also trying to improve fundamental skills that help them with their day to day job.
  - asah 4y ago
    In startups... - you've got people working crazy hours and learned on the job. Are they supposed to spend extra time on this stuff when they're barely keeping up? - the existing people have developed all sorts of niche skills of their own. I'm not trying the new folks on that stuff because... we don't need more of it right now.
    - onion2k 4y ago
      The point is that most of the time you're not actually hiring for specific niche skills that the rest of the team don't have. You just need more capacity to do what the team is already doing. In those cases if your tech test is some Leetcode algorithms question that the team can't pass themselves then asking that of a new hire is silly. You'll be ruling out candidates who could do the job well, just because they can't pass a test you don't need them to pass. All I suggested is using the team's existing skillset as the measure to hire new people for the team, rather than some sort of arbitrary test that doesn't reflect the work they do.

jjav 4y ago

> now, we're not allowed to ask people if they can perform an __essential function of the job__, without being labeled "inhumane" ? Please tell me of companies which ask about essential functions of the job? That's become infinitesmially rare. Instead, interview are about memorizing algorithms and perfecting a theatrical delivery where you pretend to discover the fruits of years of research in 45 minutes. In order words, things you will never ever do in the actual day to day job after getting hired.

scarface74 4y ago

I’ve been working professionally as a developer for 25 years. What is now called leetcode was part of my day job on and off from 1996-2012 as I wrote low level cross platform C code, a little assembly, maintained a proprietary Windows CE compiler tool chain (long ugly story). But DS&A style interviews don’t come anywhere near testing the type of work that most developers will be doing day to day in 2022.