4 ms·

Because these kinds of questions do not tell you anything about the person’s ability as a developer, a leader or give you any insight into the ability to be inn

by sulam 4y ago

Because these kinds of questions do not tell you anything about the person’s ability as a developer, a leader or give you any insight into the ability to be innovative. As others have noted, it simply measures their ability to make basic assumptions and then do math, plus bullshit your way through a discussion. Might be perfect for hiring product managers tho. /s ;)

rpadovani 4y ago
But you don't have to make assumptions! I think this is the important bit: you are supposed to ask questions back until you are confident enough about your answer. You should highlight that you are able to work with customers that want something without knowing what they want.
tharkun__ 4y ago
Like my sibling reply says, I think you didn't read past my first word in the reply. The "why". That was rhetorical. My entire point was basically that it actually isn't about assumptions at all. If you just assume when I ask that question this tells me you're out as a developer I want to hire. Nobody can build proper software by just assuming the first thing that comes to mind and bullshitting. You have to show that you can take a totally ambiguous and open question and show me that you can systematically try to find out as much information as you can in a reasonable amount of time to verify your assumptions or at least make them less assuming. Of course (a d this can happen when solving a real problem too) it might be that you cannot accurately measure some input you need and you will have to make assumptions. But you will want to try and you will want to have divided your problem into lots of smaller parts such that the part where you still have to assume is only one small part and you want to be very explicit that this part is still an assumption only which you will have to verify or improve upon as you actually implement something. You do have to start at some point, otherwise it's analysis paralysis. And no this has nothing to do with a PM. They are notoriously bad at the above approach and instead will just assume the first best thing and bullshit their way through with that for as long as they don't get caught (no /s there but my experience with 80+% of PMs)
- sulam 4y ago
  Fair enough, but I get that signal from asking them an actual system design question, or even a coding problem. It's really a waste, which is better than "awful", I guess. :)

by sulam 4y ago

rpadovani 4y ago

But you don't have to make assumptions! I think this is the important bit: you are supposed to ask questions back until you are confident enough about your answer. You should highlight that you are able to work with customers that want something without knowing what they want.

tharkun__ 4y ago

Like my sibling reply says, I think you didn't read past my first word in the reply. The "why". That was rhetorical. My entire point was basically that it actually isn't about assumptions at all. If you just assume when I ask that question this tells me you're out as a developer I want to hire. Nobody can build proper software by just assuming the first thing that comes to mind and bullshitting. You have to show that you can take a totally ambiguous and open question and show me that you can systematically try to find out as much information as you can in a reasonable amount of time to verify your assumptions or at least make them less assuming. Of course (a d this can happen when solving a real problem too) it might be that you cannot accurately measure some input you need and you will have to make assumptions. But you will want to try and you will want to have divided your problem into lots of smaller parts such that the part where you still have to assume is only one small part and you want to be very explicit that this part is still an assumption only which you will have to verify or improve upon as you actually implement something. You do have to start at some point, otherwise it's analysis paralysis. And no this has nothing to do with a PM. They are notoriously bad at the above approach and instead will just assume the first best thing and bullshit their way through with that for as long as they don't get caught (no /s there but my experience with 80+% of PMs)

sulam 4y ago
Fair enough, but I get that signal from asking them an actual system design question, or even a coding problem. It's really a waste, which is better than "awful", I guess. :)