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It's literally just some bizarre hazing ritual. Trying to evaluate whether code is good or bad from some screenshots without understanding the context and being

It's literally just some bizarre hazing ritual. Trying to evaluate whether code is good or bad from some screenshots without understanding the context and being familiar with the codebase makes no sense anyway. Anyone can show you ten screenshots of formally well written code and you have no idea whether it's useless or not.

MarkMarine 4y ago
how many commits of the fast inverse square root are being added to twitter's codebase right now, you think?
Teandw 4y ago
Where did he say that he will evaluate if the code is good or bad? He didn't. It's more likely just a way to see what employees think is their most important work.
- hamburglar 4y ago
  If the goal was actually to see what employees think is their most important work, that (and criteria) would be specified, instead of playing "what is he looking for" mind games.
  - Teandw 4y ago
    He did specify. He asked for most salient. Salient means "most noticeable or important." He hasn't played any mind games. He's asked for exactly what he wants.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - deleted 4y ago
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    - hamburglar 4y ago
      That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is he going to be happy to see wonderful high level distributed designs? Great coding practices at the micro level? Unit tests? Performance-oriented code? Ops greatness? CRUD boilerplate that any junior IC could jump into without much understanding (seems like this might be a stealth winner if he’s gearing up to build a skeleton crew of low-seniority devs that don’t have a lot of career options). Is feature work sexy to him or does he want to see work that is oriented around KTLO cost minimization? Improvements on usability (decreases support costs)? Reliability? Scalability? Security mindset? (obviously kidding about that last one) There are so many things that are “salient” depending on his priorities and attitudes that this is a fool’s errand.
      - Jensson 4y ago
        > That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is what you do worth your salary? That is a pretty simple criteria, if you deliver significant value in basically any way that should be enough. Why do you think this is would be so hard? We had to write down reasoning like this to motivate our job at Google 1-2 times a year, it isn't hard to do.
        hamburglar 4y ago
        Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots. My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on the right axes.
        s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain the value of their code in these interviews? How much time do you think you would need to put together a list of your 10 biggest contributions and some screen caps to illustrate them?
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  The most important work I've done in any company isn't obvious from some small snippet of code in isolation. It's a clever bit of modeling data or code architecture that would look completely unexciting without knowledge of the problem domain.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    No screenshot. You're fired.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
I think the only reason is to figure out if people are working. Any dev I could think of doing their actual job can take 10 screenshots and point what they worked on in the last 6 months. It would be insane if they couldn't.
- lightbendover 4y ago
  Including PEs and Sr.PEs? If they're coding, it's usually a detriment to the business unless they are extremely specialized and possess some blend of skills that allow them to take on tasking that cannot be delegated to others. I'm mostly talking about top companies where those titles are hard-earned and are associated with very broad impact.
joshspankit 4y ago
I agree with this. In fact, I don’t even know if Musk cares whether people actually review the submissions. This could be a very simple process of keeping them running through obstacle courses while the “weak” ones self-eliminate.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  It’s constructive dismissal…
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    Legally I’d agree with you, but that just means he has to pay severance and whatnot which I suspect is just a line item to him. If I’m right he’s trying to go full “Sparta” and his actual goal is to end up with the best devs at the finish line.
    - ryanbrunner 4y ago
      It's been well established for a long time that this sort of hazing ritual doesn't leave the best developers around though. The most desperate and blindly loyal maybe. The second category might be desirable, but the first one definitely isn't.

MarkMarine 4y ago

how many commits of the fast inverse square root are being added to twitter's codebase right now, you think?

Teandw 4y ago

Where did he say that he will evaluate if the code is good or bad? He didn't. It's more likely just a way to see what employees think is their most important work.

hamburglar 4y ago
If the goal was actually to see what employees think is their most important work, that (and criteria) would be specified, instead of playing "what is he looking for" mind games.
- Teandw 4y ago
  He did specify. He asked for most salient. Salient means "most noticeable or important." He hasn't played any mind games. He's asked for exactly what he wants.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hamburglar 4y ago
    That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is he going to be happy to see wonderful high level distributed designs? Great coding practices at the micro level? Unit tests? Performance-oriented code? Ops greatness? CRUD boilerplate that any junior IC could jump into without much understanding (seems like this might be a stealth winner if he’s gearing up to build a skeleton crew of low-seniority devs that don’t have a lot of career options). Is feature work sexy to him or does he want to see work that is oriented around KTLO cost minimization? Improvements on usability (decreases support costs)? Reliability? Scalability? Security mindset? (obviously kidding about that last one) There are so many things that are “salient” depending on his priorities and attitudes that this is a fool’s errand.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      > That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is what you do worth your salary? That is a pretty simple criteria, if you deliver significant value in basically any way that should be enough. Why do you think this is would be so hard? We had to write down reasoning like this to motivate our job at Google 1-2 times a year, it isn't hard to do.
      - hamburglar 4y ago
        Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots. My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on the right axes.
        s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain the value of their code in these interviews? How much time do you think you would need to put together a list of your 10 biggest contributions and some screen caps to illustrate them?
ryanbrunner 4y ago
The most important work I've done in any company isn't obvious from some small snippet of code in isolation. It's a clever bit of modeling data or code architecture that would look completely unexciting without knowledge of the problem domain.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  No screenshot. You're fired.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

I think the only reason is to figure out if people are working. Any dev I could think of doing their actual job can take 10 screenshots and point what they worked on in the last 6 months. It would be insane if they couldn't.

lightbendover 4y ago
Including PEs and Sr.PEs? If they're coding, it's usually a detriment to the business unless they are extremely specialized and possess some blend of skills that allow them to take on tasking that cannot be delegated to others. I'm mostly talking about top companies where those titles are hard-earned and are associated with very broad impact.

joshspankit 4y ago

I agree with this. In fact, I don’t even know if Musk cares whether people actually review the submissions. This could be a very simple process of keeping them running through obstacle courses while the “weak” ones self-eliminate.

radicaldreamer 4y ago
It’s constructive dismissal…
- joshspankit 4y ago
  Legally I’d agree with you, but that just means he has to pay severance and whatnot which I suspect is just a line item to him. If I’m right he’s trying to go full “Sparta” and his actual goal is to end up with the best devs at the finish line.
  - ryanbrunner 4y ago
    It's been well established for a long time that this sort of hazing ritual doesn't leave the best developers around though. The most desperate and blindly loyal maybe. The second category might be desirable, but the first one definitely isn't.