6 ms·

I'm not sure I understood you correctly about FizzBuzz, but if you're saying that it isn't necessary then I'd have to disagree. I wish the world was such that F

by zmj 15y ago

I'm not sure I understood you correctly about FizzBuzz, but if you're saying that it isn't necessary then I'd have to disagree. I wish the world was such that FizzBuzz wasn't an effective filter, but it is. I really like the rest of your questions.

tptacek 15y ago
I'm saying that the fact that FizzBuzz actually works should be an indication of how crappy programming interviews tend to be.
- zmj 15y ago
  Gotcha. Agreed.
- pfedor 15y ago
  I think this conclusion is wrong. The fact that FizzBuzz exists actually means that programming interviews are awesome: with most other professions, you would end up hiring a candidate equally as incompetent as the programmer that failed FizzBuzz.
  - rmc 15y ago
    No. You do not have to ask doctors or lawyers or taxi drivers fizzbuzz levels of questions. If applicants for doctors jobs were as incompetant as programming interviews, you'd have to ask applicants to location the ear on the human body. Doctor applicants aren't that incompetant, programmer applicants are.
    - Cass 15y ago
      I've had plenty of taxi drivers who could barely drive, let alone find any given address in their city. And as for doctors, see my answer to potatolicious above - I've seen some terrifyingly incompetent ones who really should have been screened out with a fizzbuzz level question.
    - pfedor 15y ago
      This is obviously a flawed analogy, since you don't need to be a doctor to locate the ear on a human body.
patio11 15y ago
Thomas is saying that the hiring process for programmers is so comprehensively fubared that asking the FizzBuzz question to someone who has worked as a senior developer for 8 years at a well-regarded firm provides valuable signal and that if you fail to ask it you might hire people who are completely incapable of programming even with your fancy-dancy recruiting process, which shows that the pipeline and standard interview process are both borked like crazy.
- chc 15y ago
  Essentially: It is not common for doctors to be asked to locate the interviewer's mouth, ears and thumbs. If an interviewer asked that kind of thing, you'd really have to suspect that he couldn't tell a good doctor from a bad one. But programming interviewers do need to ask this kind of thing. So you really have to suspect…
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    The problem isn't that we're asking doctors to locate their mouth, ears, and thumbs. The problem is that the resume and candidate pipeline is so crappy, that the interviewer cannot be sure if the person sitting across the table is a doctor, or a plumber, or a carpenter, or an accountant, or maybe a bum off the street. My interviewing life would be a lot easier if there was a firm guarantee that every candidate knows at least basic programming - and by basic I mean basic - i.e., can put together a for loop that compiles, in a language of their choice. The second part of this problem is that the industry has so many jobs where the absolutely clueless can survive that "X years experience" in-industry is not a trustworthy metric for competence. "5 years at County General" for a MD, with a clean record, is a pretty decent guarantee that your candidate is in the ballpark. "5 years at Accenture" for a programmer guarantees nothing, not even the ability to write FizzBuzz. Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned being incensed that, even with his years of experience, he was being asked elementary questions. That's why - years of working experience is not a valid signal for competence.
    - Cass 15y ago
      "5 years at County General" for a MD, with a clean record, is a pretty decent guarantee that your candidate is in the ballpark." Scary but true: There are plenty of experienced doctors who couldn't pass a medical Fizzbuzz. My supervisor at my last teaching hospital, who has been treating patients for at least five years, failed the Fizzbuzz question I asked him. ("What's that other class of antibiotics you can't give patients with penicillin allergies?", if you're wondering.) (There's also a few stories of people faking medical licenses and working as doctors for years before anyone noticed [1], but those are probably too rare to worry about.) 1: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/hamburg-falsche-kinderaerztin-verurteilt-1.499146 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/hamburg-falsche-kinderae..., couldn't find an English language link, sorry.

by zmj 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

I'm saying that the fact that FizzBuzz actually works should be an indication of how crappy programming interviews tend to be.

zmj 15y ago
Gotcha. Agreed.
pfedor 15y ago
I think this conclusion is wrong. The fact that FizzBuzz exists actually means that programming interviews are awesome: with most other professions, you would end up hiring a candidate equally as incompetent as the programmer that failed FizzBuzz.
- rmc 15y ago
  No. You do not have to ask doctors or lawyers or taxi drivers fizzbuzz levels of questions. If applicants for doctors jobs were as incompetant as programming interviews, you'd have to ask applicants to location the ear on the human body. Doctor applicants aren't that incompetant, programmer applicants are.
  - Cass 15y ago
    I've had plenty of taxi drivers who could barely drive, let alone find any given address in their city. And as for doctors, see my answer to potatolicious above - I've seen some terrifyingly incompetent ones who really should have been screened out with a fizzbuzz level question.
  - pfedor 15y ago
    This is obviously a flawed analogy, since you don't need to be a doctor to locate the ear on a human body.

patio11 15y ago

Thomas is saying that the hiring process for programmers is so comprehensively fubared that asking the FizzBuzz question to someone who has worked as a senior developer for 8 years at a well-regarded firm provides valuable signal and that if you fail to ask it you might hire people who are completely incapable of programming even with your fancy-dancy recruiting process, which shows that the pipeline and standard interview process are both borked like crazy.

chc 15y ago
Essentially: It is not common for doctors to be asked to locate the interviewer's mouth, ears and thumbs. If an interviewer asked that kind of thing, you'd really have to suspect that he couldn't tell a good doctor from a bad one. But programming interviewers do need to ask this kind of thing. So you really have to suspect…
- potatolicious 15y ago
  The problem isn't that we're asking doctors to locate their mouth, ears, and thumbs. The problem is that the resume and candidate pipeline is so crappy, that the interviewer cannot be sure if the person sitting across the table is a doctor, or a plumber, or a carpenter, or an accountant, or maybe a bum off the street. My interviewing life would be a lot easier if there was a firm guarantee that every candidate knows at least basic programming - and by basic I mean basic - i.e., can put together a for loop that compiles, in a language of their choice. The second part of this problem is that the industry has so many jobs where the absolutely clueless can survive that "X years experience" in-industry is not a trustworthy metric for competence. "5 years at County General" for a MD, with a clean record, is a pretty decent guarantee that your candidate is in the ballpark. "5 years at Accenture" for a programmer guarantees nothing, not even the ability to write FizzBuzz. Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned being incensed that, even with his years of experience, he was being asked elementary questions. That's why - years of working experience is not a valid signal for competence.
  - Cass 15y ago
    "5 years at County General" for a MD, with a clean record, is a pretty decent guarantee that your candidate is in the ballpark." Scary but true: There are plenty of experienced doctors who couldn't pass a medical Fizzbuzz. My supervisor at my last teaching hospital, who has been treating patients for at least five years, failed the Fizzbuzz question I asked him. ("What's that other class of antibiotics you can't give patients with penicillin allergies?", if you're wondering.) (There's also a few stories of people faking medical licenses and working as doctors for years before anyone noticed [1], but those are probably too rare to worry about.) 1: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/hamburg-falsche-kinderaerztin-verurteilt-1.499146 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/hamburg-falsche-kinderae..., couldn't find an English language link, sorry.