6 ms·

"I think 10x developers, like world-class athletes, musicians, and authors, absolutely do exist. You’re just not going to find them with a coding test." well th

"I think 10x developers, like world-class athletes, musicians, and authors, absolutely do exist. You’re just not going to find them with a coding test." well there you go. exactly.

wiseowise 4y ago
Tests are there to weed out 0.1x developers, not find 10x ones.
- twawaaay 4y ago
  That's not exactly true. I use coding tests to observe whether the candidate understands what they are doing and have organised approach to the problem or they just throw stuff at the wall, recompile the code and see if it works. You can ask a carpenter to make a small, simple thing and you will see how competently they use their tools, how steady their moves, how efficient they are with the material. And use that information to understand if they will be good carpenters working on much larger project. But mostly my coding tests are there to weed out people who can talk but not actually program so that I can save time on the rest of the interviewing process or so that I don't have to fire them in 2 months for no results.
  - smcl 4y ago
    What you've described sounds roughly like what wiseowise said, though. I think 10x/0.1x is a bit of an oversimplification - there's no ISO Standard 1x Developer you can compare to - but if someone says they're using tests to filter out "0.1x developers" that could be definitely be interpreted as them weeding out people who can talk but not actually program.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    I use coding tests to weed out potential employers. As a general rule I'm barely willing to even interview. I can't remember the last time I spent more than 30 minutes "interviewing."
    - twawaaay 4y ago
      That's fine. Some people don't want to put any effort getting a job or are not willing to show if they know how to program. I respect your position. But understand, you are making it tough for me to know if you are good developer or just one of those people who are good at talking their way through interviews or need to go to a hundred interviews to get a job by accident. You will not get hired if I have anything to say about it. I don't need to hire every good developer. I just need to hire some. The interview is optimised to make it unlikely for a bad apple to come through because it just cost too much to deal with people who are unable to perform. It is very hard to tell if a developer is in fact a good developer but it is pretty easy to spot a person who can't program their way out of a paper bag -- just get them to write a piece of code while you are watching them do it and explain what they are doing. And I also prefer to work with people who are easy to work with -- like people who don't make demands that don't bring them any value. One definition of stupid is people who cost other people without any benefit for themselves. They are just drag on everything but don't benefit from it. If you come to an interview that I have designed and tuned and start making demands to change this or that derailing my plan and creating no advantage for yourself it is a sign of particular flavour of stupidity, in my view. Smart people try to find a way to benefit themselves and even smarter people try to find a way to benefit both themselves and others by trying to find a mutually beneficial solution to their problems.
      - Consultant32452 4y ago
        I literally LOLed. You describe an interview process which attempts to compensate for your inability to quickly assess a person's talent/fit and try to play it off as if you're doing a favor for talented people you are interviewing. Then you had the gaul to be smug about it by implying I wasn't in the "smarter" category. I'm so happy to be at a place in my career where I don't have to tolerate being spoken to like that anymore.
        twawaaay 4y ago
        > You describe an interview process which attempts to compensate for your inability to quickly assess a person's talent/fit That's literally what interview process is. Because we can't immediately tell who is this person, we need to compensate for it and spend a bit more time with them. That's why it is called "interview" and not "welcoming ceremony".
- m0llusk 4y ago
  Tests are there to make sure the focus is on people who like puzzles and not those who proceed slowly in order to keep key product features in mind while also composing plenty of tests and documentation and working with the team to be sure of direction and consensus.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    > and not those who proceed slowly in order to keep key product features in mind while also composing plenty of tests and documentation and working with the team to be sure of direction and consensus That’s why there’s a system design round.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Tests find the 0.1x developers that studied for the test.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    Whatever helps you sleep at night.
- nsb1 4y ago
  100% this. I've interviewed a great many candidates over the years, and the coding exercise has always been an incredibly valuable litmus test. It gives the interviewer a chance to see whether or not the potential employee has the knowledge of the language and skills needed to do the job. If a developer can't even figure out how to do a basic function on demand, how are they going to be able to contribute to the team? If a developer won't do a basic function on demand, then that's an instant disqualification. Anyone can say anything on a resume, and there needs to be a way to validate that it's not just a fabrication. To be clear, I am making the distinction between "coding exercise" and "brain-teaser". Brain-teasers are not useful in an interview context, and only result in adding stress to an already stressful situation. Simple tasks like "Write a function that rolls two dice and calculates the position of a game piece as it moves around the edge of a game board" are much better. I am not looking for the candidate to give me their masters thesis in a piece of code on demand, I am looking to weed out candidates that clearly don't have the skills to fill the position.

"I think 10x developers, like world-class athletes, musicians, and authors, absolutely do exist. You’re just not going to find them with a coding test." well there you go. exactly.

wiseowise 4y ago

Tests are there to weed out 0.1x developers, not find 10x ones.

twawaaay 4y ago
That's not exactly true. I use coding tests to observe whether the candidate understands what they are doing and have organised approach to the problem or they just throw stuff at the wall, recompile the code and see if it works. You can ask a carpenter to make a small, simple thing and you will see how competently they use their tools, how steady their moves, how efficient they are with the material. And use that information to understand if they will be good carpenters working on much larger project. But mostly my coding tests are there to weed out people who can talk but not actually program so that I can save time on the rest of the interviewing process or so that I don't have to fire them in 2 months for no results.
- smcl 4y ago
  What you've described sounds roughly like what wiseowise said, though. I think 10x/0.1x is a bit of an oversimplification - there's no ISO Standard 1x Developer you can compare to - but if someone says they're using tests to filter out "0.1x developers" that could be definitely be interpreted as them weeding out people who can talk but not actually program.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  I use coding tests to weed out potential employers. As a general rule I'm barely willing to even interview. I can't remember the last time I spent more than 30 minutes "interviewing."
  - twawaaay 4y ago
    That's fine. Some people don't want to put any effort getting a job or are not willing to show if they know how to program. I respect your position. But understand, you are making it tough for me to know if you are good developer or just one of those people who are good at talking their way through interviews or need to go to a hundred interviews to get a job by accident. You will not get hired if I have anything to say about it. I don't need to hire every good developer. I just need to hire some. The interview is optimised to make it unlikely for a bad apple to come through because it just cost too much to deal with people who are unable to perform. It is very hard to tell if a developer is in fact a good developer but it is pretty easy to spot a person who can't program their way out of a paper bag -- just get them to write a piece of code while you are watching them do it and explain what they are doing. And I also prefer to work with people who are easy to work with -- like people who don't make demands that don't bring them any value. One definition of stupid is people who cost other people without any benefit for themselves. They are just drag on everything but don't benefit from it. If you come to an interview that I have designed and tuned and start making demands to change this or that derailing my plan and creating no advantage for yourself it is a sign of particular flavour of stupidity, in my view. Smart people try to find a way to benefit themselves and even smarter people try to find a way to benefit both themselves and others by trying to find a mutually beneficial solution to their problems.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      I literally LOLed. You describe an interview process which attempts to compensate for your inability to quickly assess a person's talent/fit and try to play it off as if you're doing a favor for talented people you are interviewing. Then you had the gaul to be smug about it by implying I wasn't in the "smarter" category. I'm so happy to be at a place in my career where I don't have to tolerate being spoken to like that anymore.
      - twawaaay 4y ago
        > You describe an interview process which attempts to compensate for your inability to quickly assess a person's talent/fit That's literally what interview process is. Because we can't immediately tell who is this person, we need to compensate for it and spend a bit more time with them. That's why it is called "interview" and not "welcoming ceremony".
m0llusk 4y ago
Tests are there to make sure the focus is on people who like puzzles and not those who proceed slowly in order to keep key product features in mind while also composing plenty of tests and documentation and working with the team to be sure of direction and consensus.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  > and not those who proceed slowly in order to keep key product features in mind while also composing plenty of tests and documentation and working with the team to be sure of direction and consensus That’s why there’s a system design round.
shapefrog 4y ago
Tests find the 0.1x developers that studied for the test.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  Whatever helps you sleep at night.
nsb1 4y ago
100% this. I've interviewed a great many candidates over the years, and the coding exercise has always been an incredibly valuable litmus test. It gives the interviewer a chance to see whether or not the potential employee has the knowledge of the language and skills needed to do the job. If a developer can't even figure out how to do a basic function on demand, how are they going to be able to contribute to the team? If a developer won't do a basic function on demand, then that's an instant disqualification. Anyone can say anything on a resume, and there needs to be a way to validate that it's not just a fabrication. To be clear, I am making the distinction between "coding exercise" and "brain-teaser". Brain-teasers are not useful in an interview context, and only result in adding stress to an already stressful situation. Simple tasks like "Write a function that rolls two dice and calculates the position of a game piece as it moves around the edge of a game board" are much better. I am not looking for the candidate to give me their masters thesis in a piece of code on demand, I am looking to weed out candidates that clearly don't have the skills to fill the position.