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I think this says more about the Google interview process than about ChatGPT. That a machine learning model can "bullshit" its way through an interview that is

by janoc 4y ago

I think this says more about the Google interview process than about ChatGPT. That a machine learning model can "bullshit" its way through an interview that is heavily leaning on recall of memorized techniques, algorithms and "stock" problems that have solutions (of various quality) all over Internet is not exactly surprising. Machines will always be able to "cram" better than humans. In practice these questions are almost 100% irrelevant and uncorrelated with the actual ability to do the job. Yet we are still interviewing people whether they can solve stuff at whiteboards that everyone else would rather google when they actually need it and not waste time and mental capacity memorizing it. And at the same time we are hiring people that are completely incapable of coherent communication, can't manage to get along with colleagues or not create a toxic atmosphere in the workplace. sigh

bagacrap 4y ago
I see a lot of criticism towards modern software engineer interviewing techniques, but never a solution offered that would catch and reject BS. Your comment comes off as "hire a person because you get along with them, don't worry if they can't write a function that accomplishes a simple task".
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  > Your comment comes off as "hire a person because you get along with them, don't worry if they can't write a function that accomplishes a simple task". No. He is simply saying the current interview only focuses on LC above all else. And should focus on soft skills as well among other things. You took his argument and flipped it 180 and went to the other extreme end. It's false dichotomy.
- 8note 4y ago
  In the google case, the interview should be considering that the best candidates will be using chat ai to augment their work, and assign harder tasks and allow use of the ai. Somebody who can't use the chat tools no longer meets the bar
  - gl-prod 4y ago
    Harder tasks are not like "Generate a code for an express API and add a user endpoint". Harder tasks would be "A stupid bug that sometimes happens when a user clicks a button in a funny way." ChatGPT isn't an artificial general intelligence. You can't tell it about a bug and expect it to 1) understand it, 2) come up with a solution. So you have to actually know what you're doing.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  You're literally a subject matter expert on whatever you work on. It's extremely troubling if you can't catch BS'ers with a deep technical conversation. If you feel the need to separately establish that they can actually code, take your pick of GitHub, fizzbuzz, etc. You're probably doing one of these before the LC round anyway.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  You seem to imply that the interview process actually works in the sense that it rejects bad candidates and selects good candidates. There's actually very little evidence for that. And if you look at companies like Google, they obviously have issues with hiring lots of people that aren't getting a whole lot done. Case in point: OpenAI. That company has been operating completely in the open for years. And yet Google got caught by surprise. Why is that? The company collectively lacks imagination and leadership. They've self selected out of hiring people that have those traits. In my experience, companies using this style of interviewing are actually incapable through process of hiring the type of people that are qualified and experienced enough to know that this process is bullshit. I.e. the type of people that have 0 need to drop down on their knees and beg for the job. Leaders, not followers. It's a problem. If you want to hire the best, insulting them with a silly coding interview is not a great way to do it. Companies like this self select into hiring people that at best are as good as what they already have. It's the old A's hire A's, B's hire C's kind of thing. The solution is to trust your people more to take good decisions rather than allowing them to defer to some HR process. The process at the startup I run is very simple. We don't subject people to coding interviews. If you pass our initial filters (CV screen and common sense), you first talk to somebody senior enough to make a good judgment call. Anyone recommended by anyone we care about gets priority. We trust our people to have good judgment. Big companies hide behind process because they don't trust their people to have good judgment and/or their people don't want to take the responsibility for having good judgment. Both are bad. I don't want such people in my company. It works. We get some amazing people walking in through the front door that are actually excited about working for us.

by janoc 4y ago

bagacrap 4y ago

I see a lot of criticism towards modern software engineer interviewing techniques, but never a solution offered that would catch and reject BS. Your comment comes off as "hire a person because you get along with them, don't worry if they can't write a function that accomplishes a simple task".

nowherebeen 4y ago
> Your comment comes off as "hire a person because you get along with them, don't worry if they can't write a function that accomplishes a simple task". No. He is simply saying the current interview only focuses on LC above all else. And should focus on soft skills as well among other things. You took his argument and flipped it 180 and went to the other extreme end. It's false dichotomy.
8note 4y ago
In the google case, the interview should be considering that the best candidates will be using chat ai to augment their work, and assign harder tasks and allow use of the ai. Somebody who can't use the chat tools no longer meets the bar
- gl-prod 4y ago
  Harder tasks are not like "Generate a code for an express API and add a user endpoint". Harder tasks would be "A stupid bug that sometimes happens when a user clicks a button in a funny way." ChatGPT isn't an artificial general intelligence. You can't tell it about a bug and expect it to 1) understand it, 2) come up with a solution. So you have to actually know what you're doing.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
You're literally a subject matter expert on whatever you work on. It's extremely troubling if you can't catch BS'ers with a deep technical conversation. If you feel the need to separately establish that they can actually code, take your pick of GitHub, fizzbuzz, etc. You're probably doing one of these before the LC round anyway.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jillesvangurp 4y ago
You seem to imply that the interview process actually works in the sense that it rejects bad candidates and selects good candidates. There's actually very little evidence for that. And if you look at companies like Google, they obviously have issues with hiring lots of people that aren't getting a whole lot done. Case in point: OpenAI. That company has been operating completely in the open for years. And yet Google got caught by surprise. Why is that? The company collectively lacks imagination and leadership. They've self selected out of hiring people that have those traits. In my experience, companies using this style of interviewing are actually incapable through process of hiring the type of people that are qualified and experienced enough to know that this process is bullshit. I.e. the type of people that have 0 need to drop down on their knees and beg for the job. Leaders, not followers. It's a problem. If you want to hire the best, insulting them with a silly coding interview is not a great way to do it. Companies like this self select into hiring people that at best are as good as what they already have. It's the old A's hire A's, B's hire C's kind of thing. The solution is to trust your people more to take good decisions rather than allowing them to defer to some HR process. The process at the startup I run is very simple. We don't subject people to coding interviews. If you pass our initial filters (CV screen and common sense), you first talk to somebody senior enough to make a good judgment call. Anyone recommended by anyone we care about gets priority. We trust our people to have good judgment. Big companies hide behind process because they don't trust their people to have good judgment and/or their people don't want to take the responsibility for having good judgment. Both are bad. I don't want such people in my company. It works. We get some amazing people walking in through the front door that are actually excited about working for us.