4 ms·

When I was in charge of hiring I dealt with this every day. A huge swath of software engineers lie about their skills, involvement in projects, and just general

by kodah 4y ago

When I was in charge of hiring I dealt with this every day. A huge swath of software engineers lie about their skills, involvement in projects, and just general accomplishments. These also tended to be the people who did best in our leetcode exercises.

mistrial9 4y ago
how did you find candidates? what were your internal (non-public) criteria ?
- kodah 4y ago
  From what I remember the recruiters would surf linked in and post on job sites. For context, that was a pretty average product company in the Fintech space.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    I can imagine people with strong sense of ethics not really wanting to work in fintech
    - kodah 4y ago
      Just my opinion, but if you work in software you likely have significantly diluted morals and ethics. We work in a highly extractionist industry. For that reason, I doubt that was the issue. After all, Google and Facebook still get lots of job seeker traffic.
      - thatguy0900 4y ago
        And I'm sure all of those Google and Facebook workers are also using heavily inflated resumes
      - farco12 4y ago
        Maybe your opinion, but I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion. Software is a critical part of people's daily lives and the successful functioning of modern society. Some, but certainly not all, software developers actually work on systems designed to improve some aspect of the human experience and not on systems designed to continuously extract money or attention from their users.
        kodah 4y ago
        Those things aren't mutually exclusive imo. You can be helpful and extractive. A good example is implementing automation that replaces a job and not advocating for retraining for the people impacted or implementing procedures that encourage human oversight. Another is creating targeted tracking systems. Advertisements are generally viewed as a positive for the business world and a net negative for humanity. Working on the more inane parts of these systems doesn't make you less culpable.
- salawat 4y ago
  Do they get angry at crap? Given the choice between making their own life easier, and making the User's life easier, which way do they go?
lapcat 4y ago
I find it a bit curious that this reply focuses on software engineers, who are not at the top: "When I was in charge of hiring". [EDIT:] Let me put my reply into some further perspective: 1) It's well known that job advertisements blatantly lie about the job description and requirements. The standard advice software engineers give to each other is to apply to jobs even though you don't meet all of the requirements, because the requirements often turn out to be optional, more of a unicorn wish list. 2) Ask yourself, which companies and which jobs specifically do lying software engineers apply to? Do those companies perhaps have a culture rewarding this behavior? And could honest software engineers be averse to applying there, instead seeking places or means of employment that are more amenable to their personal ethics?
- robocat 4y ago
  I think your reply is insinuating that kodah writes job adverts that egregiously lie, which is not replying in good faith. You could write about common bad industry practices without implying that kodah is participating in those practices. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > You could write about common bad industry practices without implying that kodah is participating in those practices. I literally did that: "It's well known" "The standard advice software engineers give to each other". Is anonymous "kodah" well known? No. Do software engineers give each other standard advice about getting hired by kodah? No. Also, I talked about "companies" plural, not kodah's company singular. The only one who insinuated about kodah, and about me, is you. You ought to read the guidelines yourself with respect to my comment and your own reply. The intended implication of my previous comment was that the behavior of software engineers in our industry is driven largely by how companies are run, by their management practices, how their hiring works, how their promotions work, etc. The engineers themselves are not really in the driver's seat, they're in the passenger's seats, and the incentives for current and potential employees are often perverse.
- kodah 4y ago
georgeecollins 4y ago
>> These also tended to be the people who did best in our leetcode exercises. Right, because the person for whom the goal is to get a great job / promotion, will leap through the hoops required. Another type of person might care more about what they are working on, or their professional goals or their values and less about playing the game.
devmor 4y ago
I find that amusing because the people I've worked with who understood their job the least were also the type to constantly shill sites like leetcode. Obsessed with how they stack up compared to others... Perhaps coming from a place of insecurity.
nobodyandproud 4y ago
> When I was in charge of hiring I dealt with this every day. A huge swath of software engineers lie about their skills, involvement in projects, and just general accomplishments. These also tended to be the people who did best in our leetcode exercises. How did you filter for the lies/bs? Did you drill them to see if they actually knew the topics at hand?
- kodah 4y ago
  In my interviews I got my portion of the interview over quickly, a basic test of programming skills. After that, let them talk and just start mapping the dots on their resume to what they say. If it sounds too far from what's on their resume then just ask. Interestingly, most people are happy to tell you the truth if you don't make them feel bad while calling it out.

by kodah 4y ago

mistrial9 4y ago

how did you find candidates? what were your internal (non-public) criteria ?

kodah 4y ago
From what I remember the recruiters would surf linked in and post on job sites. For context, that was a pretty average product company in the Fintech space.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  I can imagine people with strong sense of ethics not really wanting to work in fintech
  - kodah 4y ago
    Just my opinion, but if you work in software you likely have significantly diluted morals and ethics. We work in a highly extractionist industry. For that reason, I doubt that was the issue. After all, Google and Facebook still get lots of job seeker traffic.
    - thatguy0900 4y ago
      And I'm sure all of those Google and Facebook workers are also using heavily inflated resumes
    - farco12 4y ago
      Maybe your opinion, but I'm not sure how you could come to that conclusion. Software is a critical part of people's daily lives and the successful functioning of modern society. Some, but certainly not all, software developers actually work on systems designed to improve some aspect of the human experience and not on systems designed to continuously extract money or attention from their users.
      - kodah 4y ago
        Those things aren't mutually exclusive imo. You can be helpful and extractive. A good example is implementing automation that replaces a job and not advocating for retraining for the people impacted or implementing procedures that encourage human oversight. Another is creating targeted tracking systems. Advertisements are generally viewed as a positive for the business world and a net negative for humanity. Working on the more inane parts of these systems doesn't make you less culpable.
salawat 4y ago
Do they get angry at crap? Given the choice between making their own life easier, and making the User's life easier, which way do they go?

lapcat 4y ago

I find it a bit curious that this reply focuses on software engineers, who are not at the top: "When I was in charge of hiring". [EDIT:] Let me put my reply into some further perspective: 1) It's well known that job advertisements blatantly lie about the job description and requirements. The standard advice software engineers give to each other is to apply to jobs even though you don't meet all of the requirements, because the requirements often turn out to be optional, more of a unicorn wish list. 2) Ask yourself, which companies and which jobs specifically do lying software engineers apply to? Do those companies perhaps have a culture rewarding this behavior? And could honest software engineers be averse to applying there, instead seeking places or means of employment that are more amenable to their personal ethics?

robocat 4y ago
I think your reply is insinuating that kodah writes job adverts that egregiously lie, which is not replying in good faith. You could write about common bad industry practices without implying that kodah is participating in those practices. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lapcat 4y ago
  > You could write about common bad industry practices without implying that kodah is participating in those practices. I literally did that: "It's well known" "The standard advice software engineers give to each other". Is anonymous "kodah" well known? No. Do software engineers give each other standard advice about getting hired by kodah? No. Also, I talked about "companies" plural, not kodah's company singular. The only one who insinuated about kodah, and about me, is you. You ought to read the guidelines yourself with respect to my comment and your own reply. The intended implication of my previous comment was that the behavior of software engineers in our industry is driven largely by how companies are run, by their management practices, how their hiring works, how their promotions work, etc. The engineers themselves are not really in the driver's seat, they're in the passenger's seats, and the incentives for current and potential employees are often perverse.
kodah 4y ago

georgeecollins 4y ago

>> These also tended to be the people who did best in our leetcode exercises. Right, because the person for whom the goal is to get a great job / promotion, will leap through the hoops required. Another type of person might care more about what they are working on, or their professional goals or their values and less about playing the game.

devmor 4y ago

I find that amusing because the people I've worked with who understood their job the least were also the type to constantly shill sites like leetcode. Obsessed with how they stack up compared to others... Perhaps coming from a place of insecurity.

nobodyandproud 4y ago

> When I was in charge of hiring I dealt with this every day. A huge swath of software engineers lie about their skills, involvement in projects, and just general accomplishments. These also tended to be the people who did best in our leetcode exercises. How did you filter for the lies/bs? Did you drill them to see if they actually knew the topics at hand?

kodah 4y ago
In my interviews I got my portion of the interview over quickly, a basic test of programming skills. After that, let them talk and just start mapping the dots on their resume to what they say. If it sounds too far from what's on their resume then just ask. Interestingly, most people are happy to tell you the truth if you don't make them feel bad while calling it out.