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And is Google itself effective? We all copied Google but do we have their problems? Do we need the type of engineers they needed? Google is beginning to show i

And is Google itself effective? We all copied Google but do we have their problems? Do we need the type of engineers they needed? Google is beginning to show its age, I’ve seen a number of past coworkers get hired there lately that weren’t effective at their job, but I’m sure they crushed some Leetcode.

george574 4y ago
HIRE THE BEST RELIABLE AND TRUSTED IOS AND IPHONE HACKER FOR HACKING SERVICE ALSO UPGRADING OF RESULTS AND HACKING OF NEARBY MOBILE PHONES, dont miss this opportunity !! CONTACT.: techspypro @gmail com
swsieber 4y ago
> Google is beginning to show its age,... Yup. Goodhart's law strikes again. I am curious as to what the next as-of-yet-ungamed effective hiring metric is.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  Maybe analytical hobbies. Hire anyone into lockpicking, rock climbing, or music theory.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    I assume that's a joke? Sounds like going back to manhole covers.
    - idontwantthis 4y ago
      I honestly don’t know if I was joking or not but the breadth of replies is interesting.
      - george574 4y ago
        [dead]
  - KyeRussell 4y ago
    Sounds to me like a monoculture filled with the sorts of people that I just…wouldn’t like working with.
  - fathyb 4y ago
    Makes me think, the Real Book might be musical equivalent of Leetcode..
  - neilv 4y ago
    I think the last couple decades of software suggest that all these indicators, if adopted by companies that significant numbers of people wanted to work for, would quickly become checklists of things to do/fake. See also: college admissions. (No, that kid probably didn't do that volunteering activity because they wanted to help people, but because they were told it was a checklist item, as they were coached through college admissions. And they probably didn't learn anything, and they were coached on what to say about that in the essay. And, normally, actually productive volunteering probably wouldn't have looked like each one of those kids starting their own duplicate initiative so each could spin it as demonstrating leadership. And it's more an option for kids from families well-off enough that the kids didn't have to work jobs that would contribute better to their household income or college expenses. And don't get me started on how the well-to-do decided that "travel" would be a plus on applications.)
    - george574 4y ago
      [dead]
    - swsieber 4y ago
      I'd prefer switching metrics every decade to never having a good hiring system.
      - throwaway6734 4y ago
        or introduce some level of randomness to dull the effect of the metrics
        chiefalchemist 4y ago
        Introduce randomness to see if there are other metrics that might be signals worth considering.
        yifanl 4y ago
        "We only want to hire lucky people, so our hiring council only looked at your resume if everyone flipped a coin and all landed heads"
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Why not skill at writing 8-legged essays[0] instead? Either way, you're so far away from anything that maps directly on to "is this person likely to succeed as an X level software engineer at Y company" that it's all pretty arbitrary. Not to mention, you'd have to have a precise and well defined notion of what "analytical hobbies" are. Preferably one that doesn't carry an inherent classist[1] (and maybe even racist or sexist) bias. That part alone seems pretty tough, forget the actual definition part. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay [1]: https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b...
gedy 4y ago
> I’ve seen a number of past coworkers get hired there lately that weren’t effective at their job, That's the truth for me, I was shocked some of our worst* interns went on to work at Google after the summer. * Unproductive, slow, needed lots of hand holding
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Interns are supposed to be slow, unproductive, and need lots of hand holding! They’re fucking students for fucks sake.
  - lanstin 4y ago
    To be cynical, there are no dumb questions, only dumb people. Some people ask the same question over and over, and others have different questions, rather rapidly getting to very interesting questions.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      There are many dumb questions. Asking me about ancient Chinese history for example. (this is a particularly dumb question to ask in the context of this thread where it is an off topic question asked to someone who knows very little about the topic)
      - lanstin 4y ago
        Wouldn't this be a natural case of "check Wikipedia"?
      - george574 4y ago
        [dead]
  - Shacklz 4y ago
    An intern's productivity sort of lies in "how fast they learn". Can they pick up things by just being pointed into the right directions or do they need everything spoon-fed, in small doses, with repetition, to then still get it wrong? At least in our place, we do not really expect them to be productive in the usual sense, but they definitely have ample opportunity to give us a feeling of their place on the bell curve. (as an anecdote: We currently have some 17 year old apprentice which puts some of our seniors to absolute shame, myself included. The amount of motivation, learning hunger, quick thinking and ability to ask the right questions is really astounding, especially given that he essentially just started and has next-to-no education in our area to speak of as of yet)
CoolGuySteve 4y ago
I find it ironic that Google’s search results have been gamed to the point that they’re about as useless as their competitors were 20 years ago but companies are still cargo cult copying a hiring process that has also been gamed to the point of uselessness. At this point the whiteboard gauntlet seems more indicative of a lack of critical self evaluation than anything, “we only hire the best because we’re the best rah rah”. Miss me with that shit.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  There is an implication with this post that Google is dumb or unskilled, or stuck in a cargo cult, but that ain't the truth. Google's search results aren't because they suck, they're doing it to get maximum money. This is about getting maximum cash for minimum overhead. The Goog is a publicly traded company, they're about selling you the crappiest product at the highest margin. Until someone can come and seriously eat their lunch in search, it will never get better. To paraphrase Cory Doctorow, "en-shit-ification" is explicitly the point. They hired the best and the brightest not to make search better, but to find ways to optimally increase the stock price; good products are entirely tangential to that.
  - george574 4y ago
    [flagged]

george574 4y ago

HIRE THE BEST RELIABLE AND TRUSTED IOS AND IPHONE HACKER FOR HACKING SERVICE ALSO UPGRADING OF RESULTS AND HACKING OF NEARBY MOBILE PHONES, dont miss this opportunity !! CONTACT.: techspypro @gmail com

swsieber 4y ago

> Google is beginning to show its age,... Yup. Goodhart's law strikes again. I am curious as to what the next as-of-yet-ungamed effective hiring metric is.

idontwantthis 4y ago
Maybe analytical hobbies. Hire anyone into lockpicking, rock climbing, or music theory.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  I assume that's a joke? Sounds like going back to manhole covers.
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    I honestly don’t know if I was joking or not but the breadth of replies is interesting.
    - george574 4y ago
      [dead]
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  Sounds to me like a monoculture filled with the sorts of people that I just…wouldn’t like working with.
- fathyb 4y ago
  Makes me think, the Real Book might be musical equivalent of Leetcode..
- neilv 4y ago
  I think the last couple decades of software suggest that all these indicators, if adopted by companies that significant numbers of people wanted to work for, would quickly become checklists of things to do/fake. See also: college admissions. (No, that kid probably didn't do that volunteering activity because they wanted to help people, but because they were told it was a checklist item, as they were coached through college admissions. And they probably didn't learn anything, and they were coached on what to say about that in the essay. And, normally, actually productive volunteering probably wouldn't have looked like each one of those kids starting their own duplicate initiative so each could spin it as demonstrating leadership. And it's more an option for kids from families well-off enough that the kids didn't have to work jobs that would contribute better to their household income or college expenses. And don't get me started on how the well-to-do decided that "travel" would be a plus on applications.)
  - george574 4y ago
    [dead]
  - swsieber 4y ago
    I'd prefer switching metrics every decade to never having a good hiring system.
    - throwaway6734 4y ago
      or introduce some level of randomness to dull the effect of the metrics
      - chiefalchemist 4y ago
        Introduce randomness to see if there are other metrics that might be signals worth considering.
      - yifanl 4y ago
        "We only want to hire lucky people, so our hiring council only looked at your resume if everyone flipped a coin and all landed heads"
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Why not skill at writing 8-legged essays[0] instead? Either way, you're so far away from anything that maps directly on to "is this person likely to succeed as an X level software engineer at Y company" that it's all pretty arbitrary. Not to mention, you'd have to have a precise and well defined notion of what "analytical hobbies" are. Preferably one that doesn't carry an inherent classist[1] (and maybe even racist or sexist) bias. That part alone seems pretty tough, forget the actual definition part. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay [1]: https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b...

gedy 4y ago

> I’ve seen a number of past coworkers get hired there lately that weren’t effective at their job, That's the truth for me, I was shocked some of our worst* interns went on to work at Google after the summer. * Unproductive, slow, needed lots of hand holding

ok_dad 4y ago
Interns are supposed to be slow, unproductive, and need lots of hand holding! They’re fucking students for fucks sake.
- lanstin 4y ago
  To be cynical, there are no dumb questions, only dumb people. Some people ask the same question over and over, and others have different questions, rather rapidly getting to very interesting questions.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    There are many dumb questions. Asking me about ancient Chinese history for example. (this is a particularly dumb question to ask in the context of this thread where it is an off topic question asked to someone who knows very little about the topic)
    - lanstin 4y ago
      Wouldn't this be a natural case of "check Wikipedia"?
    - george574 4y ago
      [dead]
- Shacklz 4y ago
  An intern's productivity sort of lies in "how fast they learn". Can they pick up things by just being pointed into the right directions or do they need everything spoon-fed, in small doses, with repetition, to then still get it wrong? At least in our place, we do not really expect them to be productive in the usual sense, but they definitely have ample opportunity to give us a feeling of their place on the bell curve. (as an anecdote: We currently have some 17 year old apprentice which puts some of our seniors to absolute shame, myself included. The amount of motivation, learning hunger, quick thinking and ability to ask the right questions is really astounding, especially given that he essentially just started and has next-to-no education in our area to speak of as of yet)

CoolGuySteve 4y ago

I find it ironic that Google’s search results have been gamed to the point that they’re about as useless as their competitors were 20 years ago but companies are still cargo cult copying a hiring process that has also been gamed to the point of uselessness. At this point the whiteboard gauntlet seems more indicative of a lack of critical self evaluation than anything, “we only hire the best because we’re the best rah rah”. Miss me with that shit.

red-iron-pine 4y ago
There is an implication with this post that Google is dumb or unskilled, or stuck in a cargo cult, but that ain't the truth. Google's search results aren't because they suck, they're doing it to get maximum money. This is about getting maximum cash for minimum overhead. The Goog is a publicly traded company, they're about selling you the crappiest product at the highest margin. Until someone can come and seriously eat their lunch in search, it will never get better. To paraphrase Cory Doctorow, "en-shit-ification" is explicitly the point. They hired the best and the brightest not to make search better, but to find ways to optimally increase the stock price; good products are entirely tangential to that.
- george574 4y ago
  [flagged]