4 ms·

Starfighter was a blast to play, and taught me a lot about the back end of stock trading. I did a lot of silly things after winning the initial play through.

Starfighter was a blast to play, and taught me a lot about the back end of stock trading. I did a lot of silly things after winning the initial play through. - Solving the final challenge using a basysian spam filter on trade directions triples. - Live 3D market visualization in Minecraft - Buddy of mine built a stock exchange stack, speaking the same protocol, and we had PvP contests on who could market make the best on it. I won with a PHP powered marketing making bot with live code reloading. - Built a cardboard box out of scrap electronics from adafruit that would let me adjust a market maker bots net position by tilting the box from side to side. - Was either #2 or #3 to solve all the challenges On the business side, if I recall correctly, most companies wanted to just shove the winners down their existing bad hiring pipeline process, and a lot of successful contestants who showed up already had great jobs, and so weren't actually looking.

armitron 3y ago
Sounds like fun. To founders: Any plans to open source it so that it’s not lost in the sands of time?
- clusterhacks 3y ago
  It was fun! I did all the stock trading challenges but none of the embedded device challenges. patio11 once said that the code wasn't in an open-source ready state. There were some folks who went so far as re-implementing/duplicating the backend trade simulator in other languages. Some of those were on github . . .
clusterhacks 3y ago
Totally agree it was a blast. I learned a ton about trading just reading various recommended resources (Harris Trading and Exchanges was a solid intro) and then solving the levels. I don't think very many players did all the Starfighter trading challenges. patio11 or tptacek might be able to confirm, but I vaguely recall being one of like 100 or so to do all six levels of out of 10,000 that started. But I also had free time for playful coding and was nerding out on online challenges back then. When Starfighter came out, I was energized and hopeful that hiring would go in this direction for programmers or that it would open doors to me as a job seeker that I couldn't every push through. No such luck. From the hiring side, I have been on two hiring committees this year. Most applicants lacked any meaningful programming projects they could use to demonstrate skills. Something like completing a series of online challenges would be a difference maker. That said, one candidate mentioned doing HackerRank challenges to learn Python and SQL, but totally flamed out on being able to even talk through a for loop in Python or come up with a simple select against a table in the in-person interview. Maybe nerves, but it also felt like the candidate's experience was 100% as just a warm body in various cubicle farms. It was very awkward. Several non-developers on the hiring committee felt like the candidate had actively lied about previous experience . . .
- sam_lowry_ 3y ago
  Sometimes I flip on obvious intreview questions while solving same problems during the flow of programming almost instinctively.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  The number of cs majors I've had fail a for loop function floors me. The company I was at was paying 105k starting at that time 4 years ago for junior devs fresh out of college, so not FANG tier but plenty good for the area. At least 30% bombed writing a for loop and if statement though. And we let them pick any language they wanted, so that wasn't it.
  - toast0 3y ago
    I've only done interviewing for high tier companies, so my bar was pretty high, I wanted candidatws to be able to demonstrate knowledge and ability of a loop with a loop inside. Our screening was pretty good, so most (but not all) candidates could demonstrate one loop, but an unfortunate number couldn't do the nested loop. shrug
  - clusterhacks 3y ago
    I taught an entry-level programming class in a university setting. There were weekly programming practice "labs" and a more involved independent project with several check-ins with me over the semester. I gave an open-book final exam that asked students to write a for loop on one of the questions. I would say around 20% bombed the question despite the very book sitting beside them having a chapter on looping. With examples. After the class ended, I ultimately concluded a non-trivial number of students probably didn't do any of their own coding during the course. I'm pretty sure I have worked with at least two or three people in coding positions who couldn't actually code and relied on outside (spouse? out-sourced?) support.
- acdha 3y ago
  I hate the way cheaters spoil the well for people with legitimate issues. I always want to be considerate of people with anxiety, processing issues, etc. but I have also seen multiple candidates where everyone thought they were using someone else’s resume (e.g. 10+ years of experience, couldn’t describe _anything_ they did) and were trying to pass it off as ESL issues (our interview panel included a fluent speaker of that language who did not find this credible), and I wish they appreciated that they are making it harder for everyone whose resume looks like the one they used
danielvf 3y ago
Hey! I found a gist with my level solutions for all the levels! Some elegant code, if I do say so myself. https://gist.github.com/DanielVF/d43e079050d1cf3c05d6 https://gist.github.com/DanielVF/d43e079050d1cf3c05d6
- lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
  Thanks for posting this! I always learn something from reading your code. I remember the post about your halite bot. Good stuff.
elptacek 3y ago
Yes to "existing bad hiring pipelines." In at least one case, the in-house recruiter was obviously offended that she had to speak to us at all. The one placement we made was with an old pal and I had to yell at him to even give the guy a chance. Six months after we'd shuttered for good, he contacted me to ask me if I had any more Bens. Nope.
- lmm 3y ago
  Maybe that company should've sponsored the next BenConf.
  - elptacek 3y ago
    Not a bad idea.

armitron 3y ago

Sounds like fun. To founders: Any plans to open source it so that it’s not lost in the sands of time?

clusterhacks 3y ago
It was fun! I did all the stock trading challenges but none of the embedded device challenges. patio11 once said that the code wasn't in an open-source ready state. There were some folks who went so far as re-implementing/duplicating the backend trade simulator in other languages. Some of those were on github . . .

clusterhacks 3y ago

Totally agree it was a blast. I learned a ton about trading just reading various recommended resources (Harris Trading and Exchanges was a solid intro) and then solving the levels. I don't think very many players did all the Starfighter trading challenges. patio11 or tptacek might be able to confirm, but I vaguely recall being one of like 100 or so to do all six levels of out of 10,000 that started. But I also had free time for playful coding and was nerding out on online challenges back then. When Starfighter came out, I was energized and hopeful that hiring would go in this direction for programmers or that it would open doors to me as a job seeker that I couldn't every push through. No such luck. From the hiring side, I have been on two hiring committees this year. Most applicants lacked any meaningful programming projects they could use to demonstrate skills. Something like completing a series of online challenges would be a difference maker. That said, one candidate mentioned doing HackerRank challenges to learn Python and SQL, but totally flamed out on being able to even talk through a for loop in Python or come up with a simple select against a table in the in-person interview. Maybe nerves, but it also felt like the candidate's experience was 100% as just a warm body in various cubicle farms. It was very awkward. Several non-developers on the hiring committee felt like the candidate had actively lied about previous experience . . .

sam_lowry_ 3y ago
Sometimes I flip on obvious intreview questions while solving same problems during the flow of programming almost instinctively.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
The number of cs majors I've had fail a for loop function floors me. The company I was at was paying 105k starting at that time 4 years ago for junior devs fresh out of college, so not FANG tier but plenty good for the area. At least 30% bombed writing a for loop and if statement though. And we let them pick any language they wanted, so that wasn't it.
- toast0 3y ago
  I've only done interviewing for high tier companies, so my bar was pretty high, I wanted candidatws to be able to demonstrate knowledge and ability of a loop with a loop inside. Our screening was pretty good, so most (but not all) candidates could demonstrate one loop, but an unfortunate number couldn't do the nested loop. shrug
- clusterhacks 3y ago
  I taught an entry-level programming class in a university setting. There were weekly programming practice "labs" and a more involved independent project with several check-ins with me over the semester. I gave an open-book final exam that asked students to write a for loop on one of the questions. I would say around 20% bombed the question despite the very book sitting beside them having a chapter on looping. With examples. After the class ended, I ultimately concluded a non-trivial number of students probably didn't do any of their own coding during the course. I'm pretty sure I have worked with at least two or three people in coding positions who couldn't actually code and relied on outside (spouse? out-sourced?) support.
acdha 3y ago
I hate the way cheaters spoil the well for people with legitimate issues. I always want to be considerate of people with anxiety, processing issues, etc. but I have also seen multiple candidates where everyone thought they were using someone else’s resume (e.g. 10+ years of experience, couldn’t describe _anything_ they did) and were trying to pass it off as ESL issues (our interview panel included a fluent speaker of that language who did not find this credible), and I wish they appreciated that they are making it harder for everyone whose resume looks like the one they used

danielvf 3y ago

Hey! I found a gist with my level solutions for all the levels! Some elegant code, if I do say so myself. https://gist.github.com/DanielVF/d43e079050d1cf3c05d6 https://gist.github.com/DanielVF/d43e079050d1cf3c05d6

lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
Thanks for posting this! I always learn something from reading your code. I remember the post about your halite bot. Good stuff.

elptacek 3y ago

Yes to "existing bad hiring pipelines." In at least one case, the in-house recruiter was obviously offended that she had to speak to us at all. The one placement we made was with an old pal and I had to yell at him to even give the guy a chance. Six months after we'd shuttered for good, he contacted me to ask me if I had any more Bens. Nope.

lmm 3y ago
Maybe that company should've sponsored the next BenConf.
- elptacek 3y ago
  Not a bad idea.