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I'm really glad you mentioned "cute little puzzles". I am sick of them. I'm not really sure who has sufficient time to spend blazing the employer with feats of

by throwaway1979 14y ago

I'm really glad you mentioned "cute little puzzles". I am sick of them. I'm not really sure who has sufficient time to spend blazing the employer with feats of their programming prowess (I was going to say only undergrads would do that - however, many undergrads in top programs have little time to bathe). If this was big companies being stupid, I'd get it. The HN crowd ... some of the smartest hackers around do little better sometimes. I was very interested in Stripe after hearing some of their folks speak (I don't mean to single them out ... they are a pretty amazing bunch from what I've seen) and saw the cute puzzles (https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer https://stripe.com/jobs#engineer) as a listed way of impressing them. I immediately hit the back button and decided not to apply there. Perhaps it means we would not have been a good fit. Or perhaps, we need more respect in the recruiting process. I understand the need for fiz-buzz tests and all ... but things have gone a bit too far.

mseebach 14y ago
If a recruiter goes after you, and didn't bother to Google your name and look at your GitHub/OS contributions etc. he's obviously cold calling and wasting your time. He's the guy who asks DHH how much Rails experience he's got. But, on the other hand, if you apply to a company, especially one that's more or less famous, puzzles are a very good way of separating the wheat from the chaff on a level playing field. Evaluating a strangers performance based on their solution to a common puzzle is very time efficient and allows the company to process large numbers of applicants fairly. A common notion here is that great people can just pick up the phone, or will be actively courted by companies, so they don't need puzzles and recruiters. That is great for them (honestly, not a snark), but it's not scalable: Not everyone can know everyone, and there has to be a way for newcomers to enter into the network. Case in point: Stripe - you want to work for them, but apparently you don't know anyone on the inside that can recommend you. And apparently you're not on their radar already. They do great stuff, they seem like an amazing bunch - so there are likely to be hundreds who want to work for them - and most of them, regrettably, are not qualified enough. Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)?
- luser001 14y ago
  > Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)? Yes.
  - ericd 14y ago
    Then you're being unrealistic, because the expected value of a random applicant's ability is not that high.
    - weavejester 14y ago
      But it works the other way around, too. The expected value of a random company is not that high unless the candidate considers themselves to have a good chance of success. Given how opaque the hiring process is from the point of view of an applicant, how do they know if it's worth spending their time solving a random puzzle? Investing time in open source software is a better use of time from the point of view of a candidate, as they can show the same code to many different companies. So it comes down to who is more in demand. Is your company so desirable that good programmers will invest a significant chunk of time just to have a chance with you? If the answer isn't an automatic 'Yes', maybe you should rethink your hiring strategy. It also doesn't seem particularly hard to automatically filter out candidates with no GitHub account, or a GitHub account but few contributions.
      - ericd 14y ago
        Sure, I didn't say anything about that, but in this scenario it's implied that you're applying to this company, so presumably you know something about it and like it. You likely know a lot more about the company than it knows about you. The Github filter is a bad one, though - lots of good programmers don't do the whole open source thing, and we need to stop this pretense of a good Github account being necessary for hiring. What started as a suggestion in some hiring blog posts has become overblown into dogma now.
switz 14y ago
I agree with you that cute puzzles are annoying and unnecessary, but if you look at the puzzles Stripe has on that page, you'll see that they are anything but cute puzzles. Something like the CTF that they built is an awesome and fun way to see if a developer has the chops to run with the big dogs. These are cool real-world problems. They're not sitting you down in front of a whiteboard and forcing you to complete esoteric puzzles in a limited amount of time, yet they're giving you a few different ideas as to how to impress them. You have all the time in the world and it's up to you to prove it. Stripe, to me, seems like an amazing company with some of the best talent out there. Just my two cents.
- randomdata 14y ago
  They are boring though. If I have to take a programming test, I'd rather take that time build a real feature onto your product, even if for free. If you like the results, at least I've created real value for my time, not just played a silly game. There's a risk that you won't like the results and it will be thrown away, but that's a reasonable gamble.
  - msg 14y ago
    I think some of the ITA programming puzzles (for instance) are fun on their own merits. Not to get too meta, but what if the company essentially buys your argument? "Yes, this is a non-real world problem for entertainment purposes only..." But they want to find programmers who find such problems entertaining.
    - kamaal 14y ago
      Filtering only goes so far. If you rely on these tactics instead of asking the actual questions. You will very soon end up hiring people who know nothing about the real world, but would have memorized tons of interview trivia. The problem with puzzles is just that. You ask questions and hire candidates based on issues that have nothing related to the job. The end result is you up hiring the wrong people and then say you can't find good programmers. You can't find good programmers because you are not asking questions meant to hire good programmers. You wanted puzzle experts and that is what you got.
horsehead 14y ago
Maybe I'm just incredibly naive, but are fizzbuzz tests really that necessary? I have a hard time believing anybody could get an interview, let alone graduate with a BS in compsci, without being able to do something THAT simple ....
- masterzora 14y ago
  Yes, yes they are. I don't even see all of the resumes submitted to my company since they are filtered through the recruiters and our HR guy but the ones I do see still need a fizzbuzz test more often than not. Granted, it is not a thing you should give everyone. I can usually tell when I look at a resume that such a thing is likely to be pretty pointless (It points me to a github account I can look at instead? Why bother? The resume is clearly written by someone who knows what they're talking about and isn't stuffing everything they've ever done onto a page in a game of buzzword bingo? Probably safe.) so I don't give fizzbuzz tests to everyone but sometimes you have to be sure.
  - horsehead 14y ago
    While this is a little disappointing in that it speaks to the quality (or lack thereof) of developers coming out of college, or elsewhere, it is also really encouraging too! the fizzbuzz problem is actually incredibly simple and I was able to write code out by hand that worked in my python interpreter. Hopefully I'll have some good github stuff to point potential employers to soon (i'm working on some things now). But at least I know that I should be able to pass some of the incompetency gauges fairly easily! also, i've never heard of buzzword bingo before, but it sounds interesting! maybe i'll make a program for buzzword bingo. You can use it in your interviews! :P
    - infinite8s 14y ago
      Well, not to burst your bubble, but fizzbuzz is a negative filter (ie passing it is the minimum needed to even be considered for a dev job).
    - getsat 14y ago
anurag 14y ago
As others here have mentioned, the questions on the jobs page are explicitly designed to not be cute puzzles. If you don't have a Github profile or other code samples, these questions help us get a sense of how you think about programming. But they're also entirely optional - we should perhaps make this clearer. We'd love to hear from you if you're still interested in Stripe.

mseebach 14y ago

If a recruiter goes after you, and didn't bother to Google your name and look at your GitHub/OS contributions etc. he's obviously cold calling and wasting your time. He's the guy who asks DHH how much Rails experience he's got. But, on the other hand, if you apply to a company, especially one that's more or less famous, puzzles are a very good way of separating the wheat from the chaff on a level playing field. Evaluating a strangers performance based on their solution to a common puzzle is very time efficient and allows the company to process large numbers of applicants fairly. A common notion here is that great people can just pick up the phone, or will be actively courted by companies, so they don't need puzzles and recruiters. That is great for them (honestly, not a snark), but it's not scalable: Not everyone can know everyone, and there has to be a way for newcomers to enter into the network. Case in point: Stripe - you want to work for them, but apparently you don't know anyone on the inside that can recommend you. And apparently you're not on their radar already. They do great stuff, they seem like an amazing bunch - so there are likely to be hundreds who want to work for them - and most of them, regrettably, are not qualified enough. Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)?

luser001 14y ago
> Do you really think it's fair to require Stripe to assign a member of their engineering team (that means you after they hire you) to review every strangers GitHub accounts, when you refuse to invest even a little time in signalling to them that you're the real deal (the puzzles aren't all multi-day endeavours)? Yes.
- ericd 14y ago
  Then you're being unrealistic, because the expected value of a random applicant's ability is not that high.
  - weavejester 14y ago
    But it works the other way around, too. The expected value of a random company is not that high unless the candidate considers themselves to have a good chance of success. Given how opaque the hiring process is from the point of view of an applicant, how do they know if it's worth spending their time solving a random puzzle? Investing time in open source software is a better use of time from the point of view of a candidate, as they can show the same code to many different companies. So it comes down to who is more in demand. Is your company so desirable that good programmers will invest a significant chunk of time just to have a chance with you? If the answer isn't an automatic 'Yes', maybe you should rethink your hiring strategy. It also doesn't seem particularly hard to automatically filter out candidates with no GitHub account, or a GitHub account but few contributions.
    - ericd 14y ago
      Sure, I didn't say anything about that, but in this scenario it's implied that you're applying to this company, so presumably you know something about it and like it. You likely know a lot more about the company than it knows about you. The Github filter is a bad one, though - lots of good programmers don't do the whole open source thing, and we need to stop this pretense of a good Github account being necessary for hiring. What started as a suggestion in some hiring blog posts has become overblown into dogma now.

switz 14y ago

I agree with you that cute puzzles are annoying and unnecessary, but if you look at the puzzles Stripe has on that page, you'll see that they are anything but cute puzzles. Something like the CTF that they built is an awesome and fun way to see if a developer has the chops to run with the big dogs. These are cool real-world problems. They're not sitting you down in front of a whiteboard and forcing you to complete esoteric puzzles in a limited amount of time, yet they're giving you a few different ideas as to how to impress them. You have all the time in the world and it's up to you to prove it. Stripe, to me, seems like an amazing company with some of the best talent out there. Just my two cents.

randomdata 14y ago
They are boring though. If I have to take a programming test, I'd rather take that time build a real feature onto your product, even if for free. If you like the results, at least I've created real value for my time, not just played a silly game. There's a risk that you won't like the results and it will be thrown away, but that's a reasonable gamble.
- msg 14y ago
  I think some of the ITA programming puzzles (for instance) are fun on their own merits. Not to get too meta, but what if the company essentially buys your argument? "Yes, this is a non-real world problem for entertainment purposes only..." But they want to find programmers who find such problems entertaining.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    Filtering only goes so far. If you rely on these tactics instead of asking the actual questions. You will very soon end up hiring people who know nothing about the real world, but would have memorized tons of interview trivia. The problem with puzzles is just that. You ask questions and hire candidates based on issues that have nothing related to the job. The end result is you up hiring the wrong people and then say you can't find good programmers. You can't find good programmers because you are not asking questions meant to hire good programmers. You wanted puzzle experts and that is what you got.

horsehead 14y ago

Maybe I'm just incredibly naive, but are fizzbuzz tests really that necessary? I have a hard time believing anybody could get an interview, let alone graduate with a BS in compsci, without being able to do something THAT simple ....

masterzora 14y ago
Yes, yes they are. I don't even see all of the resumes submitted to my company since they are filtered through the recruiters and our HR guy but the ones I do see still need a fizzbuzz test more often than not. Granted, it is not a thing you should give everyone. I can usually tell when I look at a resume that such a thing is likely to be pretty pointless (It points me to a github account I can look at instead? Why bother? The resume is clearly written by someone who knows what they're talking about and isn't stuffing everything they've ever done onto a page in a game of buzzword bingo? Probably safe.) so I don't give fizzbuzz tests to everyone but sometimes you have to be sure.
- horsehead 14y ago
  While this is a little disappointing in that it speaks to the quality (or lack thereof) of developers coming out of college, or elsewhere, it is also really encouraging too! the fizzbuzz problem is actually incredibly simple and I was able to write code out by hand that worked in my python interpreter. Hopefully I'll have some good github stuff to point potential employers to soon (i'm working on some things now). But at least I know that I should be able to pass some of the incompetency gauges fairly easily! also, i've never heard of buzzword bingo before, but it sounds interesting! maybe i'll make a program for buzzword bingo. You can use it in your interviews! :P
  - infinite8s 14y ago
    Well, not to burst your bubble, but fizzbuzz is a negative filter (ie passing it is the minimum needed to even be considered for a dev job).
  - getsat 14y ago

anurag 14y ago

As others here have mentioned, the questions on the jobs page are explicitly designed to not be cute puzzles. If you don't have a Github profile or other code samples, these questions help us get a sense of how you think about programming. But they're also entirely optional - we should perhaps make this clearer. We'd love to hear from you if you're still interested in Stripe.