46 ms·

I interview a lot of candidates and the quality of a lot of the recent grads makes it seem like I won’t be hurting for income until the day I croak. I’ve been i

by ein0p 3y ago

I interview a lot of candidates and the quality of a lot of the recent grads makes it seem like I won’t be hurting for income until the day I croak. I’ve been interviewing people on and off for about 20 years now, and the talent pool has gotten much worse in the past decade. Might be because a lot of kids are choosing the field to “get rich”, might be just general deterioration of education idk. Case in point: over the past month I interviewed 8 fresh grads. Only one was actually good and got an enthusiastic vote from me. What to do with this is not clear to me. If anything you need to be much better educated to make a serious dent in this field today compared to 20 years ago. Which is to say, companies discriminating against the older workers are doing so to their own detriment, in my opinion.

coolThingsFirst 3y ago
What did you ask just curious?
- ein0p 3y ago
  Super basic stuff about the ML projects they claim to have worked on and a typical leetcode easy/medium problem that does not require that you know the solution, in whatever programming language they felt comfortable using. I wish things were this easy for me when I was starting out. I can’t really go any easier than that - if they can’t even navigate this they’d be absolutely lost here and their productivity impact would be negative.
devwastaken 3y ago
That's interesting because IMO and other peers - it's not that the interviews are hard, it's that the market is clearly saturated. They either don't get interviews, or even if they "do well" employers ghost and never give feedback.
- ein0p 3y ago
  All of the bigtech is still hiring, folks with good track record have no trouble moving around. Perhaps even _too little_ trouble, as evidenced by attrition in my neck of the corporate woods of folks who are going to be darn near impossible to replace. A large segment of bigtech is hiring and firing thousands of people pretty much at the same time. It's psychotic, inhumane and counterproductive (IMO), but that's currently how it is.
  - bradlys 3y ago
    Big tech is definitely not hiring like it used to. I’m not sure where you’re getting your source but big tech has been doing most of the layoffs for the last 18 months and not rehiring to fill.
    - ein0p 3y ago
      Not "like it used to", but it's hiring, for sure. And it's not "rehiring" mostly - it's hiring in different places than the ones from which they lay off.
      - bradlys 3y ago
        You're gonna need a source for this. Every person I know in SV is having trouble getting interviews at big tech employers outside of FB. FB is the only one that is actively still interviewing - and they're negotiating people down aggressively because they know they're the only ones hiring. We've had articles here about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316
        ein0p 3y ago
        Dude, I’m _interviewing candidates_ every week at one of the FANGs that is not Meta. I _am_ the “source”. If you have any AI/ML skills, and the corresponding track record, the market is not dead by any stretch. Could be that those persons aren’t in demand right now. I also know a ton of people at Google, and Google is hiring as well, in spite of the much publicized layoffs. I don’t understand this (it takes someone external 3-6 months to get productive there, and some people don’t make it at all), but it’s a fact.
        bradlys 3y ago
        You just said it yourself, the market is dead for anyone not in ML/AI. Why are you being contrarian just for the sake of it?

by ein0p 3y ago

coolThingsFirst 3y ago

What did you ask just curious?

ein0p 3y ago
Super basic stuff about the ML projects they claim to have worked on and a typical leetcode easy/medium problem that does not require that you know the solution, in whatever programming language they felt comfortable using. I wish things were this easy for me when I was starting out. I can’t really go any easier than that - if they can’t even navigate this they’d be absolutely lost here and their productivity impact would be negative.

devwastaken 3y ago

That's interesting because IMO and other peers - it's not that the interviews are hard, it's that the market is clearly saturated. They either don't get interviews, or even if they "do well" employers ghost and never give feedback.

ein0p 3y ago
All of the bigtech is still hiring, folks with good track record have no trouble moving around. Perhaps even _too little_ trouble, as evidenced by attrition in my neck of the corporate woods of folks who are going to be darn near impossible to replace. A large segment of bigtech is hiring and firing thousands of people pretty much at the same time. It's psychotic, inhumane and counterproductive (IMO), but that's currently how it is.
- bradlys 3y ago
  Big tech is definitely not hiring like it used to. I’m not sure where you’re getting your source but big tech has been doing most of the layoffs for the last 18 months and not rehiring to fill.
  - ein0p 3y ago
    Not "like it used to", but it's hiring, for sure. And it's not "rehiring" mostly - it's hiring in different places than the ones from which they lay off.
    - bradlys 3y ago
      You're gonna need a source for this. Every person I know in SV is having trouble getting interviews at big tech employers outside of FB. FB is the only one that is actively still interviewing - and they're negotiating people down aggressively because they know they're the only ones hiring. We've had articles here about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39526316
      - ein0p 3y ago
        Dude, I’m _interviewing candidates_ every week at one of the FANGs that is not Meta. I _am_ the “source”. If you have any AI/ML skills, and the corresponding track record, the market is not dead by any stretch. Could be that those persons aren’t in demand right now. I also know a ton of people at Google, and Google is hiring as well, in spite of the much publicized layoffs. I don’t understand this (it takes someone external 3-6 months to get productive there, and some people don’t make it at all), but it’s a fact.
        bradlys 3y ago
        You just said it yourself, the market is dead for anyone not in ML/AI. Why are you being contrarian just for the sake of it?